Ostern Ferien (Easter break) + misc

Ostern Ferien (we have Easter Friday & Monday off, which is awesome) was spent in the area around Berlin (which is 2-3 hrs by train from here). Specifically, Potsdam and (Zitadelle) Spandau.


I. Potsdam has a palace of former Prussian kings, and a quaint downtown area. The palace is called Sansouci and is a peculiar yellow that all royal/official buildings of a certain period seem to be painted.

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There's a royal windmill (Mühle is ''mill'') nearby which is still operated, and from which you can buy ''authentic''/rustic bread or flour.

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It has a nice lawn/garden and lots of statuary referencing Greek mythology. Also, a Chinese pavilion:

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with cool porches:

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Nearby is a botanical garden thing (associated to the university there, I think):

Fern building (life cycle illustration)

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These turtles were accompanied by a note about how as young turtles, they're very cute and colorful, and then they get old and dull and mean and people ''lose'' them or ''donate'' them to, say, the Botanical Garden.

Turtles all the way down

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One of my favorite parts of any greenhouse is the arid plants areas. What kind of things can you grow in wet, overcast Germany? Succulents, at least:

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This one's pretty cool, too:

Crassulaceae Aeonium tabuliforme

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The walkway inside the greenhouse (which was subdivided into sub-greenhouse rooms per plant type), surrounded by Rhododendrons:

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II. Spandau was pretty cool. The citadel there ''is one of the best-preserved Renaissance military structures of Europe... 


In 1580, first troops were assigned to the Spandau Citadel which was completed only in 1594. Swedish troops were the first to besiege the citadel in 1675 and Napoleon was the first to conquer it in 1806. During the French attack it was almost completely destroyed and had to be restored. In 1935, a gas laboratory was installed for military research on nerve gas.


Close to the end of the Second World War, during the battle in Berlin, the citadel became a part of the cities defences. The Citadel's[...] design which although several hundred years old presented a difficult structure to storm. So instead of bombarding and storming the Citadel, the Soviets invested it and set about negotiating a surrender...saving many lives and leaving the ancient infrastructure intact.''[more here]


Inside, they also had a ''Mittlealter Markt'' (Middle-ages market) as part of the Easter festivities. Similar idea as a ''Renaissance Festival''.

Map of the Citadel(Zitadelle) and old fortifications of Spandau:

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Cute wooden model of the citadel:

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View as you walk across the moat. The tower dates back to the 1300s or so.

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Better view of the tower, and people crazy enough to climb up. There was a huge line to get up and also to get down, and the staircase was very tight and narrow. I didn't try it.

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Fortifications:

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This was the moat, in another direction was a river:

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Just past the entrance was this beauty (yup, a wood & rope and whatnot carousel):

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And the general scene of faux-fighting that afternoon that happened a few times in the center of the place:

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There's a museum in one of the buildings. It had this guestbook from a Church in the 1500s:

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And this cute miniature of a carpenter's workshop:

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And also a collection of cannons next door. Bunch from the 1500s. Some with grim, rhyming sayings. This one, for example:

Saturn (father of Jupiter) devoured his children alone. I devour you all big and small.

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One from 1586:

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Gift of somebody in India:

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Good old Napoleon also happened to leave some cannons behind:

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Misc stuff, some cultural:

Der April macht was er will (April does what it wants): Spring weather is especially crazy in Germany. I have seen several random snow showers, or sleet or slush, often on a sunny/warm day (17ºC), up blows a storm for 10 minutes and then flies off.

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German courses: I found out in the last few days that there will be German courses starting up week (specifically for the foreign exchange students) and that I would be allowed to take them as well. And, on campus!

German bread: I can now comfortably order bread ('unsliced' is specified by ''im Stuck'' (in one piece), which was useful to learn). Germans bake a lot of very dense bread, and some of my favorite loaves have really felt hefty enough to bludgeon someone with. This week's loaf is Dinkelvollkornbrot, which you can find a picture of and recipe for here. The other week, I had some of this, ''Wurzelbrot'' (root bread, or carrot bread (in some areas, you can say 'Wurzel' and mean 'carrot' particularly):

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The whole loaf: (oft decorated with pretty seeds)

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