We started off our first full day in Paris by exploring the Rue Cler (which we had explored a little at the end of Day 9, though most of it was shut down by that time). The Rue Cler is only a few blocks long but has all sorts of food stalls, food shops (selling fruit, wine, and/or amazing baked goods), and cafes open early and late. We mostly went there for the crepes at the little creperie “Ulysse en Gaul,” possibly our favorite little eating place in Paris that we discovered. It’s amazing how the Rue Cler is not really that big, and not that crowded, but full of amazing food on this little cobblestoned street (with cars driving down it occasionally, causing pedestrians to slowly slink out of the way).

After a quick breakfast on-the-go at the Rue Cler, we headed down to the Metro, which always has a stop within a 10 minute walk of anywhere you are in Paris! Again, like most European public transportation, the Paris Metro is amazing and so much better than almost every public transportation system in the U.S. Well-organized maps are all over and you pay for the ticket before entering the subway area (though sometimes this was a hassle because most ticket dispensers don’t take Euro bills (only coins) and often credit cards don’t work). But even if you have some trouble getting down there, trains come every couple minutes, so you never wait long, and a sign is up for when the next one arrives. Usually we had a 2 minute wait before our train arrived, and the longest time we ever had to wait was 6 minutes. There are also convenient drink and snack machines at almost every stop. Overall, it was comparable with the amazing subway system in Tokyo, but Paris’ is a bit dirtier and maybe a little less organized (hard to compete with the Tokyo subway).

I (Teisha) have never been to Paris before and so much of our journeys in Paris were Andrew sweetly showing me around (he’s been there twice before for extended visits). I decided I was most excited about seeing the Louvre, and so we decided to do that with our first full day in Paris to get the excitement and anticipation out of the way. Getting up early, we got to the Louvre at 8:30AM. Although it didn’t open until 9AM, there was already a line forming! We stood waiting as the Louvre employees actually created a line around us (with posts and tape). It wasn’t so boring – we got to look at some neat prismatic rainbows created in the little inverted pyramid right by the museum entrance (from the subway – the underground entrance). There are also a ton of shops underground by the museum – it’s basically a little mall – though they were mostly closed.

However, when it did open, because we got there so early we didn’t have to wade through many lines. We walked in, had my bag security checked, and got our ticket from a machine (later we’d get the Paris Museum Pass to let us skip very long lines at the museums, but hadn’t gotten it yet unfortunately), and we were in the Louvre!

It was amazing being in the world’s most visited museum, and many would say the world’s best art museum.
The Louvre building itself has a lot of history – it was originally a fortress from the 1100s AD, and over time many kings and queens of France lived in the Louvre and changed it a lot. King Louis XIV was really the first royalty to leave the Louvre, moving the capital to Versailles in 1682 (more on that in a few days). Consequently, not only are the collections in the Louvre amazing, but the building itself is a work of art, decorated by marble floors, beautifully painted ceilings, and much more.

The Louvre basically has three sections. We headed into the main “classics” wing first, the Richelieu (the one with probably the most famous pieces). It’s mainly Greek and Roman sculptures and European paintings from about the 1400s to 1700s.

First we went through several large rooms of Greek and Roman sculptures. The two things that probably stood out most to us were (1) how well-preserved and in-tact so many of the sculptures were after being kicked around for over 2,000 years and (2) how beautifully they had gotten so many things right! It can be easy to forget that over 2,000 years ago people had figured many things out, such as making beautiful, lasting statuary such as this, and it makes me want to learn more about how things went so wrong for nearly a thousand years during the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire… It’s hard to imagine how far “ahead” we might be today if we hadn’t gone through the Dark Ages.

It’s amazing how many things have survived. This really struck us in seeing a Roman glass bowl from about 200 B.C and many other very elaborately decorated bowls, etc, from this and earlier Roman times.

One myth we saw depicted over and over again – Hercules with his club and the Nemean lion pelt (this lion was said to have had a pelt that could not be pierced, so Hercules killed it by stunning it with his club, then strangling it):

In a room near the middle of the Greek and Roman sculpture section was the Venus de Milo. Even though we were there early, right after the museum opened, it already had a crowd around it so it was hard to see it up-close or even get a clear picture. Part of this approx. 100 BC Greek statue’s appeal is how it is “balanced,” if cut down the middle, but also asymmetrical. It’s interesting that it was only found around 1820 AD by a Greek peasant, and this discovery helped stimulate the “neo-classical” movement with renewed interest in creating art that was beautiful by early Greek and Roman standards. It may be blasphemous, but I am surprised that since it was discovered over a century ago nobody has dared to “restore” it with complete arms and legs, since this has been done to so many other discovered Greek and Roman sculptures.

After seeing the Venus de Milo, we wandered through the remaining, surrounding Greek & Roman sculpture rooms. Here some general room and crowd shots:

And we developed some “favorites.” Andrew really liked this sculpture of a cupid strangling a goose, so much so that he did an endearing pose next to it.

I fell in love with this bust of a satyr (it was originally an entire satyr statue, along with others in a dancing scene, known because of other records that had been found). Apparently the only way you could know it is a satyr is because of its pointed ears and slightly unusually small teeth, but I think it was fairly obvious from the mischievous expression… It’s such an expressive face!

And there was a sculpture hallway just of famous Roman leaders and notables:

But we often preferred the fantasy sculptures, such as that of the satyrs, over the Roman leaders.

And then we came to another famous piece – the head- and arm-less “Winged Victory.” Made around 190 BC, it celebrated a naval victory of the Greeks. It stands on a pedestal that represents the prow (front) of the ship, and how its clothes are depicted makes the viewer feel the wind and misty spray that must be blowing across the scantily clad figure at the front of the ship.

Leaving the sculpture sections behind, we moved on to the paintings. Some of the oldest were frescos by Botticelli (late 1400s AD). The faces were so expressive, and yet not so different from the Greek and Roman statues we’d just seen that were created over 1,000 years earlier – again, what had happened??

Having been burnt out on paintings of the Mother Mary and baby Jesus from painting museums we went to in Germany (our eyes quickly got glazed over again), in the Louvre we focused more on other types of paintings. Again, satyrs are awesome and so is Pegasus (these were from the early 1500s AD):

But really, I’ve always been a big fan of Roman and Greek mythology, so it was neat to see the myths brought to life in the paintings, and try to figure them out (since nearly all the painting descriptions are in French – Andrew was a great translator, but I could only have him translate so much!).

I especially loved this painting (early 1800s AD) of one of my favorite myths, of how the sculpture Pygmalion had his beloved statue, Galatea, come to life – you can see the humbled awe on the sculpture’s face as she turns into flesh:

And there was also a statue of Bacchus as a hermaphrodite… haven’t seen that before…

And then there were several paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, including the super famous Mona Lisa. Several of his paintings were on the side of a long hallway, altogether, easily located by the small crowds that surrounded each. They were mostly Christian paintings, with Jesus as a baby and his mother Mary.

The room with the Mona Lisa was off on the side and while there were several other, much larger paintings in this room, the huge crowd huddled around the Mona Lisa, which was in a huge glass case, surrounded by a wooden railing, then taped off, and the entire crowd was herded around it by several guards so everyone got to walk by then exit the one-way traffic… I’ve seen much better, clearer pictures of it in books and online! The painting itself is surprisingly small, but it was still quite neat to see her faint smile in person.

