Back at Work

Day 150

When I was in Dresden I worked at the Deutsches Hyegine museum. I helped to work on the new permanent exhibit. Well, it was new about 4 years ago any way. Six years ago the museum was free on Fridays, my hope was that it would be the same today. It wasn´t, but no big deal.

The new exhibit is about 5 times the size of the old one. I recognized some of the objects from the old exhibit. The transparent woman was there. One of the sections that I had worked on was about how different cultures dealt with death. I had written a few letters to try and get one of the containers that ashes are sent into space in. The museum had one of these. I have no idea of this was because of me or not, but I like to think that it was.

In the room on food there was a cornucopia with animals and all sorts of food coming out of it. When you touched the different objects a screen popped up and told you about which cultures eat and don´t eat the different types of food.

The next room was about sex, these were followed by the room about kids. I wonder if it was on purpose. There were also a few rooms on health and fitness, but these were all in German and I couldn´t really figure out what was going on. The last rooms were on beauty. The whole thing was really very well done and I really enjoyed going back to work.

Across the street from the museum on Fridays was a market. You could get all sorts of things here. What I used to go for, and was looking for today was some sort of yummy Turkish sandwich. I was really surprised that the stand was not only still there, but in the same place. The sandwich was just as good as I remembered to.

After wandering around the Grosse Garten for some time I headed back to the hostel to pick up my stuff. At the train station I made a quick phone call.

Way back in Belfast I met Markus and his dad Christian from Leipzig. We had kept in touch over the last several months and they had invited me to stay with them. Markus picked me up at the train station. This doesn´t happen very often, well, only twice now. It is really nice to not have to navigate a new city on my own with my pack. Back at Markus´s house I caught up with his dad and met his mom Daniela. They had a lot of friends and family over to see Markus off for his year of civil service and they had a barbecue going on.

When I had lived in Dresden I met another Leipziger named Markus. He came over around eight and we headed out on the town. Markus had planned a pub crawl of some of the best places in the city. It was really fabulous to catch up after almost three years of not seeing each other.

After several months on my own now it was really wonderful to be around friends.

Chore Day

Day 149

As I had been to also of the museums in Dresden I decided to take care of some chores. I wrote a bunch of postcards and then headed out to do my laundry. Unfortunately the only place to do this was way across town. While I was looking for it I was approached by some crazy political people. I had to do my best to get myself out of a very uncomfortable conversation without being rude.

When my laundry was done I headed back to the hostel. I wanted to explore Dresden some more, but wanted to wait. It was rather hot out and I was thinking that most of the tourists are might be day trippers.

It was around 7 when I hit the town again. I started by heading to the Zwinger, a palace here. It looked amazing and for some reason there was a dance show going on. One building I found had just been a broken looking façade six years ago, now it appeared to be a palace as well. The Elbe as amazing, and not over its banks this time around. I also stumbled on a few museums that were either new, or just recently reopened. I think that I will have to go back to Dresden.

I didn´t want to have a late night, there was a lot to do the next day, so I headed back to the hostel early and spent the evening reading.

Going Back

Day 148

I didn´t sleep well. I don´t know why, maybe excitement. In the summer of 2002, between my junior and senior years of college, I lived in Dresden and worked at the Deutsches Hygiene museum. I had a fabulous time, possibly the best time ever. I haven´t been back since I left.

My train was murder. It was the most uncomfortable train ride that I have had on this trip. It also was about 4 hours long. I couldn´t even fall asleep.

When I left Dresden 6 years ago the city had just been hit by the worst flood in a very long time. The Elbe was over its banks, and even my museum was flooded. The main train station had been underwater. This was my first stop. The whole thing had been completely redone, heck, there was even a Burger King and a Subway now.

I had no problems finding my hostel, it was only two blocks away from where I used to live. As soon as I had dropped off my stuff I headed right to the Hygiene Museum. I wasn´t planning on visiting today though. I just wanted to see it. I wasn´t sure if I would remember the way there, so I had grabbed a map just in case. Letting my feet lead the way I had no problems finding the museum. It looked a bit different, the name was no longer on the top and the door I had used to go to work was no longer there.

When I had passed the museum by a couple of blocks two women asked me in German if I knew where the museum was. I answered them in in English, I don´t know if they really believed me.

At this point I decided to head to the alt stadt. The first place I found was the Frauenkirche. During WWII Dresden was very heavily bombed, the Frauenkirche was destroyed. There wasn´t any money to restore it and it sat as a pile of ruble for years. After the wall came down the bits and pieces of the church were sorted through and rebuilding began. Whenever possible the old pieces were worked into the new structure. When I left the building was surrounded by scaffolding, now it is finished and amazing. I was just in awe of it. Not only was the church finished, but the entire square looked completely different. It was amazing.

As I wandered I was shocked at how many tourists there were. Since I left I have been telling people to visit Dresden, it seemed like they all listened and told all of their friends. I heard more English than German.

To get away from the tourists I decided to head to the new town. There were definitely less tourists here and people were speaking German again. As I was walking down the main shopping street I decided to get my haircut. I had been feeling very much the raggity backpacker recently and needed to do something to fix that. Just an hour later I was no longer scraggly backpacker, but attractive travel diva.

I walked back to my hostel on Pragerstr., the main shopping street. When I lived here the street was almost empty pretty much all the time. New stores had moved in and people were outside enjoying them. The place was really alive.

Before I got back I took a quick detour to check out my old apartment building. I had no problem finding the building, but I couldn´t remember which entrance had been mine.

Back at the hostel I met a kiwi guy and we went to the roof top bar at the hostel for some drinks and to take in the view. It had been a long day though, and I didn´t stay up there for too long.