Potsdam, Palaces, Pee-pee Breaks, Oh My!

Better late than never for blog posts, yes?

Potsdam is a beautiful place, and the train ride there was most enjoyable. Had entertainment in the form of Carolyn waxing poetically about her hedgehog as well as the scenery on the train.

The New Palace was very impressive. Kind of bummed we weren't allowed to go in, but the architecture outside was very pretty to look at.

En route to the second of the palaces of Frederick the Great, we passed by another large classy looking building, and after successfully convincing Stefano to take a detour, we came upon the Orangerie. 

And following the interesting tidbit that that was where the royals grew their citrus, we continued on closer to Potsdam's city center.

Stefano is hilarious, and I was not at all expecting him to announce a "pee-pee break" after seeing the New Palace and the Orangerie. Also, paying for a bathroom is something I've never done, but I guess you can be sure it'll be clean that way. The traditional windmill was beautiful, and the flutist we passed wearing a French baroque outfit was pretty cool.

Following that, we went to the older of Frederick's palaces, Sans Souci, which is actually the palace he had as a child. It is very much's a boys' place, as girls weren't allowed and his wife wasn't allowed to visit it or even be buried there. Frederick was though. Him and his 11 dogs.

The really condensed story of why there are potatoes:
Frederick: "Peasants! Grow potatoes since the soil is awful here and these grow well."
Peasants: "No thanks, we're good."
Fred: "Fine. - Guards, guard a plot of potatoes."
Peasants: "It's guarded stuff. We should totally steal it."
The End

His grave had a bunch of Roman busts around it in a half-circle. Not sure why, but they look pretty.

View from the bottom looking up. In summer there's greenery all over the bars, but in winter it looks kind of like there are a bunch of little prison cells.

So from there we followed a Pepto-Bismol pink pipeline to the city center. We got about an hour and a half for lunch and exploring. I ate curry wurst for the first time, which was delicious. And then we did a little shopping too!

This was the church we met up at after lunch. It was so gorgeous on the inside, and they started organ practice while we were in there. 

Josh made a new friend in the Dutch Quarter.

After the train back to Potsdam, we broke for a while before meeting up at the Deutsches Theater to see a production of the play "Lenz." I knew absolutely nothing about the plot or background or anything. And I didn't understand 90% of what the actors said. 

But it was superb. The acting was amazing, and I was completely entranced. I tried to look up a summary of the plot later, but it was still kind of confusing. All in all, a very good day.

~Elizabeth S