There were several paintings of Napoleon Bonaparte, including a rather famous, huge one of him crowning himself emperor (he considered only himself to be worthy of the deed, casting the Pope aside even after he had come from Rome to do it):

And a favorite of Andrew’s — a devastating shipwreck scene just as hope is within sight:

And some cute tigers playing:

We were getting pretty tired by this point, but were not even halfway through the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, so we pressed on! We next entered yet another huge hall of statuary, which included some famous pieces by Michelangelo (“The Slaves,” one very sensual slave and one raging against his stone), a statue Andrew loved that was amazingly veiled (really, how do they do that with stone??), and another mythological couple, Psyche and Cupid.

Finally needing a break from art-overload, we escaped to the central area of the Louvre (where you enter and buy tickets). We watched the swarm of people entering the Louvre, including baby strollers going on a neat platform that could go up and down (like an open elevator).

After a little snack and break for our feet, we were off again! Instead of trying to finish the rest of the Richelieu wing (we probably only saw about 75%, if that much), we moved on to the Sully wing, which mainly had Egyptian art/artifacts – quite a change.

Entering the Sully wing, we could see the foundations of the old fortifications that were on the same locations centuries ago! They were still so intact, even after having been buried for so long.

The first part of the exhibit we saw was a huge sphinx about 5,000 years old.

There were amazingly preserved artifacts, including several papyrus sheets with writing – one was even a medical text from about 1500 B.C.! – and stone tablets with hieroglyphics and guides on how to interpret them. There was also a beautiful beaded tapestry nearly 4,000 years old… again, it makes me wonder why we haven’t come further over the past 4,000 years! If only it weren’t for the whole Dark Ages thing – image where we could be!

Sketches on stone before the stone drawings were cut into the stone:

Ancient Egyptian jewelry:

Mirrors, combs, and more:

Tools to de-frizz/curl curly hair (the thing on the far left)!

Games and game pieces (called “20 cases” – looked like a cross between table-top hopscotch and chess):

Musical instruments:

Sooooo many statues:

My foot is so tiny:

Many statues of the lioness goddess Sekhmet, goddess of power and disease:

And then so many sarcophaguses:

Including (and what I had been waiting for the whole exhibit!) a mummy! The person was thought to be of about average social standing, so it was not “elaborate” but seemed pretty amazing to me.

After 6 hours in the Louvre (!!) we had had enough for the day! Hopping onto the Metro, we headed up to Montmartre, a district in Paris that overlooks the city from a hill and is distinguished by the Basilica of the Secre Coeur. We went there not only for the amazing view of the city, but also because it has long been a center for artists – Dali, Monet, Picasso, and van Gogh have all lived there.

Looking at Paris from the Basilica on Montmartre…

We saw the Notre Dame cathedral (I’m quite grateful to have an awesome camera with amazing zoom capability!):

The Pompidou Center (a modern art museum):

And there are several great cafes in Montmartre. We ate in one of these cafes in the very center of the artists’ square. Mmm – French onion soup, Croque-monsieur, and, best of all, wine-soaked salmon with cheese and mussels! And flan for desert!

Montmartre is also home to the Salvador Dali museum. While it is a fairly small museum (about two large rooms), it was one of my favorites. I actually entered the museum not especially liking Dali’s pieces (I found them often disturbing), but left it feeling much better about them after reading his explanations of the pieces. I also didn’t know he did statues!

Of particular note – some amazing snail-spoons and snail-knives:

A series on Alice in Wonderland (the figure with the jump rope is Alice):

His take on classic art (great to see after seeing the originals at the Louvre!):

A winged snail we loved:

His idea of God – the big finger in the middle:

Neat take on the mythological muse of dance:

There was also a little gallery attached that had pieces you could buy! I can hardly image how much they’d cost – no price tags were shown… We saw a recurring motif in our trip though — a rhino with armor, similar to one we’d seen at a museum in Munich (and one we actually saw later somewhere else in Paris)… I suspect the Freemasons…

Probably one of the things I found I most liked about Dali was how he really didn’t take himself too seriously, even after becoming so famous. He also had a great mustache.

And then we wandered Montmartre a bit… and saw a historic vineyard!

And the famous café where Amelie worked:

And the Moulin Rouge, at the base of the hill of Montmartre. Several girls were doing the “Marilyn Monroe” on a subway vent on the road across from the Moulin Rouge – very cute:

On the same road are several other strip clubs and, unsurprisingly, the Museum of Erotic Art. We were feeling pretty museumed-out by this point, so we didn’t check it out past the entrance area, but I get the feeling you could see most of this stuff online for free, if you wanted!

Exhausted from museums and wandering Montmartre, we wandered home, grabbed some crepes from our favorite crepe stand, and collapsed!

Thank you for reading this super long post on our adventures in the Louvre and on Montmartre! Stay tuned for hopefully less exhaustive accounts of our adventures in Paris!

Back when Andrew was just 10 or 11, his family hosted Sascha Kuhn (18 at the time) as an exchange student. Andrew mostly just remembers that Sascha was tall. That first impression certainly hasn’t changed, with Sascha making even fully-grown Andrew feel short. But beyond that, we were both lucky enough to find an intelligent and kind man. Sascha was in Munich visiting his partner, Andreas (Sascha currently lives in Dusseldorf; the timing of our visit worked out perfectly). They met us for breakfast, guiding us through Munich away from the tourists and to a little musician-themed breakfast nook. We managed to snag a few pictures of Sascha and Andreas with us (Sascha is in black), and had a great chat about Germany, traveling, and life. Sascha and Andreas are both lawyers (Andreas does copyright law, which I’ll forgive), and both have lots of travel experience as well. The breakfast was quite good, too.

After breakfast (which Sascha sneakily paid for; although I suppose his lawyer salary trumps our grad student/post doc wages, it was still very kind of him), Sascha and Andreas offered us more of their time, and proposed a list of interesting Munich places to visit with our last few hours in the town. We ended up selecting a local cemetary, which looked very historic and peaceful. We got to see some impressive gravestones, chat with Sascha and Andreas a bit more, and Teisha, ever focused on the wee things of the earth, found a snail she adored.

After that, it was time to catch our train, so we had to bid farewell to Sascha and Andreas (but through the magic of Facebook, they won’t be far away).

Our train ride from Munich to Paris was fairly uneventful– German trains are a wonder; they are clean, efficient, and cozy. Indeed, the first leg of our trip had onboard Wifi access and electronic outlets!

Our second, much longer leg of the trip didn’t have Wifi, but it did have a dining car (which we didn’t actually use, but hey).

What it did have was ample opportunity for sight-seeing, and for Teisha, photo-snapping. Here’s a few highlights from the trip.

We arrived on schedule in Paris, the City of Light, and made our way through the metro (which you’ll hear more about on coming days), and to the Hotel du Turrene, located on Rue Tourville, next to Champs des Mars (the garden surrounding the Eiffel Tower) and the Rue Cler (a street with tons of great eateries and artisan food shops). For once, we lucked out on the hotel- reasonably priced, nice beds, free internet (for more than one computer at once!), and sweet, sweet air-conditioning.

