My favorite building

Last Saturday I wandered into the city to meet a friend. She slept late so I took the opportunity to find out about a building I'd always admired from the S bahn line. Looked like a church, but not like any church I'd seen recently. It is, in fact, a church (or a piece of one). This is what it looked like after the war. Since then, they've torn down the majority of the building and all that remains is the front hallway that contains the large steeple. They also made a conscious choice to keep things minimalistic. The stained glass windows were bombed out at some point, and were never replaced. In fact, except on the ground floor, there are no windows at all. Birds fly through the space that once contained the rose window.

Here is a more current image of the building. Obviously not taken by me, but it gives a good image of the whole thing.

























I don't know much about its history except that it was constructed for Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1891 and was bombed in 1943. I think what I love about it is perhaps a bit cliche and embarrassing. None the less, for me it represents the beauty in the rubble. I find it not only striking, but beautiful. An image of redemption maybe? My absolute favorite post card is one that displays a church service that took place inside the building. An "open air service", on Pentecost, in 1953. Taken from high above the altar, at the back of the church, one sees hundreds of people in their Sunday best. They're focussed on the priest standing before the altar. The altar is framed by an enormous archway. And above it, the open sky.

Traveling band

Yesterday I saw a band on a bike. Not kidding. There were six guys, all dressed up in band uniforms (with the hats and everything)! One bike, six seats. The front guy had to steer and occasionally squeeze a hand- held horn and play a cymbal. Then came two saxophones, a trumpet, an accordion, and a TUBA! The guy on the tuba could also press down with his heel and play a bass drum attached to the back. These men were for real. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera.

The speed at which they moved, in order to draw a crowd I presume, made me concerned that the laws of physics would somehow have them falling over. I'm obviously not that good at physics because they had no problems at all. And they drew a crowd, which had no problem keeping pace with them.

Prague is Gepacked and Back to Berlin!

At the request of my friend Sarah, I post again. She says, "I'm tired of Gothic Leipzig!" Turns out someone reads this...

Fernando and I decided to take a long weekend in Prague. For the sake of my father, we took a photo of me next to the Gepack Center. Um, it's where you keep your Gepack.

Everyone told me that Prague was beautiful. I cannot be sure, as I couldn't see it beneath all of the people. Here, Fernando is standing next to his favorite statue on the pedestrian bridge. There were occasional signs that one had moved further east, and this statute was one of them. (Other bits of this statue included a jail cell with prisoners screaming inside. Yikes.)

There were some beautiful buildings, but unlike my mother I don't take enough photos. So I guess I have nothing else to say about Prague. Can you believe it?

On Fernando's final weekend here, we spent a bit more time wandering through the beautiful parts of Berlin. We even went to Schloss Charlottenburg. Here's what my guidebook says about it, "It was intended as Berlin's answer to Versailles. It's not a very convincing answer..." That's all you need to know. Here's what we thought:

Actually, I exaggerate. The castle was not very imposing, but the grounds were quite lovely. We had a very nice walk through the park on a warm spring day.

On Fernando's last full day here, we visited Neues Palais in Potsdam. For more photos, revisit the posting "Park Sanssouci". We actually went inside this palace and wore the dorky headphones. Turns out the dorky headphones rock! There was an incredible amount of information about the palace and its history. We even saw the room where Kaiser Wilhelm II signed the authorization to mobilize troops and begin World War I. Crazy. My favorite room in the palace is full of mosaics of sea dragons and other sea creatures made out of shells and minerals. The walls are covered with designs, and it's only when you get close that you can see the remarkable individual pieces. The room is referred to as the "grotto hall". Even the marble floor has designs of sea creatures embedded into it.