{"id":6533,"date":"2014-06-15T07:05:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T06:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/?p=6533"},"modified":"2014-06-18T09:27:32","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T08:27:32","slug":"15-june-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2014\/06\/15\/15-june-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"15 June 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a pleasant week we’ve had. The weather has been tolerable and we just about recovered from our Berlin exertions when our next brace of visitors arrived – sister Sallie and her husband Rod are here for a week on their way to Switzerland.<\/p>\n

We didn’t have time to say anything about our expedition to Berlin other than to share a few of the least bad photos with you. In short, we had a great time and Berlin is certainly a very pleasant city. In some ways it doesn’t have quite the character of most European cities as so much of it was destroyed in the war but it is\u00a0a lovely city and we thoroughly enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

\"East<\/a>Our hotel, the Adina Apartment Hotel, Checkpoint Charlie<\/a>, was splendidly appointed and very comfortable. I’m not sure we’ve ever stayed anywhere quite so well-appointed on any of our previous\u00a0meanderings around Europe – we usually secure rooms in which the bed barely fits and one has to climb over it\u00a0to get to the toilet. We\u00a0should probably arrange for Stuart to organise all our future outings. Some of the hotel is let long-term as apartments and, as a result, each room has a separate bedroom and sitting area and is\u00a0fully equipped with refrigerator, stove and oven, full-sized dishwasher as well as a washing machine and tumble dryer. Don’t worry – we used them all just to make sure we got our money’s worth. The hotel is in the Mitte district in what was East Berlin, right in the heart of the city with but a short stroll to Checkpoint Charlie and easy and convenient access to the underground. As we wandered around we crept about\u00a0in the shadows like spies and struggled to visual that final\u00a0scene in the film The Spy Who Came in from the Cold<\/em> where Richard Burton is shot trying to escape to the West. The hotel is\u00a0just a block from Leipziger Stra\u00dfe which is lined with Russian-era high rise apartment blocks built tall enough so that the East Berliners could not see over them\u00a0into the West.<\/p>\n

On our first day we strolled down to Checkpoint Charlie and walked casually from east to west and back again! We then made our way up to the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Holocaust Memorial which was, I thought, really\u00a0well done.<\/p>\n

The memorial is set in a large open area where there are 2711\u00a0gray concrete slabs, or stelae<\/em><\/a>, identical in all dimensions except height. These are laid out in a precise rectangular space creating long straight and narrow alleys between them along which the land undulates.<\/p>\n

Beneath the field of stelae<\/em>, underground, is\u00a0the\u00a0memorial exhibition with\u00a0family photographs, diary extracts and other artefacts which gives\u00a0the exhibition a human scale. Very moving.<\/p>\n

\"berlin_june_2014_01\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
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Another highlight was the trek, on the second or third day (I forget!) out to the Sanssouci\u00a0Park<\/a> in Potsdam.\u00a0Frederick the Great had the park built, I read, because he wanted to grow figs and grapes for wine and so had a terraced garden built in 1744. Just a year later, Frederick decided to build a large summer resident above the terraces – the Sanssouci Palace.\u00a0One rambling palace just wasn’t enough so Frederick then went on to build the New Palace just a few years later. Certainly good for local employment, I guess. We had a stunningly glorious day for our\u00a0visit and spent the afternoon wandering through the park admiring the views.<\/p>\n

\"Sanssouci <\/a>
Sanssouci Palace <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sanssouci <\/a>
Sanssouci Palace <\/div> <\/div>
\"Sanssouci <\/a>
Sanssouci Palace <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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\"Sanssouci <\/a>
Sanssouci Palace <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"berlin_june_2014_04\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Orangery – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Neues Palace – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Neues Palace – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"berlin_june_2014_13\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
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\"The <\/a>
The Neues Palace – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Neues Palace – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div>
\"The <\/a>
The Neues Palace – Sanssouci Park <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"berlin_june_2014_22\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