Once we’d unloaded our stuff, we headed out to the Rue Cler, where we stopped off at a friendly, and incredibly tasty, local Creperie to get a dessert crepe with Nutella. That creperie, Ulysse en Gaul (Ulysses in Gaul; run by a family of Greek immigrants), has been and will be one of my favorite places in all of Paris. Andrew was overjoyed at the first crepe (and Teisha loved it, too!).

Suitably equipped, we ventured to the garden surrounding the Eiffel Tower, 2 blocks from our hotel, and had an enjoyable first evening seeing the Tower aglow with light and the murmuring throngs of tourists. Ah, to be in Paris.

Thanks for reading!

(Bonus shot: Teisha thought that this animal-girl advertising soda in the Metro was hilarious.)

Again we ate at the breakfast buffet at our hotel (since it was included with our room, and was a pretty good little buffet). As usual, we had mostly breads with various meats and cheeses – very tasty. Of particular note – about every day in Germany Andrew would get a soft-boiled egg (commonly served), some bread with Nutella (basically a chocolate spread which, sadly, many Americans don’t know of), and some fruit (as mentioned before, a wide variety of which is often available in German buffets, contrary to the “meat and potatoes” stereotype of German food). In Munich a specialty is “weisswurst,” a white (“weiss” in German) sausage (“wurst” in German), which is one of the few German sausages you need to remove the skin to eat, and it’s eaten with mustard, as you can see on Andrew’s plate on the right. Altogether, it was quite a delicious breakfast and good start to a long day!

Heading out bright and early, we made our way to the Alte Pinakothek, which is considered the best painting museum in Bavaria (a state in Southern Germany). It has an amazing collection of paintings from the 1300s to 1800s, in particular from several famous artists of the Italian Renaissance (Leonardo, Raphael, Botticelli). We could also take pictures (without flash) so we snapped quite a few! Here are some of particular note…

One of Teisha’s famous artists is Hieronymous Bosch, a late 1400’s Netherland’s painter, (we have a poster of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” at home) and, making Teisha happy, there was actually a Bosch painting at the entrance to the gallery, but only one in the whole museum.

Moving on, one of the famous paintings in the museum is “The Battle of Issus” (Alexander the Great defeating the Persians), showing a world continually at war, impossibly stretching across the Mediterranean.

Then there was the Italian Rennaisance! (1200s to about 1600 from Medieval culture to early modern European culture.) Starting it off was Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virgin and Child,” with halo-less Jesus and Mary. He used a blood-red carnation of Jesus’ eventual death but, luckily, da Vinci later got rid of such symbolism from his works (good riddance).

Raphael then showed us his take on the baby Jesus with his mother Mary, in his “Holy Family at the Canigiani House.” Father Joseph got to feature in this one too! Altogether, with also John the Baptist and his mother, they formed a pyramid-shaped family.

Painting the baby Jesus with his virgin mother Mary is a super popular theme in paintings from this time… and earlier and later… And we quickly got over-exposed and glazed over a bit every time we saw it again… So it was refreshing to see some Greek/Roman mythology-based paintings. That said, Andrew loved this painting of Venus, Mars, and Vulcan. The myth the painting is based on is basically the following – Venus is married to Vulcan but, due to neglect, cheats on him with Mars. Vulcan storms in and finds Venus and knows her lover cannot be far (he’s hiding under the table), and is outraged as he enters the scene. The whole painting has a sense of motion as the figures seem to nearly fall out of the painting.

After a brief Roman/Greek mythological break, we saw the museum’s centerpiece, Peter Paul Ruben’s “Great Last Judgment.” The museum was actually constructed specifically to house this huge 300-square foot canvas. And, yes, it is about Judgment Day, as Jesus is shown judging at the top while sinners are cast down on the right and the righteous are taken up on the left to heaven. The dead have mostly re-grown flesh, except for a few (mostly hidden) skeletons at the bottom.

Interestingly, there was another room full of sketches that Peter Paul Rubens had made – it’s noted that Rubens made lots of these sketches and then probably had students/assistants make the large canvas drawings… so probably hardly any “Rubens” were actually painted by him… Here’s a paired example.

There was also an interesting painting period in the 1600s and 1700s when Europeans were obsessed with African nature. One drawing we found really amusing – there was a rhino covered with armor because this is probably what Europeans thought rhinos were like from descriptions… And then later we saw a statue of this in the Dali museum, but it didn’t credit this little-known painting as its inspiration! Hmm..

After seeing so many paintings of baby Jesus with mother Mary, we really enjoyed a much later piece making fun of this long-standing trend – a dirty, rather disturbing and sleazy-looking painter is standing in a room offering the viewer his painting of the Madonna and child.

After about 3 hours in the Alte Pinakothek, we headed to the English Garden (see Day 7). We went there to meet a relative of Teisha’s. Some of Teisha’s distance relatives were from Germany and so she actually has a third-cousin (they share the same great grandparents!) who lives in Munich – her cousin’s name is Diana Frank. We had a nice leisurely stroll through the English Garden to where we met, at the Chinesischer Turm Beer Garden (one of the two big beer gardens in the Garden – it seats 6,000!). There was a great array of deserts, meats, cheeses, prepared foods, and, of course, beer at the Beer Garden. Meeting up with Diana, we grabbed some tasty food and enjoyed the shady, outdoor Beer Garden environment and good company.

After a lunch of catching up on family and life, Diana (who bikes everywhere, as is the way in German cities,) showed us to a local hotspot in the English Garden – in the last couple years it’s become popular to surf in Munich! This is done in one place on a river that flows through the English Garden, at a point that has just the right flow to create perpetual waves perfect for surfing. It’s really funny to think of Germans, in a land-locked country, becoming obsessed with surfing! But some of them were really great, lasting on the wave for minutes, while others, waiting nearby for their turn, watched on.

This area of the English Gardens really reminded us of Santa Barbara at the beach – just downstream of the surfers, countless people (mostly high schoolers) were in bathing suits sun bathing or jumping into the river, letting it take them down stream like a “lazy river” at a water park. Diana told us that some people hop in, float on down, and then take the tram back to where they started, doing it all over again! We really enjoyed getting the chance to meet Diana, chatting about family, and having her take the time to show us around Munich a bit. Hopefully we can return the favor when she comes by California or Colorado in the future!

After the English Gardens, we decided we hadn’t had enough of Alte Pinakothek and actually walked back to it (it also helped that it was a cool, indoor museum and outside it was extremely hot). Here are a few more we just had to photograph on our return visit:

Walking the mile-or-so back to our hotel from the museum, we discovered that a subway entrance near our hotel actually was an indoor, underground mall! Of course we had to take some pictures.

After relaxing at our room a little and letting our feet recover, we were soon off again! (So much city to see, so little time!) We wanted a filling, quality German dinner and (after consulting Rick Steves’ 2010 Germany guide, which has been very helpful) we settled on a place near Marienplatz (the real center of Munich). It was a great time for strolling down to Marienplatz – along the way (on the pedestrian mall) we saw many street musicians, though none quite as entertaining as we’d seen the night before.

We found our way to the restaurant of our choice, Altes Hackerbrauhaus, known for its good, authentic food, and environment of nooks adorned with paintings, posters, and other decorations. We split a large sampler plate (with five kinds of meat smothered in gravy and deep-fried onion bits, a buttered potato, and sauerkraut) and another Radler beer. Mmmmm…

For desert, we had “Dampfnudel” (white bread balls covered by vanilla sauce, which was like a thin vanilla pudding really).

