First full day in Potsdam!

Friday, April 3, 2009

I woke up very late this morning, but surprisingly, I slept well. The bed was not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. I was scared I might get cold at night, so I bundled up in a sweater, but it wasn’t bad. I could do with an extra blanket though. I wasn’t cold, but I like to have a heavy blanket on top of me when I sleep.

Finally, in the afternoon, around 2 or 3, I met up with Irene and we went out. It had been decided yesterday that today would be spent exploring the city of Potsdam. In one day, we really have seen it all. We took the bus and got out whenever we saw something interesting.

First, we rode it to campus, where we intended to meet with an administrator and get our internet set up. When we finally found the International Student Office, it was empty. Most of the campus seemed to be empty. We asked a girl who told us that a pipe had burst and water had flooded one of the buildings, so ALL of the buildings had been closed. The libraries were closed (I learned there were 3) as well as the computer room. What a drag. We were advised to come back on Monday or Tuesday.

We got back on the bus and drove around a little more before stopping at Sansoucci Palace. In most of my prior research about Potsdam, this place was listed as one of the major attractions. It was the palace of Kaiser Friedrich III (or something like that) and on many websites, the gardens had been compared to the palace of Versailles, Marie Antoinette’s place. Well, I’ve been to Versailles 3 times, so I can say with certainty, Sansoucci Palace is NO Versailles! Irene compared it to Hearst castle, except Hearst Castle is way way nicer! Truth be told, I was wholly unimpressed with Sansoucci, though the gardens did look lovely, and it looked like a nice place to come running. If I liked to run.

Back on the bus (they come pretty frequently) and the next place we stopped was this huge arch I had seem in pictures of Berlin. Turns out, it wasn’t the same one, but it turned out to be right next to this cool little street. There were lots of cafes, it was very busy, tons of people. Irene and I walked down it, went to H&M, which was nice and big, but maybe not quite as nice as the ones in Paris. We saw this café that looked the busiest, the main one, and a lot of people were eating these ice cream sundaes out of goblets, which looked delicious. Irene and I swore we’d go back and have some.

So far, this street has been the best part of Potsdam. My favorite place in the city. I like things that are busy and exciting, that stimulate your mind. I don’t like too much introspection.
I was briefly harassed by some Danish guy. You know those weird guys who stand street corners and try to talk to you about how the world is ending. Some guy approached me and tried to talk to me about the German economy and how the US is ruining the world by printing money. He compared it to the crash of the 1920s. He didn’t seem to like Americans much.

Anyway, we got back on the bus and got to the phone place. We saw the guy again and the unlock code on my phone didn't work, so I had to buy one for 50 euros.

Then we bought tons of groceries and they were really cheap...

Also, Irene and I started randomly knocking on doors and we met some German boys, Marcus and Martin, who let us use their internet.