I'm feeling better today - the throat isn't as sore at least. I'm still coughing, but I can live with that.
Today Mrs. Thiermeier, Nina, Brigita, and I drove to Potsdam! I'd heard a lot of really cool things about it since I've been here, and as well it's historically pretty significant.
The drive there took about 45 minutes. Potsdam itself is located southwest of Berlin, and is the capital city of the german state Brandenburg (of which Berlin used to be a part before becoming its own state). We went first to Schloss Sanssouci. This palace was modeled after the Sanssouci palace located in france. The palace itself is decorated in the Rococo style, which basically means lots of gold everywhere, even more so than in Baroque palaces.
Below are some pics of Schloss Sanssouci and the grounds around it:
Stairwell leading to the palace from the lower gardens
A Gazebo, decorated in the Rococo Style
The Orangerie
Hallway inside Sanssouci
"Chinese" Statues at the "Chinese" House
After we walked around the palace for a few hours, we headed into the city of Potsdam, and checked out the downtown area for a while. Potsdam definitely has a different feel compared to Berlin. It's not as tall (most buildings are 3 stories tops), and has a quainter feel (probably because most of berlin was rebuilt in the last 60 years, so it's just not that old). Below are a couple of pics from Potsdam:
The "Holland Quarter", where a lot of migrant workers from the Netherlands lived in the 1730s.
