Our gracious hosts, the Maschkes, dispatched on a bus tour of Potsdam yesterday--the historical home of Germany's kings, emperors, kaisers, academics and bureaucrats. The audio tour in English had it's challenges, but we learned a few things. Here Cecily poses in front of Ceceliahof palace, built in the style of a Tudor hunting Lodge for its German Crown Princess namesake. It is most known for having hosted the Potsdam conference that ended World War II. Other higjlights: our guide's not-so-veiled pride that Potsdam has always been a an upscale 'hood that didn't host any of those pesky poor people; the clever use of the potato by Frederic II to alleviate famine (He planted a field of potatoes then posted guards around it to create the appearance of c something valuable; soon, everybody had to have a potato field as a status symbol, and hunger disappeared as this cheap, abundant and easily cultivated status symbol was introduced into the German diet--where it remains a fixture today. After the tour we also learned a bit about the Cold War and its legacy--a subject heretofore not too well understood by our girls. As always, we enjoyed hearing from our hosts there personal recollections of life in the GDR (it had plusses and minuses and the German relationship with that time is complicated; how ones views this period seems to vary based on economic status.) Afterwards, a delightful evening dining with Pascalis' family (our new friends) on, you guessed it, potatoes, white asparagus, cured meat and yummy German wine. Camembert cheese served with a sauce of chili and strawberry was a culinary treat, if totally outside outside our palates' experience. As the sun set, the girls enjoyed "speed tennis" on the lawn and a rare stork unexpectedly landed on the rooftop, giving us a close up view and resulting in some good-natured ribbing of Phillipp and Franzi, Pascalis older brother and his wife, about the portents represented by storks and bunny symbols.
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