Full and exhausted, we happily headed back to our hotel room. Thanks for reading Day 8, and stay tuned as we travel to Paris!

We started our day, as per usual, with a tasty buffet from our hotel. This was our first chance to sample Hotel Europaischer Hof’s menu, and although it was less grandiose then our previous hotels’, it was still tasty and varied.

We headed out the same way that we explored last night, heading to Karls Tor, where we captured a daytime view of the magnificent fountain.

Andrew also remembered to capture an image of one of the Munich trams. Munich, like most German (or indeed, European) cities, is simply covered with public transportation options. Munich has an two extensive subway lines, a system of trams above-ground, and buses covering what ground the trams don’t reach. There’s simply no reason to own a car in most European cities. Combined with all the solar, wind, and nuclear power we’ve observed in Germany, and one can quickly see why they are much less concerned with foreign oil (and don’t need to send soldiers to die needless deaths to enforce our cheap oil policies).

Marienplatz was a very different experience during the day, hopping with energetic tourists and sellers– the square was practically covered with stands that were set up! (Including, of course, lots of fruit stands)

We also captured some nice shots of the glockenspiel and some statuary that was difficult to capture at night:

One of the stores on Marianplatz that we couldn’t resist visiting was Max Krug, a specialist in cuckoo clocks, as well as custom beer steins. Amusingly, his sign had German, English, Italian, and Japanese– including a large Japanese inscription saying “O Miyage”, or “Souvenirs!” (Yes, the original Karate Kid’s mentor was named mister souvenir).

Past Marienplatz, we visited the Viktualienmarkt, a large open-air fresh food market and beer garden. It reminded me of the Boulder Farmer’s Market by the Tea house (if you replace the tea house with a beer garden).

At the Viktualienmarkt, our sleep deprivation and general grouchiness started catching up with us, so we decided to grab a meal at the beer garden- schnitzel (which andrew has fallen in love with) and chicken, smothered in mustard (along with disappointing rolls). Of special note, we decided that since we in Germany, in a Beer Garden, on a hot summer day: Well, it was time to actually try a beer. I went with a local favorite, a Radler, which is 1/2 strong German beer and 1/2 Lemon Lime Soda. Amazingly, it was quite good and refreshing– as you can see on both Andrew and Teisha’s faces.

Lunch in our bellies and beer in our throats, we headed out for our real destination of the day– the Deutsches Museum! The Deutsches Museum is Germany’s equivalent of the Smithsonian Institute, a sprawling museum dedicated to science, engineering, and technology.

And boy howdy, does it celebrate engineering. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more gears, levers, engine blocks, and lathes. Don’t get me wrong, it was fascinating. Just a little overwhelming. Here’s a few of our many representative shots.

We took turns choosing which areas to explore, which worked well except for a period forever more known as “Teisha’s Folly”. Still feeling the hot Summer day outside, Teisha chose the underground Mining exhibit. Little did we know that the mining exhibit was an incredible (and incredibly long) tribute to the German craft of mining, with over a mile of detailed reproductions of different mining conditions, bore shafts, and mining techniques. Seriously, after we turned off one coal shaft into a salt shaft into a tubbings-lined shaft into… they started to blend together. It was so surreal that we made a game out of skipping from one room to the next, taunting each other that it would never end. When it did end, we were treated to some fantastic exhibits on early metalworking.

The museum also had a neat biology section, although (and this does my Biochemist heart proud), they call it the “Pharmaceutical Section” and it opens with a large banner proclaiming “All Life is Chemistry”. Boo-ya, and take that biologists. Lots of larger-than-life cell components and exhibits on early drugs were to be had.

We detoured into a great exhibit on early microscopes and telescopes (which segued into some work on holograms that we didn’t even attempt to capture on film).

Next up was a cool exhibit on the history and evolution of musical instruments– including almost twenty pianos, and dozens of oboes, guitars, and much more.

While we explored, the museum allowed an extremely talented Asian man (maybe a visiting musician?) to play on on of their grand pianos. And play he did! It was some of the most beautiful piano I have ever heard in my life, and made Teisha a little depressed. “Depressed?”, I inquired. Teisha explained that it made her wonder how good she could have been, if she had chosen that path. I think she’s chosen a great path, though– and soon, her concern was overwhelmed by the quality of the music.

One of the coolest exhibits was about the evolution of computers- from abacus’ and early calculators, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to circuit boards. It also had a neat section on logic and mathematics– and Andrew was in love. Note Andrew proudly displaying the Moebius Strip.

Between our main exhibit visits, we caught some other interesting tidbits, like a huge industrial loom and several displays of the history of robots.

On the roof of the museum is a Sundial Garden; not too impressive given that it was overcast when we finally climbed our way up. But it did give us some great views of Munich, and of the Deutsches Museum’s clock tower, which is instead a Hygrometer and Barometer– a great concept!

The last major exhibit we saw was a big temporary exhibit hall on emerging technologies, which had lots of hands-on, thought-provoking multimedia displays. It had some showcases on stem cells (which Teisha enjoyed), lots of demonstrations like a huge bowl of feroomagnetic fluid or non-wetting surfaces based on lotus leaf, and lots of “how technology makes our life better” stuff which was great.

Thoroughly brain-blown from information overload, we decided to retire to the English Gardens– the largest city park in continental Europe, and one of Munich’s greatest attractions. It was a beautiful, forested expanse which immediately reminded us of Tokyo. Jokingly, we both commented that we half expected to see a Japanese Tea house in the middle… which it has. Ha!

We stopped for a much earned dinner at Milch Hausl (The Milk Cottage), a little organic food beer garden in the middle of the park. There, we sat on a huge rocking chair and watched children play with hammocks beside a playground. The best sight was a brother and sister of 7 or 9 were playing really rowdy in the hammocks, trying to crash into each other. Unlike America, where people might have freaked out, most people seemed content to let it proceed. All the kids seemed extremely happy and playful– great dinner entertainment. Germans seem much more relaxed than we expected, more like mid-west Americans.

Exhausted but happy, we made our way back through Marianplatz and to our hotel.

Thanks for reading!

We started the day with more amazing food at our hotel buffet; not only delicious meats (Teisha’s has developed a real taste for pickled herring, the small purple thing in the top left), but also very tasty fruits (we’ve had some especially amazing pears here).

Teisha had to get a picture of herself next to her poster. The night before, she stood by it tirelessly for three hours answering questions and getting ideas from others at the conference – it’s one of the best reasons for a grad student to go to such a conference. And after listening to talks all morning and getting a quick lunch, Teisha was done with her conference and we started on our journey to our next German destination: Munich.

Before leaving the conference, Andrew had to make sure to get some pictures of the escalators. Why the escalators, you ask? Well, because they’re amazing – they usually go very slowly, until someone steps onto them and then they immediately speed up to a “normal” speed. Since the conference, we’ve seen these escalators all over Germany… And it just makes sense. Why should an escalator be using the same amount of energy when it’s not even being used? I’ve only seen escalators that do this in the U.S. at one major events center (at a conference in San Fran) – they should really be everywhere…

Bidding farewell to the conference, we took a nearby, quick tram ride to the major train station (a “hauptbahnhof”). The train stations are amazing. Inside it has a variety of stores from food stands, restaurants, and shops or convenience stores. For all major German cities nearby, they have a train arriving about every hour. The train yard, where the trains arrive, had huge, reinforced domes and was very peaceful to wait in. The schedules were also clearly displayed and easy to figure out.

