Koelner Dom

We did many fun things today. One of them was visit the massive cathedral here in Cologne. We climbed the bell tower. It was 533 steps and about 150 meters high. A good reminder I should go to the gym tomorrow. It is a lovely church with a very nice view of the Rhine.

I also learned som German phrases. Jan and I practiced them on the stairs and all over the city:

Der Rhein ist ein Fluss
Die Kirmes ist am Fluss

If you can figure out what a Kirmes is then you will know what we did tonight. Otherwise you will have to wait for another blog.

I also taught Jan 6 English words. I only have to learn one a day but he has to learn more because he is better. Today they were: crush, gravy, awkward, yeast, mould, keg

Kölsch in Köln

Guess what?!?! I am in Köln (Cologne) for the weekend! Jan offered to meet me again and found me a train at a good time so how could I refuse another wonderful German city?

We went for dinner at a huge German brauhaus called Frueh and I had sauerbraten which is a very good marinated beef with potato dumplings that look like balls but are quite tasty especially with the gravy. It also came with a nice homemade applesauce and salad with dressing like grandma makes.

The beer is most special. It is served in 200 mL glasses and they keep bringing more until you tell them to stop. It is a very nice beer that is only made here. They make a mark on yur coaster for how many glasses you have had. See if you can count in this picture!! (There was one more after it was taken too!)

Museum Het Grachtenhuis

It's almost the weekend! Today was relatively busy again at work but not nearly as bad! That is all my "real" news. For further entertainment here's some information about my favourite museum so far in Amsterdam, also visited the Sunday before last in my museum-tour.

My last stop the Sunday before last was the Museum Het Grachtenhuis. For more details click here. This might be one of my favourite museums, which is saying a lot because it came at the end of a very busy two days! It tells the story of how the canal system came to be and also has a great exhibition of photographs from a National Geographic photographer.

The cool thing about this museum is that it is set up in about 4 rooms of different movies and projections. The first one told the very old history of Amsterdam and how it grew quickly and became very crowded. Then you go into the next room and there are maps of the city all over the walls and a table with 6 chairs with people's names on them in the middle. You're in the middle of a conversation between city planners, mayors, etc about how to plan the city's expansion. Different maps are projected onto the table like they are being rolled out, and as the men talk it looks like they are drawing on them. The third room shows projections of people building the houses in the expanded city. And in the last room you can look into houses and see scenes of people in the 17th and 18th century projected inside moving around. Your headset links to the rooms so you can also hear what's going on! Very cool technology - much fancier than anything I've seen before - and very effective!!!

Here are some snaps!

The first room:

Map on table with chairs in second room:

 Model of house build on "piles" (those sticks under it) in the third room:

 

Looking into a house in the fourth room:

Diamonds!!

Another busy day at work! So it's time to pull a blog out of the archives! There is more to come on Berlin, but first let's go back to my first weekend in Amsterdam and learn more about the crazy museum tour whirlwind I did! Today's topic - the Diamond Museum!!

The Sunday before last, because I was in the area and because it was included in my I Amsterdam pass card, I decided to check out the Diamant Museum (Diamond Museum if you couldn't tell). It gives a good overview of the history of diamonds in Amsterdam, educates you on how and where diamonds are mined, cut, and polished, and shows replicas and originals of famous and interesting diamonds.

Amsterdam became a very important centre of diamond production and trade in the 17th century when persecuted Jews relocated to Amsterdam. They were not admitted to the craftsman guilds but were allowed to polish diamonds - and so the trade developed. Today, polishing has relocated to Asia, but Amsterdam is still an important city for diamond trade. Nearby Antwerp is the big centre today though - they trade 80% of the world's rough diamonds and 50% of the cut diamonds.

In addition to showing old equipment and processes the museum has one of the world's smallest diamonds (too small to take a picture of) as well as these interesting finds:

Van Gogh's "Starry Night" embellished with tons of diamonds:

A close-up

A tennis racquet and ball covered in diamonds

A sword (Japanese I think). This was interesting because the blade is murano glass as well:

A skull. I'm not sure why there was a skull. But it was in a small room shaped like a diamond (like you were inside) covered in mirrors and playing "Diamonds are a girl's best friend"

Guest Blog!!! Berlin Details from Jan!!

