Couchsurfing


5th July

After all the anxiety of losing the phone yesterday and how I would contact friends in China, I found it last night. I have two USB charging points in the van and have a cable plugged in to each: one for my Chinese phone which is white and one for the British one which is black. Anyway, I got into the van in the evening and noticed the white cable hanging down, I pulled on it and there was my phone hanging on the end, somehow it had fallen down and had been hidden by the bed covers. Was I relieved?

These past days I’ve been trying to get a Couchsurfing host around Dresden. I’ve discounted the idea of visiting Berlin for a day because it would be all too much in this hot weather; there has been a heat wave and the grass is dry and crisp. All the people I contacted couldn’t host me for one reason or another and so I have contended myself in enjoying Potsdam but there has to come a time to move on, even though I love the city and parks. There are some very interesting people who host and use Couchsurfing; one guy I contacted was Kevin Manygoats, a native American Indian, and he looks like it too but unfortunately he was hosting another traveller. Anyway, I’ve just found a really nice family in Dresden and will go tomorrow.

At the moment, I am resting and writing in a shady spot by Sacrower See (lake) in a village called Kradow. There are so many lakes in this region and as seems the case in most of Germany, as I have seen so far, much of the nice places are inhabited by wealthy Germans with big houses, and in the quay are a number of nice motor and sailing boats; another usual feature. There is no doubt German people enjoy a good standard of living and for a lot, a very good one. Of course there are the ordinary folk – somewhere! What is noticeable in Potsdam and other places too, are the number of people from other countries; some obviously assimilated into society and some clearly not – all the immigrants Germany has allowed in these past years. It strikes me how much Germany has changed, considering that a few generations ago the German government was determined to cleanse the country of such people and create a pure Aryan race. Whilst on the topic of recent history, I spoke with a lady yesterday who told me the centre of Potsdam was closed off because they found WW2 bomb. These things are often found and guess who left them there? Actually Potsdam received quite a drubbing from British bombers and some of the grandest buildings in the city were flattened but then later rebuilt. You can see they are not old, which somehow reduces their character, but still – it’s better to have these grand colourful buildings than a whole load of steal and glass modern ones. The main Sanssoci palace copped a bomb and was badly damaged but of course was eventually rebuilt to its former glory.
Potsdam centre


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