October 5 - Potsdam, Germany

Happy Saturday folks! I'll start by saying that my Fishers Tigers won last night - and ND will have their hands full this evening. I have on my shamrock earrings, so I'm sending up a little prayer!!

This morning I got up bright and early and headed south to a town called Potsdam. I did have one funny at the train station - as usual. I was on Train #2, heading to Train #3, and we stopped at a big station. I had to go one further, so I stayed put. An older, very classy looking lady said something to me...to which I just smiled and nodded, which is what I do every time someone speaks to me in German (the Lord only knows what I've agreed to via the nod). She then sent in a younger man who, thank God, spoke English to tell me that that was actually the last stop for that train (it wasn't going to move) and that another train would be there to get us in 2 minutes. :) Luckily, that same young man was getting onto my same Train #3, so he took care of me for a little bit!

I had heard that there were some beautiful castles in Potsdam (I believe at least three of them were "summer homes" built by Fredrick Wilhelm, King of Prussia). I decided on a hop-on-hop-off bus tour again...whoever invented those was brilliant! You don't have to worry about how to get from Point A to Point B, you only have to worry about what time the bus comes again, which in this case, was every 30 minutes, and what time options you have for the train home (which was every 20 minutes). I did learn, on the tour, that Potsdam is actually where Hitler took over Germany - not really the "claim to fame" you want.

It was an incredibly beautiful town - in the warmer months you can do boat tours, but those are over for the year (it's only been in the 50's here since I arrived). The two stops that I, and Flat Tony, explored were two of the castles, Orangerie and Sanssouci. Sanssouci is the one that Fredrick Wilhelm actually lived in. I didn't do the inside tour (I'll save that for when it's colder), but the tour of the grounds was something else. Flat Tony had two pictures at Orangerie: (1) a statue that still makes me laugh, and (2) the view of the front of the castle. He then had two taken at Sanssouci: (1) with a bathtub statue (he was feeling dirty after the bow hunter statue), and (2) with the yellow castle in the background.

It is definitely a tour I will go on again - wonderful history and a beautiful place. I hope you can see, just a little beauty, from the pictures included.

Good-night and God-bless,

from Berlin