On our last morning\u00a0we made our way to\u00a0the largest remaining section of the wall, now known as the East Side Gallery<\/a>. We didn’t explore all of it – just a short section, both sides of which are decorated with an abundance of art and\/or graffiti, depending on your point of view. This stretch of the wall ran alongside the river which\u00a0made it particularly difficult to cross.<\/p>\n

After visiting the wall we finished the day with a river cruise around the city. A splendid way to see the city and it was very relaxing in the hot sunshine under the bright blue skies. Everything was floating along splendidly until the boat neglected to stop where we had expected to alight and continued\u00a0merrily along its way. There had been\u00a0a “breakdown in communication” between the ticket office and the ship’s captain – he wasn’t told that there were\u00a0any passengers who were only going part way around the loop and so quite naturally chugged on past. All was resolved soon afterward when the ship made an unscheduled stop at another mooring along the river and we alighted to make our way homewards.<\/p>\n

\"Berlin <\/a>
Berlin Wall <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Berlin <\/a>
Berlin Wall <\/div> <\/div>
\"Berlin <\/a>
Berlin Wall <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Berlin <\/a>
Berlin Wall <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Bauhaus <\/a>
Bauhaus Building from the river <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A Refreshing Beer on the river <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"DC9\" <\/a>
DC9 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"berlin_river_cruise_2014_03\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Our <\/a>
Our unscheduled stop <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Leipziger <\/a>
Leipziger Stra\u00dfe <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

So, all in all a very pleasant visit – splendid company, splendid weather, splendid accommodation, splendid city.<\/p>\n

During the outing in Berlin, I missed my daily Baseball Tonight podcasts. So, in catching up, I\u00a0was delighted to learn That Tuesday, 3 June was the anniversary of the first publication of Ernest L. Thayer’s poem Casey at the Bat<\/em> published in 1888 in the San Francisco Examiner. The podcast included a link to a recording by James Earl Jones reading the original and I subsequently found a link to a reading introduced by Garrison Keillor (although I don\u2019t think it\u2019s him doing the reading \u2013 it sounds more of an Australian accent) of an alternative version from the opposition\u2019s point of view. Enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Casey<\/p>\n

Casey at the Bat read by James Earl Jones<\/p>\n

[audio\u00a0http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/audio\/casey_at_the_bat_james_earl_jones.mp3]<\/td>\n

\"Casey<\/p>\n

Casey at the Bat – an Alternative Version<\/p>\n

[audio\u00a0http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/audio\/casey_at_the_bat_garrison_keillor.mp3]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

A lovely example of government joined up thinking in the Guardian<\/a> – the government closed overseas passport processing centres and then was caught unawares when a backlog of applications was the inevitable result. Oops!<\/p>\n

We had a splendid day out on Friday – the weather was glorious and we all (Sallie, Rod, J, Pen and me) bundled into the car and set off to\u00a0Packwood House<\/a>\u00a0near Lapworth. It was a real gem – a quirky house with a mix of old and “new” \u00a0– grand halls, long corridors and an abundance of oak panelling. Queen Mary slept in this room and used this toilet in 1927!<\/p>\n

The house is\u00a0set in gorgeous\u00a0gardens with fabulous\u00a0herbaceous borders and a fun yew topiary, and it’s surrounded by parkland and fields. The sun shining and the award-winning picnic produced by Ms Playchute made it a perfect day.<\/p>\n

\"Packwood <\/a>
Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
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Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Packwood <\/a>
Packwood House – June 2014 <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

And finally, happy birthday day before yesterday\u00a0to our good friend Chip Boynton, yesterday to Greg Stragnell (the younger) and today to the always young and always beautiful Pam Stragnell, all of whom are naturally amongst our favourite people!<\/p>\n

\"DadAnd finally, finally – Happy Father’s Day to the best father I’ve ever had. I was struck by how accurate and astute the following comment, attributed to Mark Twain, is and how precisely\u00a0it reflects my own recollections:<\/p>\n

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.<\/em><\/p>\n

Love to you all,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a pleasant week we’ve had. The weather has been tolerable and we just about recovered from our Berlin exertions when our next brace of visitors arrived – sister Sallie and her husband Rod are here for a week on their way to Switzerland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-1Hn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}