weekend in Meckenheim

Well this past weekend i visited my friend and her family in Meckenheim and had a blast! Unfortunately it was like a 5 hour train ride to Bonn so i got there late on Thursday night. The next Friday i went to school with her and felt really weird because they all spoke German all the time and one of her classes was French class too. So that class i was totally messed up because i know very little German and absolutely no French! But it was cool for me to experience what it was like to go to her school, she is in the 12th grade and she has one more year until she will graduate.
So later that day we drove out to a place that overlooked the Rhine river about 20 minutes away from her house that was pretty spectacular.




And later that night we went to the giant field, next to the school, where all the local kids showed up and we just sat and listened to music, danced, and drank the night away. I think that in America we need to adopt some of the cultures of the Europe and to instill them in our lives. Here in Germany they have these huge multipurpose parks where anyone can come and do what ever they want... as long as they don't get to loud and trash the place up. And like drinking in public, i think that it should be legal to do this, just like here in Germany. Needless to say i learned some new German drinking games that night! :)



just a pic of before people got to the party field

The next morning her older brother was graduating from high school too, and of corse i wanted to come witness this happening and im glad i did. Of course it was all in German but it was different... they had lots of live music from some of the graduation senoirs and they had a little skit where the teachers of the class stood on stage with little rabbit posters and another teacher came by and fed the rabbits... i am assuming this was representing the teachers giving something back to the students as knowledge and growth... But after that we all headed to the Seit river for lunch and then stuck our feet in the water and skipped rocks like a family thing.

Later that night we were invited to a huge 4 person birthday party for some of Lisa's friends which was held in a warehouse that had been converted into live band stage and dance floor, and outside this place was a buffet and bar with tables and tons of food for all the guests. I have never been to suck a cool big function where there were 150 friends all together parting and dancing in a warehouse! That was a total blast!

And then came Sunday!!! the battle Royal!!! Germany vs. England!!! We started that morning with a traditional Germany breakfast of rolls, cheese, butter, cheese spread, and strawberry jam(which we picked the strawberries Friday morning, so it was fresh) and sat around and talked for a while. Then we headed to the soccer field with some friends and played soccer for about 2 hours before the game!!! I have never played soccer before but i have a new appreciation for the sport now!!! I was really tired and worn out when we stopped but we headed home and showered then got the house ready for the game! They don't have a tv in the living room but her father had a projector that we put on the wall and hooked a big sound system up to and it was great. I think there was about 35 people that came over to watch the game and they all went crazy!!! Im just glad that Germany won so that i didn't see 35 people go ballistic about a loss! Haha! But it was great fun and Germany beat England 4 to 1 and everything was fine. Immediately after the game all the young people jumped into the cars(me included) and drove around the city waiving and yell with pride to everybody that Deutschland had won!!! We must have driven around for 30 minutes screaming and yelling until i went hoarse. After this unfortunately i had to catch the train back home and tell this new city and family goodbye and head back to Berlin...




a typical German back yard of a townhouse..

Stuttgart

OK. Just to get an idea of Stuttgart our hotel and the Porsche factory are in the industrial section so there was a lack of food and drink around, we got into Stuttgart at like 10:30 when the grocery stores were closed and we made a mad dash around to try and find a Döner or something before they closed. We found a guy that told us to get off at the next subway stop and there will be food but we didn't want to pay for the subway so we decided to walk… bad idea! We must have walked down the road and subway tracks for a good 2 miles before we found anything that resembled light and civilization! But while crossing the S-bahn line Jeff sees off in the distance a flashing blue open sign so we run to the stand… When we get there the owner has already taken the meat off the spinner and only saved enough meat for one Döner, but he made us up some French fries and we all shared in the small feast! When we are almost finished the owner comes out to ask us where we were staying... we tell him and he asks us if are going to take the train back... and of course we say yes. He then informs us that i will come in 1 minute!!! So we throw our chairs back into there stack and clean off the table and start sprinting back to the S-bahn stop and we realize that we need the train on the otherside of the station as its just pulling up... So again we sprint up the stairs and over a foot bridge about two stories high and run for the train! I make it to the very last step and trip, falling on the knees and hip skidding about 7-10 feet on my knees and jump up and still make it on the train, however Jeff wasnt that lucky and just as he was about to stick his arm through the door, they slam shut and he is left there waiting 30 minutes for the next train, so this is just to let you get the same feeling of Stuttgart that we had the first 3 hours we were there!



