I got the amazing opportunity over Easter break (which in Germany is like a week long) to travel to my roommate Monique's hometown of Dresden (eastern Germany). I was a bit hesitant at first, thinking of other places i might like to visit during this time but then was like why the hell not. Her boyfriend offered the Americans a room in his mothers hostile and we gladly accepted. Our train* left Wednesday at approx. 3:30am. I was exhausted, I had only slept for 2 hours before waking to catch the train, but was so excited. We actually all almost didn't get to go...We bought a group ticket and if one person out of the 6 didn't show up our ticket would be noninvoid. Well 3:25 came around and we were still missing one of the 6. We were all freaking out especially Monique who had Easter plans with her family....But, luckily the last and final member showed up about a minute before the train left, out of breathe, and all was good in the world again. We took the train all the way to Dresden, (approx 8hrs). The sleeping quarters, well there was no such thing, the seats, were stiff and the cabin was so stuffy. Marcus, Monique's boyfriend, met us at the train station and escorted us to his mother's place, which ended up being so incredibly quaint.(unlike the previous youth hostile we had stayed at in Heidelberg, which was more like a dorm...ewwww) It was a small one bedroom appt. fully furnished, with a huge queen size bed (which ended up sleeping 3 girls) and single bath and kitchen. It was located in this adorable court yard, accompanied by a large bunny rabbit and Ginny pig in a cage. :)
Day one: We all got up super early to find Marcus had made us all breakfast, it was delicious, eggs, tomatoes, cucumber, toast and jam, coffee and juice. They we all headed off to explore what is known as old Dresden. Old Dresden was the kind of place that my father would fall in love with. Old churches, awesome architecture, live music, life...all around very peaceful and charming. We journeyed through King John's court, beginning with a HUGE gold statue of him, took a pit stop for some ice cream (tarimasu!) and took a few pics of this large and in charge gold statue. Next we proceeded over the Carola Bridge, which allowed you to cross over the Elbe River from "new town" to "old town" . In 2002 the Carola Bridge was flooded due to a large tsunami that some how hit the Eastern part of Germany and caused the Elbe River to rise to record breaking levels.
First stop, Hof church, beautiful Gothic esque architecture. We ventured inside, not as awesome as the outside made it seem or as the Frauenkirche Church, but still nice. We walked past "Oprah's house", as Monique put it, or as we know it, an Opera House. This lead us into a huge garden, the King John's garden, and courtyard full of fountains and awesome landscaping. The atmosphere was perfect. As you walked through this huge arch entry way a man was playing Royal songs via trumpet...nice effect for tourists. Walking out and back around the court yard we came to a large freise depicting the lineage of power in Dresden that of course ended with King John ( I was starting to get the idea that this guy was a big deal in Dresden?)... pretty cool. We stopped and visited the Dresden Frauenkirche (aka."the church of our lady"), a church that had been destroyed in WWII. Only about 5 years ago, had they finished construction on it. During construction, some of the original stones from the original church were used. You could tell which was which, dark stones old, light stones new...neat. The inside blew me away. Check out the picture above to see the INCREDIBLE alter piece they had constructed. The church was packed, due to Easter weekend, and you weren't suppose to take pictures, but i don't there was a single soul there who didn't snap at least one photo. From here we kind of just ventured around next to the Elbe. It was a beautiful sight and we were all still so exhausted...
That night we had dinner at a local brewery (which are all over Germany). Here I was able the experience my first 1 LITER mug of beer...HUGE and cheap and OH so good. I have come to fancy dark beer, maybe it is just Germany but damn it is good. Dinner was marvolous. We had an awesome view of the whole city. The sun set made for an fantastic end to a wonderful first day, not to mention that we were all a little tipsy after 2 Liters of beer and a hefty meal.
*keep track! on this trip, I traveled by train, bus, car, boat, and plane!
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