The internet situation right now is breaking my metaphorical balls, kind of. It's not soo bad not having access to facebook, email, or text messaging (no phone), but it's rough when I want to contact people or make further travel plans. Anyway, due to limited/no internet access, I advise you to keep your arms and legs inside...my blog...feel free to feed the animals, and please, have your camera out and ready for a whirl wind tour of my life this past week in Potsdam, Deutschland. Woo!

It's a fariy tale land, Potsdam. I spent time wandering around palaces (yes) and through the very green and very beautiful Sanssouci (french for "care free")park. I stretched out under a tree and watched happy Germans Nordic walk/stroll/run past this lady bug and me. I watched the bug weave through the grass from blade to blade like a sometimes clumsy but self-aware and therefore efficient gymnast and I thought about this for a while before I started thinking about how nice it was to be thinking about this, before I stopped thinking much of anything at all. Then I started thinking about how nice it is to not be thinking of anything, got up, met Marge, and we toured Sanssouci Palace. There's a big fish pond in front of the palace, a series of stairs which lead up to it, and an informative portable telephone-like device that tells you all about the the rooms you walk through once you get inside. I learned Frederick II (Old Fritz) was into art, architecture, philosphy, and such and would invite intellectuals of his time to pretty much just hang out-- intellectuals like philosophers; philosopers like Voltaire. Yes, what a coincidence! One of T's roomies from Florence haneded me a copy of Candide before I left for Potsdam and I read it on the train, only to arrive in Voltaire's own old stomping grounds. Cool, ya? Connections, connections.

With one exception, everytime I've visited the sprawling, green, green, green Sanssouci Park there's been a man playing the bagpipe behind a bush. There's always a palace nearby, people pick nick all the time, and I've never been more uncertain of gravity--sometimes when I'm walking around this town I feel like I can skip, jump, and launch myself into the air to swoop around palace peaks. Sounds fantastical, I know, but I'm not all together certain there aren't little German gnomes chillin in tree trunks around here, either. And the best part (maybe)? Ample graffitti. Let's draw on things, everyone! It's a nice contrast, amature graffitti on traditional, wooden, Hansel and Gretel-style buildings. The old and the new. Contrasting ideas, but somehow it flows. It works. I love it.

...more to come