Potsdam

We went to Potsdam last Sunday. As you can see in these pictures, it was actually sunny! It hasn't been sunny for about 3 weeks here. Unfortunately this beautiful weather didn't last and it's back to gloomy and rainy here again this week. Hopefully the weather will clear up when we go to Prague this weekend. Yup, Prague! We're going on Saturday and staying for one night.

Anyway, Potsdam is the capital of the county of Brandenburg. Berlin is it's own county and is completely enclosed by Brandenburg. Potsdam is right next door to where we live and it's about a 20 minute train ride. There were so many people on the train! Almost like rush hour except with more families. And on the bus too! There is a bus that goes from Potsdam Haufbahnhof to Schloss San Soucci.

The first thing we saw was a windmill. We went to the base of it and walked around there a little bit. You can get tickets to climb up but we didn't. I got something where you can make a cardboard model of the windmill. They actually have these cardboard things for other windmills too but they're not exactly cheap. These windmills of San Soucci were used as pumps to bring water up to make a big pond at an artifical ruins site.

Schloss (palace) San Soucci has a huge garden. It was the summer home of one of the King Fredricks. Anyway, the gardens are amazying. There are so many fountains. One of the kings had an engine room built just to power the fountains. We didn't make it that far though. We walked around the gardens for a while since the line to get tickets for the palace was way too long. I had a map but it wasn't very big so we just ended up wandering around.

Then Jingwen got hungry and we went to find some food. We walked around and came to Brandenburg Strasse and saw the Brandenburg Gate. Not to be confused with the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Behind it is a pedestrian street with lots of cafes, restaurants, and shops. I love these streets. A lot of the clothing stores were actually open even though it's Sunday. Jingwen got some pastries and we kept walking down the street because we saw a tall church at the end of the road.

After visiting that church (Church of St. Peter and Paul), we took the bus back to San Soucci. We lined up for tickets but were informed that there's only one last tour left. We wanted to get a day ticket so we can see other palaces in the area but they all close at 5pm.

So we then decided to walk to see a site where some king build artificial ruins and a big pond. It was supposed to be a 10 minute walk but we got lost and overshot it by a lot. So it ended up taking like 20-30 minutes. There was a lookout tower and we paid 2 Euros to climb it. It's not very high up but you can still see a lot because the landscape is very flat. I thought it was cool since you can see all the way to Berlin and various other sites. Jingwen wasn't very impressed. I think she was annoyed that we got lost and wasted time.

Anway, we went back to the gardens and walked around some more. We came across a really beautiful garden with lots of flowers all arranged very nicely. I took a picture of this plant which I thought was very cool.

We did a lot of walking that day and we were both really tired on the way back. On the train back, there were 2 British couples sitting behind me who were vacationing in Germany. They had just walked around Potsdam too and were trying to get back to Berlin Haufbahnhof. One of the wives kept asking her husband whether or not they had to change trains at some point. Of course, her husband had no idea. So I turned around and told them that they were on the right train. I don't know if they would've asked me if I didn't volunteer the information. I don't think anyone else on the train would've told them if they didn't ask though. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who spoke English. I find German people very, uh, indifferent to other people's problems sometimes.

Anyhow, I slept really well that night. I wasn't sore or anything though. I think I've gotten used to all this walking.