But on the cars!!! I, of course, liked the Porsche museum better due to the fact that its VW’S first cousin and both were made by the same man. And yes the museum had an old vw beetle in it just to show the connection between the two cars and the man, Ferdinand Porsche. I thought that all the cars were very interesting and they had some super early rare Porsche there, many being the same ones that Ferdinand and Ferry Porsche drove, which was really cool.










Then we were off to the Mercedes museum which was a beautiful building set on a little hill so that it stood up higher than the surrounding buildings, and it was a neat double helix design that was fun to walk through. It also had a smoke removal system that was really cool and i think the first building to ever have something like it. This double helix design basically looked like a cam shaft with two sets of lobes being offset like on a camshaft of a four stroke engine.

Well we finally finished our long bus excursion around south Germany. It was fast paced and we saw a lot of new cities and visited a lot of cool places. My favorite perhaps was the huge castle we visited on top of a small mountain. This was the last kings family castle and was only for show... the Hohenzollern's never stayed a night in the castle it was to show their wealth and also a fortress for them if they had to flee from a war... It is not a palace like most of the castles here. it has a mote and cannons for fortification in case of a battle. Anyway it is a beautiful castle and the view from the top and around the grounds is amazing!

Bauhaus

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Bauhaus: I consider this the end of the traditional style of architecture dating to pre 1920's... I understand the ideas and wants of Walter Gropius, he needed to build housing for the post war German cities and he also designed furniture that was comfortable, cheaper, and lighter better materials. I think this was the end of the huge wooden houses, peaked roofs, and that good old homily feel. Anyway this is just my two cents on the development of architecture and just like everything else it needed to be changed and redesigned... it was evolved with type of building by Gropius.

My Palace and Castle

Just to start off i can see why the royalty of Germany has always had their summer homes here! This is by far the most beautiful place Ive been! EVER! I was awestruck by the first palace and grounds there... It was truly amazing and grand and huge!

There is nothing to talk about here, you just have to come here and walk the grounds to experience everything! Sanssouci Schloß was the summer get away for the royal Hohenzollern family for many years. I can't explain everything this place does for your body and mind... I would like to live here for the rest of my life... thats all there is to it.
















































After that amazing place we went to one of my favorite buildings, a small castle!!! I have never been to one but this one caught my eye on the inside! I was actually half unrestored and mostly original on the outside, it had that old feel of castle that somehow invited you into it. It was small enough to be charming and not to extravagant like Sanssouci was. This place had a hell of a grounds too! We got off on the wrong bus stop and ended up walking up and down these bike trails twisting and winding through the woods and catching a glimpse of the castle tower from a far many times, and each time we saw it is was in a new direction, giving us the feeling that we weren't any closer than before. But when we got there i think it was worth the hike to get there!

Churches on Monday

Marienkirche

The second oldest church in Berlin it was built in 1270 and unfortunately we weren't able to enter it due to restoration work that was going on just during this week! It was a great looking church from the outside and of course like everything else in Berlin it has been mostly rebuilt due to WWII.





Nicholaikirche
This is the oldest church in Berlin and was only 200 or so feet from the Spree and was said to be placed there because it was the narrowest and most passable place along the Spree. When the church was built Berlin had a sister city across the river and this served for both places. I found the inside of the rebuilt church to be quite bright with the flashy colors used on the roof and it was now a museum and didn't entice me. The outside was what i liked the most for some reason.







Friedrichswerdersche
This was a simple plain church on the outside and was simply huge with these simple windows on the outside of it, but once i was inside i noticed the colors of the stained glass all around and loved this Gothic style of the staircases and window arches. This is how i explain the German people... Simple on the outside and elaborate on the inside and never knowing what you will find on the inside.




Then we traveled back to Bebelplatz and saw the huge pantheon like dome of St. Hedwig's Cathedral which of course had been rebuilt again after the war and changed... I find that when they did this it doesn't have that great old majestic feel of a really old building. It takes away of the awe knowing that 99% of this building was rebuilt less than 50 years ago. But it was extremely nice on the inside and still an active church with a man still playing the organ for the followers.

And the last building of the day was... yet another rebuilt Concert Hall. This place was huge and just screamed royalty with the huge lions on the front steps overlooking the platz perched in between two nearly identical churches. This was now an orchestra hall but was originally intended for theater performances with seating for about 2000 people. It was furnished well but was all done with wall paper and fake marble on the inside everywhere... Again it takes away the awe factor with a building so great and majestic on the outside and the interior is fake. But thats just my opinion... it still was beautiful. I enjoyed the colors with green shades and marble seemed nice.