Travel Me Blue

 

Alright, little birdies. I’ll feed ya some more…

Why haven’t you written anything in over a month? Why are you so lazy? What’s so hard about writing about Dresden? All of these are questions I cannot answer. The truth is, I get extremely lazy in the summer for no reason. However, somewhere between my 2-3 glasses of wine I achieved the “aha” moment where I don’t care what comes out, so here we go…

Dresden was a stop that I knew we would be making before we even went to Germany, in 2009. Why was it important? Well, our friend Peter had been basically escorting us through his own country (almost effortlessly), and Dresden was his home. Dresden was a drastically different in contrast to what we had seen in Berlin. For those who don’t know, Dresden was basically leveled during the war, and a lot of work has gone into making it back into a beautiful city.

After visiting Wittenberg, we made a stop in Leipzig on our way into Dresden. Leipzig was yet another German city that I had never heard of, yet they  had significant history to share. That being said, we stopped just to see the Leipzig war memorial and monument:

The monument rises over 90 meters on the sky. It originally built in 1913 to commemorate the “Battle of Leipzig” where a coalition defeated Napoleons army. This is regarded as the most massive war in Europe before WWI. Anyways, I wasn’t as much into the history as I was into the views it gives of the city. Skip the audio tour (unless you are truly interested) and make the trek to the top of the monument for views like this:

 

 

The 500 steps (many up a tight and winding staircase) were well worth the effort! I found a picture that shows off the monument a lot better than we possible could:

We eventually made our way to Dresden. Our apartment was located around the Äussere Neustadt neighborhood. View of the street outside the apartment we were renting:

View off of the balcony. Oh, hey! It’s a hostel #foreshadow2015

 

After we settled in, we made our way to a suburb of Dresden called “”Radebeul”. At the time I could totally picture myself living there, which is strange for a high school student to think.  Unfortunately, we never took our camera out that night as we were meeting Peter’s parents. At the same time, I have yet to find a picture the fully shows Radebeul.

I really enjoyed Peter’s parents. I met his mom, Christina, prior to having dinner with them that night. Before dinner, we walked through some of their trails by the river. Peters father would continually point out random spots and proceed to tell me stories in German, assuming I understood most of what he was saying ***DISCLAIMER: 9 years of German in school did not  prepare me for this*** His hand gestures certainly helped, and I could tell by his expressions that he genuinely enjoyed meeting someone foreign to his home. He was very proud of his town, and he proceeded to share stories and history through dinner (even though I barely understood).

Do you enjoy mushrooms? Because they are in harvest in August in Saxony, so if you order a dish with them you need to be prepared for a ratio of 3 mushrooms to every other little piece of food on your plate (it was too much).

It’s neighborhoods are amazing. I’ve never been to Western Europe, but I imagine that houses in Spain look the same way that many of the houses did in Radebeul. Until I find a legit picture, I’ll leave you with Sean (my brother). Did he come in contact with some itchy grass? who knows…

Next: First full day in Dresden, Ja?