Dresden, Germany

"Sprechen Sie Englisch?"

So Kelly and I left last Saturday morning for Dresden. Our train left Holešovice nádraží at 10:40 but the engine had mechanical problems so we didn't arrive in Dresden until 3pm or so. We sat in a compartment with a nice German man named Stefan who was very talkative the whole way there. We stayed at the Kangaroo hostel, an Australian themed place right near the train station which was very funky. Kelly and I were really hungry so after check in, we walked to a restaurant recommended by her Let's Go guidebook called Planwirtschaff, which specializes in locally grown foods. It was all very delicious, especially the potatoes au gratin. After dinner, we walked around Neustadt (New Town) which has a very young, alternative atmosphere. Unfortunately, many people were out of town for Carnival so the streets were pretty empty. But we had fun walking around the shops, discovering Leibniz cookies (yummy cookies dipped in chocolate), checking out all the crazy graffiti in New Town. I don't think it's illegal there. We actually saw some people with paint and spray cans decorating a wall. We also got some delicious apples at a local market. Kelly took German in high school, so that was very helpful in getting around and reading signs and things.

After walking around a bit, we went back to the hostel. We were both very tired and almost fell asleep! But we said, "No! We must go out!" and picked ourselves back up. First we went to the chocolate bar and had delicious chocolate cake and coffee. Then we wandered a bit and found a jazz club that had been recommended to us called the Blue Note. I ordered a hefeweizen, and thought of Grandma! We listened to a guy with a guitar called evilmrsod, and he was pretty good. The crowd was very quiet, which was probably frustrating for him. On the way home, we got french fries to go (we called them "pommes frittes go home") and made it a fairly early night, especially for Europe, which was around 1am.

We woke up on Sunday, checked out of our hostel, stored our luggage, and made our way to Old Town (Auldstadt). We crossed a beautiful bridge (though not as beautiful as Charles) and we greeted with large looming churches and old baroque buildings. There is a lot of interesting historical architecture in Dresden. A lot of the churches are black in color because of the WWII bombing that occurred. I really loved one wall, covered in a mosaic, called Fürstenzug or the Procession of the Dukes. We also saw the Frauenkirche, a beautiful church that kind of looks like a cake that has been very recently restored. We ate lunch at Cafe Aha, which specializes in organic and vegetarian food. Kelly has been very sweet about finding vegetarian places for me to eat. We both ordered potato soup. which came in two massive bowls that we didn't think we would finish, but we did because it was so delicious.

We hiked back to the hostel, got our bags, and headed for the train station. The train ride home was pretty uneventful. It was fairly foggy so it was harder to see the sandstone mountains or the Santa's Village-like German towns that line the river that we saw on our way.

Yay Dresden! More pictures to come soon...