Sunday, 6:20 pm: We’ve only been back in Maine about six days and already it’s rained, snowed and rained again. Somewhere along the way I lost count of the exact rotation of the weather. Currently it is lightly raining.

Plattenbauten- eastern Berlin

Continuing on our compact rental-car odyssey through Germany; some of the larger German cities rebuild after WW II look vaguely similar. Then I am no expert and I am fairly certain they would disagree [my wife disagrees]. Fortunately the old historic districts set the cities apart from one another. Above you see a not so fine example of post-WW II Soviet-era monolithic apartment blocks in eastern Berlin. They are irreverently called Plattenbauten because they were constructed using prefabricated concrete slabs. What they lacked in imagination was made up for in their immense size. There were a few basic designs which were easily modified to suit location and size. In the end they were utilitarian and inexpensive [by building standards] and not designed for curb appeal. One by one they are slowly being remodeled so they less institutional and more human.

Soviet-era mural in Dresden

While in Dresden, which was completely rebuilt after the War, I took this photo [see above] of part of a Soviet-era mural [lots of red] that graced the entryway of a public building. With the exception of the photo above and some street names, I couldn’t see very many reminders of their recent past efforts at communism. Okay, there are some Plattenbauten, but Dresden has taken great pains to connect with its past and reconstruct or restore their historic buildings. It’s a very scenic old world place. Lots of great pastry and many fine espresso cafés. Berlin has that too, but Dresden is smaller and more quaint, and quaintness catches my eye.

Dresden Opera House

You may ask, what has this to do with weather? Nothing, but this does:

Current values from our wireless Vantage-Pro weather station:

Temperature: 42° (F.)

Barometer: 29.681 & steady

Humidity: 100%

Winds: Calm

Visibility: < 2 miles

Skies: low overcast

Precipitation: Unavailable

Since midnight:

Low temperature: Unavailable

High wind: 10 mph at 9:02 am