David Kellam

I have spent the last two nights in Berlin, having arrived after a long day’s travel from Gdansk in Poland. I have been billeted on my own with Frau Kender, whose 20 year-old son no longer lives with her. I spent the first evening catching up on much-needed emailage, before getting an early night’s sleep. The next day was pretty much the same, prior to heading for our concert in Kaiser Wilhelm Ged䣨tnisskirche. We sang a decent concert to a fairly packed audience, including former choiristers Susie and Brent. After the concert, we headed to an Italian place for dinner (at least 20 of us inc. Billets). Once again we were treated to an incredibly slow waiter - the current theory is that the percentage of the waiting profession comprised of Uni students is significantly less here.

After a decent pizza, the obligatory small group stuff made an appearance, before a generally poorly-remembered Bach fugue for Brent’s sake. We moved on to a pub, where everybody else resided until 4am. I left at 1:30. Thankfully the beer was terrible (Weisen), so I wasn’t tempted to drink much (I gave up after half a glass).

The next morning was a bit of a sleep-in, thanks to Kate’s continual delays in setting off for Potsdam. We eventually made it and got to SchloߠSanssouci around 2:40pm.

We wandered around the impressive gardens for an hour or so, stopping to admire the mock-Oriental tea house, which was a dome-like structure comprised of a central room with 4 alcoves. It looked like a fairly decent place for a cup of tea. Rosemary would arrive by stagecoach with a parasol, of course.

Not having time to explore the interior of the Orangerie, we returned to Sanssouci for our 420pm guided tour. The palace consists of only 12 rooms and was designed for pleasure and entertaining, rather than for matters of state. Frederik was a bit of a scholar and a Francophile. Voltaire even lived in residence for a number of years. One could certainly picture oneself pontificating in such an environment, particularly whilst overlooking the fake Roman ruins situated such that they could be seen through the Kasier’s bedroom window.

We left Sanssouci and returned to the Zoo station to check out dinner options. We found a decent-looking Chinese place (the pwice was wight), wherein we later had dinner with Kat, Kate F-P, Hindsy, Francyne, Adit and Lauren. Much food and merriment was had, after which we ambled across to Quasimodo biergarten. Again, I piked early, but not before hearing about an ice-cream place in Glenferrie Rd which will make you up your own custom creations - like Suga for ice-cream. Why Kate failed to mention this in all our ice-cream discussions is beyond me, as is why she chose to do so 10000 miles away. Sigh.

This morning we left for Toftlund (via Vojens) in Denmark. We are currently on board a fairly average German train. Thankfully it is not a huge day travelling.

Mood: exhausted!
Music: I can see the lights in the distance coming in the dark cloak of night. (All Souls Night, Loreena McKennit)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2005 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Europe 2005. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.