Sunday began with the DDR Museum. I am definitely more interested in the social aspects of history and was thrilled with this museum. It is on the smaller side with videos, props, and interactive displays that keep you busy and interested. I really enjoyed this museum and learned quite a bit about the DDR. I find it very interesting that there is an entire museum with artifacts and first hand experiences of this lifestyle. The people that lived in East Germany over the past 50 years are still alive today to share their experiences. This history is not way in the past, it is very much in the present as well. I actually bought a DDR Cookbook for 5 Euros filled with history and recipes. The entire book is in German so it will be an experience cooking from it. Even by flipping through the recipes, you can see the German influence, Soviet influence, and how the cooking adapted to the environment by including items that were readily available at the time.
.jpg)
For lunch, I needed some Currywurst! So we went to an American style diner, clearly the obvious option for the best German currywurst. It was delicious! And we sat and ate under the giant aquarium at the Radison Blu. The view of the fish was neat but sitting near the line of children to take the elevator up into the aquarium was not so neat.
For lunch, I needed some Currywurst! So we went to an American style diner, clearly the obvious option for the best German currywurst. It was delicious! And we sat and ate under the giant aquarium at the Radison Blu. The view of the fish was neat but sitting near the line of children to take the elevator up into the aquarium was not so neat.
Then we left on a 30 minute train ride to the SchlossCharlottenburg (pictured right) outside the city on the West side of the Tier Garten. This "castle" is more of a palace and was not the best experience. We enjoyed the walk around the outside in the gardens, even though they were brown and filled with snow. The palace itself was expensive and very crowded. The audio tour was free but personally I hate walking around wearing headphones and listening to someone read monotone scripted history. I opted out and was disappointed in the poor German signage in each room. Definitely not worth it but interesting to compare the castles and palaces we have seen so far. This one was destroyed during WWII after it had already become a museum and had to be rebuilt so very little of the structure and furniture is original.Since we had a late evening planned, we took a tea and coffee break at our hotel for a few hours before heading back out for dinner. I am usually such a go-go-go person but this tea break was very welcomed on Easter Sunday and there were about five other couples or families at our hotel that must have had the same thought. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant and I thoroughly enjoyed my weird but delicious soup and light salad at a very Italian restaurant served by very German people. For some reason, I find it very amusing...
For something fun to do I found us tickets to SHOW ME at the Friedrichstadt-Palast. It was an interesting mix between Cirque Desole and Moulin Rouge and we had great seats in the first row of the upper balcony. The "family" show was a little more risque than I thought and included a legitimate pole dance, like floor to ceiling fireman's pole with a woman in a bikini. During a different full cast dance, all of the dancers were also wearing thong bikinis. Overall, my favorite act included techno music and white outfits with color changing rope lights attached. There was a variety of music in the show including English and German and some other interesting acts.
On Monday we we went for a walk through the Tier Garten to the large statue in the middle of the round-a-bout at the other end. We also headed to the RitterSport store downtown for a few bars of deliciousness to take with us on the train ride home. The cafe there did not have any lunch choices that sounded interesting so we grabbed sandwiches from a cafe. I am always finding interesting sandwiches here and ours were breaded chicken with a cabbage slaw and lettuce. Simple and cheap!
The train ride home was very long and of course the train was over 30 minutes late. We ended up running through the station in Stuttgart to catch our local train home and....we missed it by seconds. There is nothing more frustrating than watching your train pull away. By the time we got on the next one 30 minutes later it was 10 pm and bedtime for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment