A Day in Magdeburg, Germany

 

There is no breakfast room in the hotel in the Green Citadel, so they bring breakfast to your room. Of course this was nothing new for Linda since in our normal Life I cook breakfast every morning and serve it to her. What they have that I don’t is a soft boiled egg as part of the meal. Every once in while she hints to me that it would be nice if I fixed one for her. The odds of me cooking it to that perfect point she likes is less than zero, so this is going to have to do. Partially Happy Linda.

Nothing like breakfast on the patio outside our room to start the day. As the saying goes: This just about as good as it gets.

And this is as good as it gets.

Everything about this hotel is different. And talk about curves, Hundertwasser sought to be one with nature and very little in nature is perfectly straight. So it was with his art. It even goes to the floors which are not flat, rather they undulate slightly, not enough to cause any balance problems, but enough that if Linda had to walk on them for 15 minutes or so she would probably have a attack of motion sickness. It may not be be for everyone but what is the sense in traveling if you only go the same places and do the same things year after year. The clock tics off the seconds, once gone you can never get them back.

The Domplatz at the Magdeburg cathedral. Elton John gave a concert here and as I look at this photo I swear I can almost see him in it. Almost but not quite. Or to quote the phrase Linda often utters at one of my ideas, “In your dreams Bob, in your dreams.” All I can say is, “Some people have no imagination.” To which she would say, “And some people have too much imagination.” Suffering Linda.

Another of those through the pillars of the cloister photos. I walk through the cloister looking at all the statues and memorial stones. Linda walks through the cloister saying, “Here is good place for a photo. Here’s a better place for a photo. Oh, you have to take a photo here.” Meanwhile I am thinking, of the line from the Ricky Nelson song, the one that goes: If you can’t please everyone, you got to please Linda.

Never have anything like this during our travels in the States. I don’t know, maybe they consider graffiti to be art back home, over here they quickly remove it.

Beautiful model posing beside a piece of the Berlin Wall.

View of our hotel from across the street. The reason it looks curved is because it is curved. Every time it comes into view as we walk up the street we say, “WOW!” And as you might guess, every side is completely different from the other three.

Legos. Yep, just Legos.

Nothing like a few blocks on Stalinist architecture to make you yearn for the good old days when you didn’t have much, but then nobody had much so you were all equal.

View of a section of the city from atop the tower of the Johanniskirche. Easy to pick out the post reunification glass topped shopping center from the forest of DDR era buildings

The interior of the Johanniskirche. It was totally destroyed during the war. Reconstructed, only the pillars on the left side and the the dark stones at the edge of the ceiling are from the original building. It is a very visual reminder that war is destruction. Either of human beings, their environment, or their works. War is no respecter of rights and laws. Here the effects of war can’t be ignored. No one could stand here and not be moved by what they see.

Even the light that illuminates the hallways in our hotel is art.

Good friends and good food, the perfect way to end the day.

Speaking of good food, they had this this really delicious spread for the bread. (Please ignore the stupid look on the face of the model Linda found to pose for her food photo)

Lard on your bread, it does a body good. Linda smelled it. Linda may have gotten a fly speck sized piece on her tongue. Linda wondered how John and I could eat it. Simple dear, it tastes great. I say some people have no sense of adventure. Linda says some people have no sense. As usual, I’ll leave it to you our readers to decide who is correct.