My friend Jan did an amazing job planning a really fantastic long weekend in Berlin....and he agreed to a guest post to share the details! See below!!! I think you'll see he was a fantastic guide and we saw a lot! (THANK YOU JAN!) (Also it's 11:30 and I've just finished work, so this guest blog comes at a fantastic time!)

Here is Jan reading a map, so I didn't have to. (Such a treat) Below are a smattering of other pictures...more to come on particular themes :-)

Friday, March 28th

Boulevard “Unter den Linden” – Brandenburg Gate – Reichstag (buliding) (residence of the German
parliament (“Bundestag”) – View to the German chancellery and main station – Memorial to the
murdered Jews of Europe – Tiergarten – representation of the state Lower Saxony at the Federal
Government (“Red elephant”) - Potsdamer Platz (Sony Center) – Music theatre “Blue man group” –
Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin (Parliament of the federal state of Berlin) - Exhibition “Topographie of
Terror” – Gendarmenmarkt (square of Konzerthaus and German and French cathedral)

Dinner in Kreuzberg (Turkish restaurant) near underground station “Schlesisches Tor” – Blue man
group at music theatre– Beer in Brauhaus Potsdamer Platz




Saturday, March 29th

S-Bahn from station Friedrichsstraße to Potsdam main station – by bus to Park Sanssoucci – terraces
of Sanssoucci – New chambers – Kitchen, Bakery and vine cellar of Sanssouci – Sanssoucci – Chinese
House – New Palais – by bus to the city centre – Dinner in german restaurant – Osterfeuer with
Glühwein and beer in Volkspark Potsdam (Kleiner Wiesengarten) – Taxi and S-bahn back to Berlin



Additional Details on Royal Palaces and Park Sanssoucci

The royal palaces of Potsdam, mainly built in the 18 th century by Friedrich II. (“the Great”, “Der alte
Fritz”) were residences of the Prussian kings and the german emperors. They are very impressive
buildings with beautiful decorated rooms and halls. We visited four of the palaces:

1. Palace Sanssoussi (without sorrows): The former summer residence of Friedrich II mainly for relaxing
2. New chambers of Sanssoussi: Friedrich’s guest house west of palace Sansoussi
3. Chinese House: Garden pavillon built in Chinese architecture
4. New Palais: A huge palace that should represent Prussian’s power

Permanently, parts of the buildings have to be closed to the public because of restoration reasons.
We had a very long walk in the park and took the bus back to the city centre.

Sunday, March 30th

Boulevard “Unter den Linden” (e.g. Humboldt-University) – Museum Island (Pergamon Museum,
Bode Museum) – New Synagogue (Oranienburger Str.) – Hackesche Höfe – Old National gallery
– Berlin cathedral – Information center „Reconstruction of the Berlin city palace“ - Marx-Engels
Monument – Red Town Hall – Alexandersquare – Nikolai Quarter – East Side Gallery (painted wall)
– Underground from station “Schlesisches Tor” back to the hotel – Osterfeuer at Culture Brewery in
Prenzlauer Berg - Dinner at Austrian restaurant nearby

Easter traditions

In addition to the Osterfeuer a German Easter tradition is to hang decorated eggs off of a tree. I think it's something we should start at home. Everything from plastic eggs to porcelain, hand-painted to more than professional. I took a few pictures of the ones I could find!

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

Happy Easter everyone! Another fantastic and busy day in Berlin! Today we went to the old part of Berlin and then to the center of East Berlin. There we saw the East Side Gallery which is where the wall is still standing and they have painted it. More on this to come! After that we had a break then went to another Osterfeuer which was not as good as yesterday's. And then we had wiener schnitzel for dinner. With yet another kind of beer! A great day!!

Here is a picture from Friday at the big memorial for the murdered Jews. It is very large and peaceful inside an area with a lot of pillars of different heights.