achtung baby

Once again I'm blogging in the afternoon when I know that I have Internet access; you'll just have to assume that the rest of my day goes well, and I'll pick up the blog again tomorrow. Chandlord and I have parted ways for the day - she wanted tot do a bike tour, which I had no interest in, while I wanted to see yet another baroque palace that wouldn't trip her trigger. So, she went off to the bike place, and I laid around in bed, repacked, and then took myself off to Schloss Charlottenberg (with a stop at a cafe first).

Schloss Charlottenberg is the largest remaining Hohenzollern palace in Berlin, and housed several kings and queens, of which the most recognizable was probably Frederick the Great in the 1700s. However, the palace was badly damaged during the war, like so much of Berlin, and while the interior contents and been removed for safekeeping prior to the 1943 bombing that took out most of the building, some of those contents were later looted by the soviets (whom I thoroughly despise), and have never been returned. But, they've done a pretty good job of recreating the palace, even if it's kind of sad to know that the painting, wall covers, floors, etc. area almost all reproductions.

I didn't spend a ton of time there; only part of the palace was open today, and I made it through that wing in about an hour. Then, I took the ubahn to Zoo Station, where I got off and wandered up Kurfurstendamm, which was the place to see and be seen before reunification suddenly turned the area from the heart of west Berlin to the outskirts of the main city itself. There are still tons of shops and restaurants there, so I wandered a bit before ending up in a v. cute tea shop near Savigny Platz that may or may not cater to a clientele at least twenty years older than me. And I've been working ever since - believe it or not, but I've squeezed quite a bit of writing time into this trip, even if most of it has been brainstorming rather than actual page production. But I'm a lot farther along on the plot for my gargoyle book than I was before I left the states, and I think I'll be able to write quickly when I get back.

And now, I need to settle up here and make my way to the city center, where I'm meeting up with Chandlord at some Tajik tearoom. Tomorrow we are ending our Berlin time on a depressing note by touring Sachsenhausen, and then Wednesday we leave for the US!