For every train that would pull into its given docking lane, there were even “maps” laying out what “car” would line up with what part of the platform, so you’d know exactly where to stand and board for your car before it even arrived!

To get to Munich we first caught a train to Leipzig, and from there caught a train to Munich. The seats were quite roomy and we even had a folding-out table to use (but we were in “first class” because it was the only way to completely ensure we had a seat). On our way to Leipzig, still in the area around Dresden, there were a number of rather decrepit, abandoned buildings, often next to rather new ones. Funnily, we passed the conference building we were just in. Passing something that looked like a carnival but was completely empty, we headed over the Elbe river and stopped at just a few other stations before arriving in Leipzig.

Outside of Dresden on the way to Leipzig, we saw some beautiful German countryside. There were many wheat fields, some fields with young corn, and at least one field with tons of beautiful sunflowers. Little villages, usually with a central church, were scattered off in the distance from the train, here and there. We also passed over or near tons of rivers and streams– it’s a very well-irrigated country.

And while we didn’t see too many houses with backyards in Dresden, we saw many houses with nice yards (and often flower gardens) further in the country between Dresden and Leipzig.

Also, the Germans are all about “alternative energy.” There were a ton of wind turbines all over the country! We saw some very huge ones off in the distance. Also often in “little” villages there would be several houses with entire roofs covered by solar panels. And later (on our way to Munich) we saw what we thought was a nuclear power plant …

Somehow our train to Leipzig became (surprisingly) delayed and was about 20 minutes late arriving to Leipzig, meaning we missed our very short (4 minute) connection for our train to Munich. Luckily, this was quite easy to solve – there was another train heading to Munich in less than an hour, and all we had to do was explore the Leipzig train station waiting for the next Munich train. I love the transportation here.

The Leipzig train station was huge, basically a 3-story mall. We didn’t explore the shops too much, but did enjoy a Nutella crepe from a crepe stand and a huge cup of fruit from a fruit stand (yes, Germany has tons of wonderful fresh fruit all over!).

And then we caught our (on-time) train from Leipzig to Munich. The train from Dresden to Leipzig was only about an hour long, not giving us too much time to settle in, but the train from Leipzig to Munich was about 5 hours, giving us plenty of time to get comfortable. We worked on our laptops and played some games on our new iPad (it has been a lot of fun for this trip!). Along the way, we saw more little villages and mostly thick, beautiful, green forests and some farm fields. And what we think was a nuclear plant off in the distance…

Getting into the Munich train station about 9PM, the train station was bustling! Again, it was like a mall where trains happened to arrive.

Our hotel was only about a block from the station, so a nice easy walk. We were rather disappointed with our hotel, Hotel Europaischer Hof, but it was all we could find when booking only a few weeks in advance and at a reasonable price (about 85 Euro a night). The staff was fine and the room functional, but a little small, with no air conditioning, a tiny shower, curtains that hardly blocked any light, and right by a very, very noisy street (I had to use earplugs to sleep well). The worst part was the heat because it probably never got below 85 to 90F in that room (plus high humidity), due to the heat wave, making it quite hard to sleep in (or to want to hang out in at all). And we had problems setting up the internet… but it eventually got fixed. But, as we say, the hotel room is just a place to sleep in – the rest of the time you’re supposed to be exploring the area, right? So we threw down our stuff and went out into the city to check things out, even though it was about 10PM by then.

We headed towards the tourist center of town, called Marienplatz (any “platz” literally means a “plaza,” but really is a “square”), which is just a little under a mile from our hotel. Along the way, we saw some neat scenes.

We passed Karlsplatz, a square with a huge water fountain constantly spraying water towards the center, surrounded by big shops. Lots of people were enjoying the mist on this hot night. Right by the Karlsplatz is Karl’s Gate – this used to be a main gate to the center city (and going out from the gate was a wall surrounding the city, but this wall has become a road circling the inner city).

From Karl’s Gate to Marienplatz, there’s basically a wide pedestrian mall with people wandering it all the time. Even this late, there were still many musicians out on the street performing. We saw a really good group who did classical songs with a re-mixed modern twist. The lead singer/violinist was what really got the audience – he shouted out to people to sing along to the classical songs, and, of course, spoke only in English. (There’s much more English here in Munich than Dresden, as it’s more of a tourist town.)

And then we made it to Marienplatz, and it was quite worth the walk. We were tired and weren’t quite sure what to expect when we turned the corner and saw the amazing “New Town Hall” (built in the late 1800s) (which, due to fires, is actually older than the re-built “Old Town Hall” next to it). Although New Town Hall is an impressive building with neat architecture and sculptures, it’s really famous because of its Glockenspiel clock. We could see the several figurines, in the center of the building near the top, but didn’t see them move until the next day (they only do their dance 3 times a day).

Lastly, we realized we needed dinner! We’ve actually seen a lot of Italian restaurants in Germany and we were so tired we finally gave into eating at one of them, splitting a 12” Hawaiian pizza (which, sadly, wasn’t as good as the one I had in the Philadelphia airport the week before!). We were quite grateful that we had an indoor table, as it started completely pouring 5 minutes after we sat down! Despite the heat, we even saw hail for a minute.

Overall, it was a good, relaxing day of travel. Stay tuned for what we actually did once in Munich – tasty food, beer we actually drank (for those of you who know us, you’ll understand what a big thing that is!), and so many awesome museums!

As I said, the breakfast spread at the Maritim was superb– not only a dazzling variety of choices, but high quality and tasty as well. Did I mention that “vacation” and “meal” appear to be synonyms on this travelogue? That was never the intention, but we always seem to remember the camera at meal-time; the rest of the time, we’re living in the moment. Ah well. When there’s delicious German food to be had, I can’t regret immortalizing it a little bit. Did I say dazzling variety up there? Why yes, yes I did. Let’s see what Teisha’s camera-work captured:

Here’s her overview photo to capture the venue.

Then, we’ll start the tour with the “wet” salads (curry, cheese salad, egg salad, carrot salad, potato salad, shrimp and fish salad, cucumber salad, cottage cheese, and some others).

And, of course, a wide selection of cheeses and meats– both hard and soft cheese, and many different slices and sausages of meat.

Teisha also really enjoyed the cold fish salads (the purple one is pickled herring, which was quite tasty and not really “fishy” at all).

The Germans also didn’t disappoint in the bread (Brot) selection, with sliced breads, multiple varieties of rolls, baguettes, a variety of cereals, and delightful (and again, very non-greasy) pastry treats.

Given the “meat and potatoes” reputation of German cuilinary arts, one thing that’s surprised us is how much fruit is available on every corner– a local chain called “Vita Bar” seems particularly common, and you’re more likely to see someone walk by eating a pear than a donut.

Wow. So much food. So, what did we actually eat? Here’s the final spread, along with a very satisfied photographer enjoying the “fruits” of her labor.

Breakfast done with, our brave adventurers went their own ways for the day, with Teisha keeping the camera at first, and capturing a few sights from the conference.

