Hallo von Crimmitschau!

16.7.10--Holzkirchen, Zug, Crimmitschau

Not a whole lot happened in the first part of the day, just school and Italian food.  Then I went to the train station, where I bought my ticket to Zwickau (a town near Crimmitschau, which is near Dresden) [only 117 Euro for both ways!].  I got on the train quickly, because it was leaving in 5 minutes, and had to walk through about 4 cars before I found a seat--next to Herr Keel and Werner, of all people.  It was pretty ironic.  It was really nice, because our ICE (inter-city express--really fast train) had working air conditioning (there´s a big fiasco on the news about that lately...the AC doesn´t work when it´s above a certain temperature outside...when you really need it).  After an hour, I got off at Nürnberg, where I transferred to the RE (regional express) for the 3 hour ride.  It was a bit warmer there, but still tolerable.  After a fairly uneventful ride, I finally arrived in Zwickau, where Thomas (a cousin of some sort) met me and drove me to their house.  We had Bratkartoffeln mit Quark, und auch sandwiches for dinner.  Then we sat outside for a while and chilled.  Before I went to sleep, I watched a bit of South Park auf Deutsch--Stan and Cartman have really weird voices...=/


17.7.10--Dresden, Crimmitschau

This morning I woke up, had some breakfast, and then we went to Dresden.  It´s pretty cool there--a good blend of new and old.  In 1945 the entire city was destroyed in an air raid, so it had to be completely rebuilt.  After leaving it be for about 45 years, as a memory, in 1990 they rebuilt the Frauenkirche to look like it did.  They used as many of the old stones they could (which isn´t much). It´s really interesting to see, because the new stones are all light, and the old ones are dark, so it´s easy to tell.  We went up in the cupola, and saw a nice 360 panorama of the city.  It was really nice, because for once, it had an elevator!  But the elevator only went up partway, and then a long ramp for most of the part.  It´s quite pretty inside.  After the Frauenkirche, we went to the Catholic cathedral, where the bishop sits.  The king of the time had it commissioned to look like a ship heading out to the Elbe, so its pretty cool.  The king also had a special passageway from the castle to the church so he didn´t even have to go outside.  Next, we walked through the courtyard of the Zwinger, and looked at all the pretty buildings and such...they had devils holding up the pillars, with very grotesque faces...pretty cool.  After that, we went to the Residenzschloss, and went in the museum.  There was some pretty cool stuff there.  Various kings had stolen lots of stuff from around the world, or it was gifted, or conquered, etc, so there are many many things from around the world.  Lots of porcelain sculptures, little pearl figurines, some ivory figures, etc.  One room had tiny little sculptures from cherry pits.  Another room had guestbooks from years past, and one for now that anyone can sign, so I did.  Perhaps I´ll be part of the exhibit years from now.  One of my favorite parts was the Turkish exhibit, with all the tents, weapons, and horse armor/decorations.  Pretty cool stuff. Then we came back, and grilled up some dinner--some Wurst, Leberkase, usw.  Lecker =)