An omonous trip to the summer palace.

1^st Full Day in Berlin... I spent mostly outside of Berlin.  We took the train to a small town just outside of Berlin called Potsdam to see the summer palace of Frederic the Great... and the less known side of the Brandenburg gate (not nearly as historically important or as pretty as the famous half).

There are many beautiful buildings that are either next to old crumbling communist buildings or that are next to (or part of) construction. 

I vaguely remember seeing photos of this palace and the gazebo in an art history book, but it didn't make much of an impression.  All of the buildings on the grounds are painted in this beautiful Naples Yellow (my favorite shade in my goash  paints)  and there are hundreds of sculptures all over the grounds.  Every building is inspired by the Romans, or the “Orient”.   Below you can see the palace vinyards (they grew a lot of the grapes behind glass so that they don't freeze.

At one point today the sky rather suddenly rumbled and turned a dark grey.  Heavy cold rain burst and we ran for cover in a structure that I thought was rather squarely hideous, Alex thought it was “tasteful” .  Artistic differences aside we both agreed that the gardener who continued to water the flowers in the middle of the downpour was hilarious.

Taking photos inside the palace (on the tour) was somewhat forbidden... so I kept the flash off and took a couple on the sly... I must try to find some photos of my favorite room.  Most were decorated in gold fillagree and somewhat poorly done Rococo paintings (with the exception of two that I think were actual Watteau's) .  The final room was decorated in carved cherry wood sculptures of over-sized flowers, parrots, monkeys and birds, all painted with full color.  This final room was a guest room with a bed sitting in a wall niche.  I wonder how creepy it could have been to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a carved monkey in the side of your vision.  

Tomorrow we are going to a Bach concert... what else?  We shall see... It's supposed to rain so probably something somewhat indoors.

 Internet is somewhat slow, so photos will be a little sparse for a while... Plus, the Z button is where the Y should be... it's trippz.

Happy Birthday to Alex

Today is my one of my oldest* and most dear friend's birthday (*that is oldest in the amount of time I've known him, not his time on the Earth). Unfortunately he lives in Hamburg and I can't get away to take him out on the town tonight. I can't even think of what to send him for the occasion. I know he has a thing for new office supplies... but really he lives in Germany. All of my favorite art supplies are from there, I imagine that their pens are equally superior to ours and they probably have some equivalent to post-its that make shipping them across the Atlantic a silly idea. I could send him a book... but which one? I went to the book store and nothing I saw was exotic or exciting enough for him in my opinion. I'll probably think of the perfect something in a month or two... in the mean time;

The top 10 things I love about Alex;
1. He's insightful
2. He keeps me smiling
3. He's a perfectionist
4. He has an amazing aesthetic sense
5. He always manages to keep me balanced
6. We still can write each other full letters after ten years!
7. He loves discussing art.
8. He doesn't balk to tell me when I'm being boring.
9. I can ask him about critical artistic choices and get a real answer.
10. He has an air of beauty about him.

...wow 10 was easy! I could go on, but I shant because he is also very modest and doesn't take praise very well...

Happy Birthday Alex!