The craziest things to see were still the amazing “brand-awareness” of Novus Biologicals, with an antibody car and a pair of antibody princesses.

The conference was in full swing, and even featured a massage parlor for tired scientists.

Teisha took one last photo from the conference before meeting Andrew for a conference-sponsored lunch and handing off the camera– a gigantic (the size of Andrew’s full torso) flask for growing large numbers of cells. That’s a lot of cells, in what they dub a “cell factory”.

Andrew was feeling a bit stir-crazy by now (working on your vacation and hiding in the hotel room being two no-nos of the “serious”, frivolous traveler), so he set out to experience a little more of Dresden. This was accomplished through an impromptu voyage to Neustadt Bahnhof (New Town Train Station), which allowed Andrew to sample the excellent Dresden tram system again. If I lived in Dresden, I’d never own a car– in fact, Mike Tipsword from Day 2 has been here 8 years and has never needed one. There’s an extensive series of trams / light rail cars that interlace the whole city (most locations are 2 or 3 blocks from a tram stop), and a given tram arrives every 8 to 12 minutes. Not only that, but every stop has electronic signs that update constantly, telling you how many minutes until the next tram. The trams themselves are quick, clean, and quiet. Just delightful.

Observation of things like the tram system on this trip have really made both of us feel that the United States is so backward in some ways. As you’ll see on Day 6, traveling through the country-side and seeing all the nuclear and wind power stations only emphasized how forward-thinking Germany is in comparison.

Anyway, digression over. Andrew visited the Neustadt Bahnhof and took some photos. Here’s a few highlights (note the electronic signs for the trains– they’re identical to the tram ones).

Every train station we’ve been to in Germany has a cute diorama / model train set of the local area, and Neustadt was no exception.

And I finally had a chance to see a proper German brat store.

Day 5 ended with Teisha and Andrew both exhausted and feeling ready for a change of venue– coming on Day 6! Thanks for reading.

Here’s all of Day 4′s photos, but the fun travelogue and explanations are below!

The conference has a large exhibition hall, with all the posters (hundreds), vendors (dozens), and caterers (a never ending stream). Mmm, caterers.

Some of the exhibitors, such as Tecan, were demonstrating quite impressive automated machinery for cell work and liquid handling. Their system can automatically maintain plates of cells, changing media and moving samples in and out of the incubator.

One of the largest presences was Novus Biologicals, who were very devoted to selling their brand– including the first “booth babes” that I’ve ever seen at a scientific event!

Teisha took a few nice shots of the bustling exhibit hall, which looks more lively than it did during set-up, yesterday.

Similarly, the conference hall was packed today!

At about 5 pm, we headed out from the conference center, walking down the banks of the Elbe river. Even at 5, it was bright, sunny, and something like 85 degrees, so we made sure to change into appropriate hiking garb:

The hike over was quite beautiful, and it was a good chance for both of us to relax and just enjoy each others company. Here’s a few of the best shots we took along the way:

It was nice to see how active the park/promenade area was– lots of people swimming, bikes zooming by on the path constantly, and a few kids swingsets (along with beer gardens every mile or so). As a bonus, the photo of the biker has our destination in sight: the Blue Wonder bridge!

The area near the bridge boosts the distinction of being the most expensive land in Europe… in the 1800s. Still, there are a ton of impressive villas along the way. Teisha was reminded of Jane Austen novels by the one with the fountain.

Finally, we made it to the bridge, and to the 300 year-old Schillergarten beer garden. I think neither of us had packed quite enough water for the hike, and we were both quite hungry. So we immediately dove into a tasty, tasty meal– the centerpiece of which was amazing schnitzel.

The Beer Garden had a really relaxed, pleasant atmosphere– and reinforced once again that (a) Americans are noisy, since even drunk Germans don’t hoot and holler, and (b) Germans are very friendly. A few examples: The menu was all in German and had to be verbally ordered from (no printed menu to point to or anything, just a blackboard near the entrance), and when we struggled to order, a friendly customer acted as a translator for us, making sure we ordered just what we wanted. Then later, while eating, a mother and her 10-year old daughter sat down next to us, and upon hearing us speaking English, ended up chatting with us for a while. It was sweet and kind of sad– she carries around a travel guide to New York city, as “her dream”, but has lived in Dresden her whole life and never visited the united States… she said the flights are just too long. Much fun was had! Here’s a shot of the beer garden vista (we were too distracted talking and eating to take more photos).

We then took a quick tram (think Light Rail) back to our hotel’s neighborhood (On Day 5, I’ll talk about the awesome public transportation), and captured a few outdoor shots of the conference center– and a pretty sunset over its flag collection. It was a good day.

Here’s our photos from Day 3, but you really should just read on for the explanations!

Since we were leaving our first Dresden stomping grounds, we thought we’d snap a few shots of a few more fun things before we left. Frauenkirche, the rebuilt church discussed on Day 2, has an all new dome, but one piece of the old dome is preserved right in front of it:

We had our last awesome breakfast at the Gasthaus Am Neumarkt, and captured photos of us happily eating, as well as some photos of the restaurant itself:

We left to go wander over to a public Park we had seen yesterday, hidden behind the royal palace. On the way there, we ran into a big (probably several thousand participants) bike race:

The park (once we weaved through the oncoming bikes) was quite nice, and Teisha snapped some shots of the local crows, ducks, and humans.

We then stopped by the Zwinger and Royal Palace region one last time, to capture a few shots we missed.
For instance, the fake graffiti on the fake-wall of the under-renovation Zwinger (that smiley face is part of the backdrop, not added later):

And here’s a few nice shots: Teisha in front of the Zwinger fountains, the entrance to the Green Vault, and a model of the palace:

All that done, we were just about ready to head out for new adventures… until we realized that we had never actually made it inside the famous Frauenkirche. Oops! Of course, it was Sunday, too. That meant lots of services, and not much chance. In fact, we ended up walking in with the patrons attending a church service, taking some quick photos (very respectfully, no flash, trying to stay out of the way), and then making our exit. It is a beautiful church inside:

I also got a shot of the church’s original cross (which used to adorn the top of the dome). In 1945, when the church was bombed, the cross fell 300 feet and then burned– but the metal survived. Interestingly, the church’s new cross is a replica made by the son of one of the English pilots who bombed the church, which I think is a hugely powerful statement.

After that moment of somber reverance, we were ready to bid adieu to Munzgasse street, our first stomping ground in Germany.

The second leg of our adventure starts at the Maritim Conference Center– our new hotel, and the site of The 3rd International Congress on Stem Cell and Tissue Formation. The walk over was a bit grueling- 90 degree heat, blazing sun, and noisily dragging luggage (at least we packed light) across cobblestone streets. We made it, though, and checked into our new room (pictures of the outside will have to wait for Day 4). Note Andrew’s “mobile work station” to get some science done while Teisha is in the conference.

One thing that was interesting is that, in addition to having a bathtub/shower, a sink, and a toilet, there was this fixture in the same small room as the toilet, facing it. It didn’t look like any bidet I’ve ever seen, and has hot and cold water. We’re still not sure what it’s for.

Checked in, rinsed off, and gussied up in our “serious scientist” garb (which, for a conference, means slacks and a button shirt with no obvious food or sweat stains), we headed over to the beautiful conference center. The main lecture hall can hold about a thousand people (which is about how many are attending).

