Nefertiti

I woke up to several alarms between 8:30 and 9:15. I managed, with some difficulty (though from exhaustion, not a hangover) to get to the 8-10 free breakfast in Belushi's. I left Judson asleep upstairs but somehow he, too, made it to breakfast.

Dined with Claire, Jackie, Christina, and Ricardo. All of these new friends are on their way out. Time to meet new ones, I guess.

It's been several days since we first attempted seeing Nefertiti's bust in the Neues Museum, and we've failed 3 times so far in doing so. But today, we were determined to see it first thing.

We made it to the museum just before 11:30. We finagled student-price tickets (usually a difficult task without an IBIS card) for €5 each and walked around to the entrance.

No time to see other things. Up to room 210, where the Egyptian Queen was given a place of honor in her own room. She was beautiful. How can something that's more than 3,000 years old be so vibrant with color? She's missing small bits of each ear, and one of the fittings that makes up the pigment and pupil of her eye is missing. But the level of detail is such that it could have been sculpted last year! Worth the wait.

We got out of Neues and made it back to the metro. We ended up at Checkpoint Charlie again, looking for the East Side Gallery but, because this is a grail quest for the wall, we could not ask anyone for directions.

We did find a cobblestone path that shows you the location of the wall, and I splurged an outrageous €2 for the original Soviet Checkpoint Charlie visa stamp in my passport. The salesman liked me, and gave me the American counterpart stamp for free.

Next, on to Potsdam, of Conference fame. Also the past home of German Kaiser's and Prussian Royals. We took the S7 to the end of the line, Potsdam Hauptbahnhoff. It took almost an hour, or at least I think it did (we slept the whole way). But we arrived in Potsdam to a light drizzle and only our hopes and dreams. Seriously though, we had no raincoats, maps, or energy, and barely had any money. We had done no research.

We walked across the bridge that separates the city center from the train station. Our eyes were caught by a large looming dome nearby, and we checked it out.

It was a Protestant church, with an obelisk out front on the Old Market Square. Next to it was the old town hall, with a golden statue of Atlas holding up the world topping the dome.

On the other side of the square was a soviet-era embarrassment (looking a lot like Lee, Ruby, and Beaumont at Wash U) and a new construction. The construction is the complete recreation of an old building that used to be there, but had been bombed out in 1945, and then further destroyed in the 60's. It is being rebuilt right now.

We found a hotel on the river, the Hotel Mercure, where I procured a map of the area. We were told the must-see castle is the castle Schloß Sanssouci. We took the 695 bus to the stop adjacent to the castle.

It's large, yellow, ornate, set on a hill overlooking a park and a fountain, and next to an old windmill. There js a long arching promenade that encloses the front drive. Quite a sight to behold. We circles the grounds, but didn't pay to go inside. 

With a limited number of daylight hours remaining, we returned with haste to the town center, and found ourselves at Nauener Tor, the old gatehouse into the city. We walked through the old streets, and dined for a late lunch on some schwarma from another Turkish place. 

Around 3:45 we had boarded a bus back to the train station. We wanted to see more, but time is not on our side during the winter. That and we didn't want to wait 30 min for the bus to take us to the other two palaces. And we didn't know where to look for the Potsdam Conference site. 

We got a 4:00 ish S7 back to Berlin. Judson promptly fell asleep. I managed to hold on for a while...

Until I didn't. But Judson was awake when we hit Alexanderplatz for our transfer, and got me up. We got back to the hostel just before 5. Siesta time.

Around 6:30 we headed out for a unique event. Judson read that somewhere in Germany there's an international Starcraft competition, so we decided to go to one of the satellite viewing venues and see what kind of person goes out of there way to watch other people compete in such an event. 

We made it to Warschauer Straße on the S train from Alexanderplatz, walked north, then right on Revaler. It was supposed to be on ourright but all we found was a long wall and sketchy alleyways with abandoned factories and warehouses. So we turned around.

We found an Internet Cafe down the street on Warschauer... It consisted of four computers in the back room of a liquor store. €0.50/30 min. We looked up the place, CK-99, and found we hadn't gone quite far enough on Revaler. So we walked back down the dark, puddle-ridden road.

CK-99 is an old warehouse that's been converted into a gamers paradise. Impeccable gaming consoles, high definition televisions, chairs that are designed to recline and support so you can game without ever moving. A bar with some cute bartenders. A kitchen. Someone really into this sort of thing could spend hours there every day. Even the bathrooms were awesome. The sinks were flat faucets that poured water over the top and then down in a waterfall, with a backlight that changed color with the water temperature. If they took out the gaming units, this place could be an incredibly nice nightclub.

But it isn't. It was seven people watching a large screen of two people playing Starcraft.  We got a beer and sat in the back, watching. My guy (chosen at random) won the first game, but lost his match and got eliminated. I still am not totally sure what I was watching.

We left at quarter to 9, trekked back, and watched the Giants destroy the Falcons 24-2. Then we planned tomorrow, which we think will bring us to new pastures, but I don't want to say where yet.

It's 11. I need to sleep. Reichstag appt at 8am tomorrow.

Night.