Meissen and Dresden

We are doing pretty well with jet lag – as in we feel fine until we blink too long, then we are asleep. Keith slept during the trip to Meissen – still getting a bit better every day – and I woke up when we got there, not having planned to blink so long.

Our tour leader planned our outing to the Meissen Porcelain factory as a shopping outing. Huuuuuh. The coffee mugs were $85. Meissen was the first place white porcelain was made in Europe, so it was a big deal. It was really, really interesting to go on the tour to see how it is handcrafted using negative molds, and all painted by hand. I wore my German to-do list dress today (I assume I will pop up in a picture and you will see) and the ladies in the shop thought it was darling and I had to tell them how to get one (the internet!). Fun.

Next we went to Dresden, famous for being fire bombed in February 1945. First thing: find lunch and be back in less than an hour. We went to Peter Pane – which was fabulous. They have great looking burgers, but we thought they would take too long to get and eat, so we had delicious roast beef sandwiches which came with vegetable chips (WOW good) and thirst quenchers (mine was mint and elderflower, Keith’s was berry and something. Mine was so much better than his). It was a very cool looking restaurant, and some of the seats were swings. We didn’t get a swing. Sad day.

Next up, the opera house. Cool beans. All of the “wood” is painted plaster, but the original opera house burned down. The plaster did not help when the city was bombed, but the outer walls did survive and eventually the inside was rebuilt. The stage hands were putting together the stage for this evening’s concert and the walls you see below appeared while our guide was talking (Keith and some others thought she was Oliva Newton John. Just sayin’). The seats all had air conditioning in them, which is super cool to me, because I am always on fire.

Next came a city tour. We saw the national gallery, and the palace (which is being remade using an etching technique and looked super cool), and the super big porcelain mural (which survived the bombing because porcelain can take the heat of the fires).

The most interesting part of the day as seeing the Frauenkirche, which was bombed away and rebuilt. The cross from the top was found under the rubble, but the one that replaced it was built by a man that was the son of one of the bombardiers that had bombed the city in 1945. The black bricks in the rebuilt church were saved from the rubble and reused. The church was rebuilt, even thought it has no congregation and most Germans are agnostic. It’s very, very bizarre to see something and to be told it was bombed away, but here it is. Until I saw the picture of the after the bombing, but before the rebuilding, I really couldn’t get it.

We got to the hotel at 5 and while waiting for the only working elevator, Keith and Dan went right into the center of the lobby and helped themselves to drinks. Dan had a coffee and Keith had a big glass of juice. Then they were told that those refreshments were for another group and weren’t just for people to come in and drink. I thought duh. Stacy, and Keith, and Steve practiced a luggage spinning routine. They are probably going to go pro with that.

Keith and I finally got up to floor 6 and went to our room. It is the farthest room from the elevator. We went around 3 sides of the floor and came to a glass door. I tried the handle. It was locked. I looked around for somewhere to scan my key. Nothing. I tried the door vigorously. Still locked. I told Keith I would stay with the luggage and he would have to go back and ask what we should – after first checking to make sure we were actually going toward our room and hadn’t somehow missed it. Just as he stepped away, I has a BRILLIANT thought – Drucken! (push) We keep coming to “locked” doors that you just have to push. Sure enough – I pushed and it opened. I think I might have learned it now. Just push!

Dinner was fantastic because we got to eat with Becky and Sally, and awful because we had yucky, sticky potato balls of glue (with a prune hidden in the middle) and red cabbage again. I knew not to even try either one. Tonight’s meat was beef and it was very nice. Big beer glasses made their first appearance of the trip, and Dan enjoyed his.

The evening was gorgeous and we stayed in the square, chatting with various band members as they wandered by. What a perfect finish to a very nice day.