ICH LIEBE DRESDEN

On Friday as Audry and I moseyed into the studio at our usual time we noticed there wasn’t anyone there. This isn’t too unusual for a Friday morning, but there really wasn’t ANYONE there. Susan, one of the professors came out of her office and told us that we really shouldn’t be in the studio because Dana was doing a luster firing and the fumes were very toxic. We were a little disappointed because we had already completed our 25 minute walk to the studio and now we had to go all the way back home. As we were contemplating what to do with the rest of our day Audry had the bright idea to take a last minute trip to Dresden. Bella, who had been staying with Audry and on her way back to Berlin, helped us find a train ticket before she left and we booked a hostel for Friday night. Somehow EVERYTHING worked out perfectly.

We got to Dresden and immediately started exploring the city. We began by hopping on a tram that we were trying to take to our hostel, but since Audry is not the best navigator we got a bit lost and somehow wound up on a bridge over the Elbe in the biggest wind storm I have ever experienced in my life! I thought I was going to blow off the bridge, literally. But the view was incredible. The bridge overlooked the old historic part of the city that survived the bombings of WWII, even though many of the buildings had to be rebuilt. We made our way through this historic part section of the city and took TONS of pictures. There was the royal palace, churches, art schools and an opera house.




We decided to try and find our hostel and get ready for a night on the town. When we got to our hostel we tried to find out if we could stay another night because we knew we wouldn’t be satisfied with only one or two days of Dresden. The hostel was full due to a local Dixie Land Festival…didn’t think that one was coming. Anyway, the nice guy at the front desk was very helpful and found us another hostel on Saturday night that was right around the corner. We went out to a cool, little jazz bar and had a few drinks and listened to a really interesting band. We met some really nice people who told us about a great little Turkish restaurant down the street that we soon discovered was AMAZING.

Saturday we woke up early and set out to Pillnitz, a castle in the outskirts of Dresden. The castle, which was more like a palace, was set in a large green space filled with flowers, fountains, HUGE trees, and even crazy little red squirrels with pointy ears. After our adventures in Pillnitz we lugged our tired selves to our new hostel to check in. After check in we hopped another tram and made our way to the Zwinger, and saw the Dresden Porcelain Collection.


This consisted of Augustus the Strong’s collection of “oriental” porcelain. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We spent another night out on Saturday night and decided to check out some of the pubs in the Neustadt of Dresden. As we walked through the streets trying to decide on a pub we ran into a large group of young men wearing lederhosen and singing very loudly. They stopped us and in very broken English asked us to join them in trying to find a discoteche. We politely declined and found a bar where we did a little drinking and dancing for the rest of the night.
Sunday when we woke up, we decided to hit up the Volkswagon factory in Dresden that produces the new Phaeton, the luxury car. Besides the factory, there was also a lot of information about Volkswagon and all of the commercials from the beginning when the bug came out until the most recent commercials. I’m sure my dad would be jealous!!



After the VW factory we decided we had time for one more museum before we caught our train back to Halle. I somehow convinced Audry that it would be a great idea to go to the German Hygiene Museum. Audry is a bit squeamish and she was a little hesitant to go to the museum but she knew that I would love it so she agreed to suck it up and see what it was all about. It was actually very interesting and she was pleasantly surprised. There was a very interesting exhibit on WWII and Hitler’s quest to cleanse the population to create a “perfect race”. The main component of the museum was about the human body. There was information about everything like conception, nutrition, movement, and sex. It was definitely an interesting museum to see and was definitely worth it. We sadly left Dresden right after the Hygiene Museum and headed back to Halle. Dresden was amazing, I can’t wait to go back!!!