Ein Wochenende in Dresden

Upon the generous invitation of the family of the foreign-exchange student my family housed for a few months last year, I spent last weekend in Dresden. Considering its history of the fire bombing in World War II and position within Eastern Germany (and a major flood just five years ago) I guess I was expecting something like how Prague was described by a few friends. Maybe a nice city center but otherwise lacking in areas you, as a tourist, would want to visit. I was very wrong. The city is gorgeous. Not in the same grandiose way of certain Munich streets but amazing just the same. In the first place, the city is more open. Unlike Munich where it is unusual to see more than a quarter kilometer because some new building is rising up to obstruct your view, Dresden is less dense. Kind of nice, especially considering my hometown. Also, all the destruction visited upon this city has just lead to the construction of new buildings. Generally beautiful and lacking in age related wear, though the prevalence of graffiti does mar many. Not to say Dresden lacks in the classic. The city was a king's seat and is the government center of modern Saxony. The famed Opern and Zwinger and Frauenkirche were all rebuilt as they originally were.

Visited the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, a gallery of paintings by European masters around the time of Renaissance, while there. I am sure you're all familiar with that picture of the two cherubs, mildly bemused/ bored expressions upon their faces? Saw that. Also learned they are only a smaller part of a much larger picture with the Virgin Mary flanked by two saints. Passed through a room of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, all of them a good deal larger than me. Very nearly floored by the sole Jan Vermeer I saw. And I did not even visit the entire gallery.

Should these descriptions inspire feelings of jealousy, I offer this anecdote as a mediator. Sunday morning I get up early. The father tells me to take a left from the house and walk down to the river. If I look right, towards the smoke and across the river, I'll see the church. After Mass, breakfast will be ready. Of course he tells me this in German. The family has only been talking to me in German all weekend, and I think, no problem, I've been understanding them well enough so far. Well, after I finally figure out which left he was talking about and make it to the river, the church bells are ringing. Makes it easier to find the church, but I have to hurry. Turns out it is a Lutheran church, but Catholic churches are in short supply in this part of Germany. I roll with it. After the service I make my way back to the house and learn of my mistake. Breakfast was not quite ready, so I was supposed to just take a fifteen minute walk or so, enough time to check out the river and make it back. Then breakfast would be finished, and we would go to a Catholic church they had found online. Yeah... Oops. Sorry about that.

Still, two days and one night was not enough time in Dresden. Too bad getting back is going to be a long shot.