The conference center is very ultra-chic and is situated right along the Elbe river.

Here’s Teisha posing in her conference outfit:

Since Andrew’s not actually attending, getting into the conference area to visit could present a problem. So, like many of Mother Nature’s creatures, he quickly evolved protective coloration, mimicking a legitimate conference attendee with suitable garb, a poster tube, and one of the bags handed out to attendees. Two days running (though without the poster tube), this garb has allowed Andrew to seamlessly infiltrate the conference event. He promises that he did his best not to learn anything. We feel pretty vindicated because we’ve caught at least three or four other couples doing the same thing.

Our day ended on a high note– Getting fed by the conference, which prepared a huge banquet feast, and sitting on the plaza of the conference center, watching the Elbe roll by.

In fact, we were so hungry that we couldn’t even wait to take a photo of our meal before digging in:

That’s it for Day 3– the next several days will probably be a bit shorter, since Teisha is at the conference most of the day, and Andrew is telecommuting a bit. But on Day 4, we did take off early to go visit the Blue Wonder Bridge. Tune in soon for the next update!

If you just want to see all the pictures for Day 2, here is the link to the photo gallery– but read on for explanations and interesting tidbits.

To start with, our hotel for the first few days, which we talked about yesterday, was situated right in the heart of the historic “Old Dresden” center. In fact, the view out of our window was looking directly at, a stones-throw away from, the most famous building in Dresden: Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).

During World War II, Dresden was heavily firebombed, and the historic church was one of the greatest architectural casulties. All that was left was rubble. But beginning in the 1990s, Dresdeners started to rebuild Frauenkirche, using old photographs to perfectly recapture what was lost. Moreover, they tried to piece the rubble together– about 30% of the building is using the original stones (you can tell which ones because they are black and burned from the firebombing). The top dome couldn’t use the original stones because they wouldn’t be structurally strong enough, but they preserved the largest existing chunk of the dome:

Before I move on, let me give you a quick description of our little apartment. It was small but well furnished, and aside from the sweltering heat (no air conditioner during the hottest month in the city), it was just about perfect. Dresden doesn’t seem very used to large beds– in both of our hotels so far, a “double” is just two single beds pushed together. The bathroom was nice; it had a sit-down only shower. We even had a little kitchenette, although we didn’t get much chance to use it.

After our nice morning view, we headed over to the continental breakfast provided by our hotel, at the restaurant also owned by them, Gasthaus am Neumarkt (the Guesthouse by New Market). Germans really know their breakfasts, perhaps more than any other meal we’ve had. Here I am enjoying our delightful spread:

The food was all served buffet-style, but was of exceptional quality and freshness. The sliced meats and bread we exceptional (I’ve never had cold meat cuts for breakfast before, but it’s actually quite interesting– German meat, even salami, is incredibly non-greasy. It feels hearty, not fatty).

Rested, well-fed, and raring to go, we set out to explore the historic core of Dresden. First, we went outside our hotel and checked out the outside of Frauenkirche, although we didn’t make it inside until day 3, as it’s an active church and you have to sneak in between services.
We got a nice picture or two of Andrew in front of a statue of Martin Luther.

Next on the list was a visit to the Zwinger, an adjoining grounds to the Royal Palace that gradually got filled up with it’s own complex of museums, galleries, and gardens. It has a large central garden, which Teisha is modeling in.

Each side of the Zwinger has a different history. For instance, the Crown Gate is topped by a large black crown, with a smaller gold crown on top. This was built for Augustus the Strong (who we’ll hear lots about– he’s the big hero of Dresden)– we was both Elector of Saxony (the black crown) and King of Poland (the gold one).

Major restoration work is still underway at the Zwinger and, amusingly, they put up fake plastic/canvas fascades that match the “final look” to hide the construction (complete with fake graffiti, which you’ll see on day 3). In the zoomed out picture with Teisha, you can see the real Zwinger on the right and the fascade on the left.

Teisha wanted to point out a few other areas of the Zwinger, like a cute bird she saw, Andrew in front of the gardens, and two more gates– one of which is a bell tower.

Lastly, some of the sculpted decorations of the Zwinger were quite neat, including a statue of Augustus the Strong as Atlas, globe on his back, and some strange satyrs/devils on the columns near one gate.

In the Zwinger, we visited the Old Masters Gallery, a painting gallery with famous works of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Dutch masters. You can’t take any photos in there, but the most famous work is the Sistine Madonna by Raphael, with the famous cupids.

We left the Zwinger to head towards the Royal palace. In the courtyard between them, you can see the famous Semperoper Opera House and some beautiful flowers.

More interestingly, you can see a Catholic Cathedral, the Hofkirche (the only big catholic church in town; only about 5% of Dresdeners are Catholic), which was built by Augustus III (son of Augustus the Strong). The Kings had converted to Catholicism, even though most of the population was protestant, and felt that they needed a Catholic Church to counterbalance the protestant influence. But none of their protestant workers would build it! So Augustus III had to import Italian laborers to get the job done– in the photo you can see the Hofkirche on the right, and the Italian villa that was built for the imported laborers on the left.

At the Royal Palace, we visited the Historic Green Vault, a repository of gold, silver, and other treasures from the kings of Saxony, considered the most impressive sight in Dresden (we had to get our tickets 2 months in advance, and they keep the exhibit isolated with an airlock). It was neat, but for all that build up, perhaps a little underwhelming. Again, no photography allowed. Basically, picture a series of rooms with mirrored walls, each with hundreds of wall sconces adorned with silver and gold drinking cups, statuettes, and jewelry.

After all that, we were felling a little over-museumed, and so it was wonderful that we got a chance to meet up with Mike Tipsword, an old colleague of Teisha’s boss Dennis Clegg (Mike worked for Dennis as an undergrad back in 1992-1994). Mike, who now works at the Max Planck Institute, was incredibly nice, and showed us around Dresden’s “New Town”, which ironically is the area that survived the bombing in World War II, making most of it’s buildings older. It’s the part of the town that isn’t full of tourists, and is where the life of the city takes place. We were so caught up talking to Mike that we didn’t take a lot of pictures, but we got a nice picture of Teisha and Mike at the Durum joint where Mike generously treated us to lunch (Turkish shwarma and falafel, the most common fast food in Dresden).

When we left New Town, we finally got a chance to visit our first Beer Garden, and to explore the Elbe river. Here’s some nice pictures of the riverbank (with Frauenkirche and the palace on the other side), along with the Augustus bridge that crosses it.

Meandering back through the Old Town, we ran across a model boat demonstration, which actually had quite a crowd–including Brat vendors, Beer, and a news crew. Germans must like their model boats!

As promised on day 1, we then returned to the “Parade of Nobles”, a gigantic porcelain fixture on the side of the royal palace. It depicts all the Wettin Saxon kings. For scale, here is Andrew admiring it up close:

The parade (backwards to forwards) ends with the artist himself (who made the mural in 1907), who is wearing a hat and looking out at the audience.

The last Wettin Kings come next:

And here’s Augustus the Strong, whose horse is shown stomping a rose (a symbol of Martin Luther and protestantism, which Augustus renounced for Catholicism in order to become King of Poland).

There’s a whole sequence we took (available in the whole gallery), which are fascinating because the artist strove to accurately capture the attire and weaponry of each era. One that was interesting to us was the first inclusion of hunting dogs and black servants.

