Finally! A post! Let's just get right to it and avoid explaining the gaping hole in this blog called "July", yes? It's hard to know where to start though...
I'll begin with all the weekend trips I've made, since that's probably most interesting to everyone.
What must've been my third weekend here, I went to Dresden. An anecdote about this iconic sculpture:
Apparently, the sculpture you see here is of the guy (and his horse, of course) who really poured his wealth into Dresden and made it the once beautiful city that you can get a sense of in the reconstruction effort,
(they're still working on rebuilding in some places, btw)
Anyway, there are very few monuments to this guy because so much of the city was built by him, and he's quite a selfless guy. To honor this nameless man (he has a name, I just cant remember), later prominent men of Dresden decided to eternalize him with this statue. This would be a pretty ordinary statue and a rather lame tale to tell, if the monument weren't so unflattering or our nameless fellow. You might not have a great view of it, but the horse is strangely postured and the guys face is a little unflattering. How unfortunate that a master of public works is remembered with such an unsightly tribute. It was so ridiculously shiny and bright that I didnt really want to look at it, but at the same time, there's something so peculiar and awkward about it that I couldnt help but stare.
Okay, enough bashing. Dresden was a neat place with a good ol' european feel, accordion included.
There was a really cheap flea market,
where I found some nifty stuff to think about and also to eat, like...
free apples just for me! Only because the lady selling them was impatient with my german and the time I took to find some change for her.
On that topic of food, Dresden had two places I want to mention, even though I plan on making a post devoted to food at some point. The first was a bagel bistro that I dragged everyone with me to. After a full day of walkling through the city, we finally made it to this place as it was closing (around 11...on a saturday...Dresden isnt much a party city, for some reason). The owner was kind enough to let us buy bagels, anyway. I had this lovely rosemary-bagel sandwich, filled with stuff I cant really remember, but it looks like liverwurst, pickles, gouda?, tomatoes and some funky greens:
It hit the spot! I also talked to the guy afterwards about his bagels, making pretzels, (I cant believe how geeky that sounds), and general baking topics. Afterwards, I hurried across the street to a teahouse, where my friends decided to wait for me. It was also cool. The owner made all the pottery, candle-holders, etc. in the place, and offered us board games to as we relaxed on his couches:
Some of us were very tired as you can see, so we skipped the board games and went to sleep at the hostel, where we managed to fit seven people in one room with two beds...
There was also some interesting stuff going on in Dresden at the time including:
a marathon,
a gay pride parade,
and my readiness to return to Berlin toward the end.
The end
*Next post: København! I promise it wont take another month.
That looks like a delicious sandwich; I need to start taking more pictures of what I'm eating so everyone can pretend they're jealous of British food.
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