The national museum of hygiene...?

Jonathan and I decided to take it easier yesterday after a very full weekend, and many more activities in store for this week and next week. We hit the old part of the city (Altstadt) again, revisited the palace and the Zwinger, and spent some time in my favorite church in Dresden, the Kreuzkirche (The Church of the Cross, loosely translated). The Kreuzkirche has been completely destroyed and rebuilt a total of 5 times in the past 102 years-- it has been flooded, set on fire twice, bombed, and vandalized, but the congregation has still always pooled the resources to rebuild it.

Today we visited my favorite museum ever (which says a lot!!), called the Deutsches Hygiene Museum, which, when translated sounds like a museum about highly infectious diseases, human filth, and the refusal of a nation to bathe itself, the national museum of hygiene. There is so much more in the museum than I'm able to describe. Jonathan and I spent a good 3 hours in the museum, and could have stayed much, much longer, but we both got hungry. I know well enough by now that Jonathan's hunger is an urgent one. One of my favorite parts was an exhibit on the five senses, and a 2 person pitch frequency test. Jonathan has a much wider range in his hearing than I do, and while the middle register didn't faze him at all, it left me writhing in agony and begging for mercy. The higher frequencies were like nails on a chalkboard to Jonathan, but really didn't bother me at all. It was interesting to note the frequencies that were disturbing to both of us. My ears rang for nearly 10 minutes afterwards, though. There was also a station where we could measure noise and our personal level of discomfort. It should come as no surprise that my nearly teenaged brother could handle the music at a MUCH higher volume than I could. But I'm sure that Mum and Dad will tell me that I used to be just like him. On the right is one of Jonathan's souvenirs from the museum--a magnified hair follicle on his arm. We were able to email it to ourselves directly from the museum exhibit.

Jonathan requested a Döner for lunch (a Turkish street food. Homemade bread piled high with seasoned meat, lettuce, tomatoes, pickled cabbage, garlic sauce and herb sauce.) and destroyed his before turning on mine. It seems that Döner are replacing Bockwurst and Pizza baguettes as his favorite foods here--he is even planning to make Döner his last meal here, eating one for breakfast at 6AM before he boards his plane to go back home. I've tried to warn him that he'll have vicious heartburn (and that Döner really isn't a breakfast food, despite the fact that he won't have any problems finding a stand that's open so early), but he really doesn't care. He's made up his mind, knows where to find a stand on the way to d airport, and won't take no for an answer. He's already worried about how life will be back in the States without Döner, strawberry yogurt, Pizza Baguettes, and Bockwurst...

The Young Mister Thurman says: Today I went to a health museum. It was so much fun, there were some goggles that did this weird thing that shifted your sight to the left six inches. I loved looking through them, I would sit down wearing them and then fall of the chair with my head down and be so dizzy that I had to laugh. There was a hot and cold spiral. Every other spiral would be hot while the other would be cold. My hand felt so weird when I touched it, it felt real hot but yet somehow realy cold at the same time. We did a voice recogniotion test wher you heard peoples voices and then you click on a person and see if your right. Erica and I got one right out of like ten. There was a mindball game that Erica and I almost got to play but it broke some how.


After that I had a Döner, its lamb with lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, with some nice sauces. It was so good, I ate mine and half of Erica's but hers didn't have any meat so it wasn't as good, after that I was still hungry.

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