Always Keep Trying, It'll Be Awesome

It has been said many times, and in may ways, that you should never give up. If you get lost, wander around until you find a path. If you fall down, brush yourself off and get back up.
I am glad I listened to those bits of advice from over the years.
I wanted to visit a castle while here in Germany. The first, mainly due to proximity, is Charlottenburg Schloss (Castle), nestled in western Berlin. I did minimal research to find out its exact location, assuming I could find it using a downloaded map on my phone. It seems I was wrong. The best I could do is find a Berlin-Charlottenburg subway station at first, which I had a sneaking suspicion was nearish where I needed to go, but was clearly not the right place. After some fumbling on my phone, I knew I would have to speak to some Germans and ask.
The first few I spoke to were very kind, if not terribly knowledgeable about where I was going either due to my terrible German or only vague understanding of where my destination was. It was already almost 2:30 at this point, due to a late start to the day, and I was a bit disheartened.
I regrouped my efforts and looked again on my phone for just Charlottenburg. I found something near a really big park, and hoped that was it. Another subway ride and I arrived. I made my way to a street that had the word "schloss" on it, hoping for the best. I looked both ways, and lo and behold! The castle was visible! And really far away.
So I began my trek towards the castle. Perhaps a 20 minute walk or so, which wasn't bad. The temperature wasn't a biting cold at the moment and the road was beautiful, a boulevard from the time of the castle itself, I suspect. I arrived and made my way into an opening in the castle, the only one I saw. Inside was a man dressed in garb straight from the 1800s, and after a bit of broken German from me he switched to English, explaining the castle and how to access the gardens and so on. He also told me of a special event that night, a dinner in the palace and an orchestra performance after that. I was wowed; I had to do that.
First, though, I had time to kill and so I wandered to gardens, which were absolutely gorgeous. As I walked through snow-covered trails with beautiful big trees around me, I could not help but think of it as a winter wonderland. There were others there, walking around by themselves or with loved ones, and the entire thing was very serene. I made my way out of the woods on the west to find a large lake central to the castle, and gardens that must look spectacular during the summer. The lake was frozen over and children were ice skating on it, and a man passed me on the snowy ground on skis. He was cross-country skiing around the gardens of the castle!
I kept walking around, really loving the scenery and paths and gardens, and made my way onto the frozen lake. I have never walked on a frozen lake before, as best I can recall, and it was a bit of a strange experience. Enjoyable, though. One thing that I found very strange was that some old footprints on the ice were visible in that they actually warped the ice a good deal. As if stepping in mud, there was an indent the shape of the shoe. I had no idea ice could do that and was a bit concerned, but people were walking all around in that area, so I suppose it was safe.
After the gardens I returned to the castle and got tickets to dinner and the orchestra. One of the workers there wanted to practice his English with me and I wanted to practice my German, so he and I read together, filling in each other's gaps in knowledge, the menu and descriptions thereof for the night. It was fun.
Then came dinner.
It truly was a meal for a king, with beautiful tables, candlelit and with numerous servants (well, waitstaff) coming and going getting you anything you needed. The first course was a highly unusual soup, a creamy asparagus-based soup with coffee oil added (Frederick the Great really loved coffee.) The second course a wonderful pheasant in a grape sauce with a potato strudel, and the dessert was something akin to a chocolate mousse using very old ways of preparing it: just like the aztecs had their chocolate, so too was early European chocolate flavored with chilies and somewhat bitter. The Europeans would add some other spices to it and eventually began making it sweeter with milk, and the dessert I had was absolutely astounding, a blend of flavors I have not before had in chocolate.
After dinner was the concert, and I was absolutely wowed by it. The performers were not part of a travelling orchestra that performs from place to place, but rather a dedicated group picked from different orchestras to perform only at the castle. They played a song or two that everyone might recognize, including the Blue Danube, as well as some opera every other song or so with a wonderful soprano and tenor lending their voices to the group.
I wanted to get some culture while here in Germany, not just going to restaurants and school and such. It seems I was quite in luck. An unforgettable day and night, and had I given up when I could not initially find the castle none of that would have happened.
So if at first you don't succeed, just keep trying. The dessert is worth it.