Mommy's Angry With Stella

Had a car this weekend, so after spending Saturday in Potsdam, we thought we'd go for a country drive on Sunday. Browsed the Brandenberg section of the guidebook and picked the Lower Oder Valley National Park about an hour northeast of Berlin. We're thinking a little drive through some small towns, stop for lunch and a walk, and head home. Turns out there's a setting on our navigation unit that was set for fastest highway to destination, so the nav (we call her Stella) and I had some disagreement on the route. I might have lost it. Just a bit. Didn't help that we were right on the Polish border without our passports. Anyhoo, we stopped by an enormous boat elevator that serves the canals. It was built in 1934 and really awesome. It takes all of the water and boats up or down from one section of the canal to the next. Here it is starting to go over Emery's head:


Then managed to find the ruins of a monastery that was built in the 13th century and abandonned in the 16th century. Stinkin' Martin Luther. Recking everything for our Cistercian brothers. Couldn't figure out what it had been used for after that, but it's been undergoing restoration for the last 200 years... Emery loved the "smooky" basements and brewery.


On the whole, it scored near the bottom of our random, not-quite-aimless weekend drives. Maybe Spreewald will be better for next weekend.