A day off from the World Championships...

If you're reading this just for the throwing/World Champs stuff, skip this entry. I wanted to go to see all the throwing finals. There were no throwing finals on Day 6 of the world champs, so I went to Potsdam, rented a bike, and rode around all day. (Yes this was my 2nd day in Potsdam, for those of you keeping track.)

Berlin, and Potsdam, as I found out, are very bike friendly cities. They actually have separate sidewalks for bikes, and even seperate traffic signals for bikes!

So after what was a series of wrong turns and long rides in the wrong direction, I finally got to one of the places I wanted to go, Park Sanssouci. Its a Central Park-type place, but instead of being a park built for the people of Potsdam, it was a backyard for King Ftiedrich II. Here are some pictures of things in the park:

A building in the "Chinese Tea garden", not sure of its significance...

and a sculpture on one of the buildings up close.

I continued walking and came across this garden...

where you could walk through a tunnel made of plants. Sweet.

Another side of the same garden.

Windmill.

Schloss Sansoucci is at the top of this hill. This was the King's summer home...yes, the guy built a summer home in the backyard of his regular home.

A close-up of the fountain from the last picture.

An outdoor bathtub! I guess the king was into that...

A cool shot of a bridge and a river running through the park. This is still someone's backyard, mind you...

and THIS is the palace! I was standing as far back as I possibly could and still couldn't fit the whole thing in one picture, so I took this video.

Tats where one guy and his family lived. Its good to be the king.

So I left the park and kept riding my bike until I came across the river that runs out of TieferSee (Lake Tiefer), and I just snapped some pictures.

The last one is a picture of some graffiti under a bridge...Germany is so punk rock!

So as you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day, but it was HOT. And, I had been riding a bike around all day, and hadn't drunk enough water, so at this point I was very dehydrated, and if you know me (and how much I hate the heat and hot weather) was not in a pleasant state of mind. However, riding along the river I saw many people just hanging out, some were sunbathing, and some were even swimming, despite the numerous "Swimming Forbidden" signs all along the river. I figured if those people were doing it, I could too. I chained my backpack to one of the wheels on my bike, and jumped in the river for about 5 minutes. That cooled me off, and my happy mood was restored for the day.
On my way back to drop the bike off at the rental place, I snapped this picture of a castle. I don't know what it was really, there were no informational signs or anything like that explaining when it had been built or who lived there. I guess thats Europe though...there are so many old castles spread around that people don't really think they're anything special.

So I went back to my hotel, tired from all the bike riding. I brought back a Turkish Pizza mit Donerfleisch (I seriously want to go back to Germany just so I can have some Turkish Pizza, its that good, my mouth is watering just thinking about it!!!), and of course, some bier. This is Rex Pils ("Pils" being short for Pilsner, which is what a lot of beers over there were), and Schwarzbier. I'm not beer-literate enough to describe how they tasted, but trust me, they were delicious.

So the last thing of my day away from the championships...I obviously didn't go to Germany to see what was on TV, but occasionally I turned it on and one night I came across this.
You'll have to turn the volume up to hear it, but not too loud because halfway through I start laughing. Can anyone tell me just what the HELL this is??? I came across many American TV shows and movies overdubbed in Germany which were funny to watch, but this was on a level of its own. Whatever this thing was, it was on for literally hours every single night. No commercials, no change of camera angles, nothing except this little loaf of bread (or whatever he is) looking at the camera and talking for hours straight. I guess some weird people have their say in TV programming in Germany...