April excursion trilogy, part 1: Dresden

Part of thriving in a foreign country depends on speaking the langauge well. Sure, I can ask for directions, understand most of what the kindergarteners say, and even joke a little with the zookeepers, all in German. But really my knowledge of the language is superficial and I knew if I was going to speak often to zoo visitors or continue communicating complicated training plans to keepers, I needed some help. Since the langauge school here wasn't offering any appropriate night courses and I didn't have much money to burn, I had to get creative. So I posted an ad on Magdeburg university's version of Craigslist. I offered my services tutoring English in return for a native-speaker's services tutoring me in German. Within a few days I had at least seven potential tutors to choose from, and I based my decision on the depth of information they sent in their emails, rather than on their abilities in English. So that was how I met Damaris.

Damaris is finishing her degree in economics and hoping to find an internship in an English-speaking country later this year. We met for coffee and discovered we both enjoyed chai tea, ballroom dancing and shopping at H&M--a good match. One difference between Damaris and I (besides the height difference, which is around 8 inches, I'm guessing) is that she is very spontaneous. This means that sometimes I receive invitations to barbeques less than an hour before the coals are hot, which is probably a healthy change for a meticulous planner like myself.

Early in April Damaris and I decided to visit Dresden, an east German city with a rich history. Her boyfriend, whose name cannot be spelled without an umlaut and my friend Shannon came along. Joern (Or Jorn with an imaginary umlaut) was especially important because he was our mode of transport for the day, as he actually is a young person who owns a car. The four of us fit snuggly in his Renault and headed on down the autobahn. It is completely true that some stretches of the German highway have no speed limit at all. What one discovers though, is that cars have speed limits. Even if you are allowed to drive 150 miles per hour, whenyou are driving your grandmother's 1976 Carolla, you will still top out at 55. I watched the spedometer and calculated to the best of my ability the conversion from kph to mph and I'm sure we drove over 100 mph at some point. We also whizzed right by a police car that was driving about 60 mph, which shocked Shannon and I, but was completely natural for the two Germans in the vehicle with us.

On the way to Dresden, Damaris, completely in character, spontaneously suggested that we stop and look at the monument erected in celebration of Napolean's defeat outside of Leipzig. The Germans must have been really proud of this victory because the monument they build is gigantic. It has dozens of stone steps leading up to the top where soldiers carved from the rock are engaged in battle, and a long rectangular pool reflects the structure's image. After this brief historic pit-stop, we forged ahead to Dresden.

In 1945 the city had been seen so many Ally air raids, it seemed certain Dresden would never again be an international hub of activity, and would take decades to even be inhabitable. In 2009 though, the city is beautiful. The bridges spanning the Elbe river have been rebuilt and the city center has been restored with great care taken to preserve the original architecture and extravagant ambiance of German royalty. Our first stop was the "Green Vault," a collection of jewels, antiques, historical artwork, and rare oddities first displayed in the 1700's. The treasury is apparenlty one of the most valuable displayed anywhere in the world. To emphasize that we were not quite worthy of viewing it, a strange machine first brushed off the bottoms of our shoes and we were then admitted two at a time into a small chamber. The door closed behind us and after a three-second wait, another opened into the first room of the vault on the other side. I imagined the reason for this was some sort of Star Trek-esque method of cleansing the public from all germs and bacteria before allowing them into the vault, but I don't know the real purpose of regulating our entry this way. Among the hundreds of items on exhibit we saw jewel encrusted goblets, strange animals made from opals, ivory, and amber, and intricate statues depicting biblical and mythological scenes.

Next we visited a Baroque church that boasts one of the world's oldest hats, worn by a prominent bishop 900 years ago. I laughed about it, even though I probably wasn't supposed to. Afterwards it was clearly time for a treat. The four of us wandered the city, enjoying the sunshine and building fascades, in search of cheap ice cream cones. Because we started this hunt in the most tourist-y part of the city, it took a while to find anything cheap, but eventually we found a cart selling scoops for a reasonable price and we sat down in front of yet another Baroque church in the sun to enjoy it. Shannon was nearing the conical stub of her ice cream cone when she said, "Ugh. What is THIS?" I peered at the cone. "A raisin?" I suggested. "Raisins don't have wings" was her reply. And that is how I learned the German word for "giant disgusting fly stuck in your otherwise tasty ice cream cone." Yuck.

After a few more stops and a lot more walking, Damaris suggested that since we were less than an hour's drive from the Czech Republic, we should continue driving east and have dinner in another country. We drove through the German countryside, passing stereotypical German houses with triangular roofs and slatted siding. When we crossed into the Czech Republic though, the landscape changed. The buildings appeared run down and we spotted at least four prostitutes on the way to the town called Teplice, which was our destination. In Teplice (Tep-LEECH-ay) we found a diner with bizarre interior decorating of neon green and orange, and an inexplicable disco ball hanging from the celing's center. The menus were in Czech, but we paid in Euros and the waitress spoke enough German for us to get by. The food was cheap and the dessert of fruit and ice cream rolled into a crepe and topped with whipped cream, was the size of a Duraflame fire log.

During this trip, I attempted to speak German as much as possible with Damaris, and the combination of being a tourist and concentrating on a foreign language made for a tiring day. But my search for a German tutor was successful, as was my trip to Dresden, and I had a trip to Prague ahead of me for the next weekend.