Strangely, the parade begins with a generic “band leader” and minstrils, rather than anyone famous.

As night started settling in, we headed down to the Prager Strasse (Prague Street), which is becoming a major shopping area, but used to be the site of many blocky, soviet-era construction projects (many of the huge apartment buildings survive).

Just wanted to point out the Turkish influence: Durum fast food restaurants are everywhere, and there’s lots of Turkish street performers, like this girl playing accordian.

By now, we were exhausted, and headed “home” to Munzgasse and Frauenkirche. We were lucky enough to catch a some fire-jugglers performing for the crowd on the rampart overlooking the Elbe.

And while Germany didn’t get to the finals of the World Cup (drat, that would have been fun), they were certainly still excited by the runner-up match. There was a whole soccer-watching stadium set up across the riverbank, and when Germany won, the town set off fireworks.

And so, with fireworks booming in the distance and cheap ice cream in our bellies, we ended day 2 of our exciting adventure. Thanks for reading!

With that preface, here we’ll tell you all about the first day of our trip!

If you want to see all the pictures for Day 1, here is the link to the photo gallery.

We left Santa Barbara at 6:30AM, as the sun was rising. There was a layer of fog over the town and once the plane flew out over it it was quite beautiful – the fog looked like a field of snow!

From Santa Barbara we flew to Phoenix, where I tried out my new iPad’s ability to use WiFi at the airport and checked and wrote some email on it! We also really enjoyed the iPad on the plane, mainly for watching videos and playing some games – it’s been quite fun and slick.

From Phoenix, we flew to Phillidelphia and grabbed some dinner there. Amazingly, I think I had the best slice of Hawaiian pizza there that I’ve ever had – the tomato sauce was really well done. Once we got to our gate we unfortunately couldn’t find a power outlet by any chairs, so we stood/walked around an outlet on the wall in a big hallway to let our electronics charge for the long trans-Atlantic flight.

And then we flew to Frankfurt… it wasn’t really that long a flight – about 8 hours. Unfortunately, we couldn’t sleep too well on the plane (it was night when we left, but night it very short when you fly East!), so we were zombies in Frankfurt. But right away we noticed differences in American vs. German airports. First, we were a bit confused by the customs process, which doesn’t seem to exist – we got off the plane, and found our new gate, and went through security that was only for a couple gates (not the whole airport) and it was quite painless (didn’t need to take our shoes off!), and then we were near our gate and other shops. Also, the Frankfurt airport was much quieter than American airports (no constant loud announcements!) and when we boarded it was all announced by a (relatively quiet) recorded announcer. Much nicer than most American airports I’ve seen…

From Frankfurt, we flew to Dresden (only a half hour flight!), getting there about 2PM on Friday Dresden time (5AM California time) and continued to be zombies there, since we’d been more-or-less awake for about 24 hours by then. The Dresden airport is rather small (maybe only a bit bigger than Santa Barbara’s), but quite clean and looks new. Somehow, my luggage didn’t make it to Dresden (though Andrew’s did)… we waited at the baggage claim until everyone else had taken their bags. We then talked to “lost and found” and the very nice man there helped us fill out some paper work. He then found on their online system that my bag wasn’t “lost” after all but had been accidentally left in Frankfurt. That was a relief. He gave me a neat “women’s overnight kit” (including an XL t-shirt and hairbrush!) and my luggage made its way to our hotel about 11PM that night, which was great.

Anyway… from the airport we shuffled on to the subway (for less than 2 Euros each!). I just want to take a minute to say that the public transportation in Dresden (and probably most European cities like it) is amazing – trams and subways all over, every few blocks, get you anywhere you want to be in the city quickly for a few Euros – I don’t understand why public transportation in the U.S. is so, so far behind in most places…

Getting off the subway, we found it was super hot in Dresden. Apparently there’s been a heat wave (locals have told us it’s usually bad for about 10 days each summer) and it’s been in the 90s Fahrenheit, not getting much cooler at night. We’ve now learned to pick our paths according to the amount of shade they provide from nearby structures.

We got off the subway near the center of Old Dresden. A little bit of history on Dresden. Apparently the area has been lived in by Neolithic tribes since 7500 BC, although it was not “recently” settled until around 1100 AD and became a capital of the area in the 1200s AD. It’s remained a capital of sorts and a center of art for centuries, until World War II. The main city is divided into “new” and “old” Dresden by the Elbe river, with the “new” in the north and the “old” in the south. “Old Dresden,” which has most of the historic sites (including the Royal Palace and the site of the original church), was almost completely destroyed in 1945 by WWII air bombers, while “New Dresden” was barely touched by the bombers and remained largely intact, but has few historic buildings. After WWII “Old Dresden” was rebuilt, and the historic buildings were replaced as exactly as possible. Consequently, “Old Dresden” actually has a lot of rather new buildings, and is still rebuilding/constructing a lot to this day. (Here’s a map to help make it a bit clearer.)

All that said, we spent the first two nights in the heart of “Old Dresden,” really the tourist center of Dresden. We stayed in the “Aparthotel An der Frauenkirche,” which are hotel/apartment rooms with a kitchen (including refrigerator and silverware/plates/sink). It was really nice except it had no air conditioning, so we avoided our room during the day (which was fine since we wanted to explore the city anyway!). However, I think the view/surroundings made up for it – the hotels are on Munzgasse (a street lined with open-air restaurant seating, perfect for tourists – near #4 on the map link) and our window directly faced the most famous church in Dresden, the Frauenkirche (“Church of our Lady” – #8 on the map link and more on it in day 3)!

Also, musicians also often played right outside the window, by the church, and horse-drawn carriages for tourists were constantly clopping along the church too (the big dark building on the left is the church, and the lighter colored building is where our apartment is). It all created a very peaceful-sounding environment.

Part of the church from the other side of the plaza:

Although we were quite exhausted by the flight, we wanted to go out and see some of the town. We wandered around the couple blocks near the hotel to get our bearings. We went around the Royal Palace and saw the “Parade of Nobles Mural” that goes along the back of it (#10 on the map link)– basically a history of the nobles that ruled the area since the 1100s, but more on that in Day 2.

This also seemed to be about as far as the horse-drawn carriages went, which is only about a block from the central church. All around this area, and even further into town, there were musicians performing on street corners. Here are some groups right around the Royal Palace.

The Elbe River goes right by the Royal Palace and is quite scenic, as Andrew is appreciating here.

And then we realized we should eat something, even though we were super jet lagged and exhausted and not really hungry. We ate at a place right on Munzgasse, actually below our apartment room, and it was great, fairly authentic Bavarian food — Andrew got cabbage stuffed with beef and a quiche-thing, and I got duck and sausage stew. Sooo tasty, and amazingly not greasy!

As if dinner were not enough, we had to get ice cream afterward. Well, honestly, Andrew had to get ice cream for me — and how can you resist when there’s a little ice cream stall on every corner and sells a scoop of ice cream in a cone for just one Euro? Here’s my awesome hubbie at work.

And then we had to collapse in bed, after hardly having any sleep for something like 30 hours! In Day 2, we actually did more exploring of Dresden and its great museums — stay tuned for a good history lesson and more beautiful Baroque architecture from Dresden.