Germany
Chocolate
First things first. I went to the something and Rausch chocolate company in Berlin, near the Gendarmenmarkt at Mohrenstraße and Charlottenstraße. I mailed you some of their chocolate and brochures.
They had large sculptures made of chocolate, about a meter on a side, of the
Brandenburg Tor (Gate), The Titanic, the Reichstag (German White House, basically), and the William Kaiser Gedachtniskirche (Memorial Church).
Brandenburg 1
Brandenburg 2
Titanic
KW Church
KW Church 2
KW Church 3
KW Church 4
KW Church 5
KW Church 6
Reichstag 1
Reichstag 2
Reichstag 3
Chocolate
When we had our fancy dinner at Daimler-Chrysler the last night in Stuttgart, they had a dessert with a chocolate ruffle on it, so I had to take a picture. I can't tell if they used your kind of ruffle or simply did the chocolate curler kind of thing and then dipped the edges in white chocolate. The ice cream was a vanilla with a somewhat rummy flavor. Very nice.
Ruffle
Ruffle
Molds
The technology museum had a textiles exhibit which included making fake flowers. I took pictures of some of the more interesting molds in case they inspired you for any reason. They are from around 1930-1950.
Flower
Flower
Flower
Flower
Frankfurt
In Frankfurt I stayed at "Pension Aller" which was just a couple blocks from the train station. It's run by a sociologist who rents out part of her very large home (she was born there! and she's like 70 now!). For only 50 Euro I got about five rooms:
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Picture
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Picture
There would have been breakfast, too, but I was leaving very early, going on an airplane, and felt kinda bad to drag her out of bed in the morning to get it together.