F**K!! It's cold!!

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Hey, its Josh here. Gin’s been doing all the work with the blog so far (and fine job that it’s been). I reckoned it was about time I contributed more than just eating leftover food and taking up space in the camper.

Drive from Amsterdam to Dresden was split over two days, with a night being spent in a campground in Hanover. The next morning we took the opportunity to brush our teeth while standing on a frozen lake, and take some photos. It’s the small things in life.

We reached Dresden at 4.30 on Friday afternoon, meaning Renton had a hell of a job getting the 1.9 Turbo charged death machine to manoeuvre between lines of small (but well engineered) German cars, as Dresden residents all invaded the central city.

After sorting out our campground for the night, we bedded down for what turned into a freezing night, the temperature inside the camper hitting 16 degrees below zero. We've decided to use the fridge to keep our milk warm from now on; the milk stored in the corner of the camper had frozen solid by the morning.

The following day we toured the city from a double-decker tour bus. Dresden was left relatively untouched by bombing during the Second World War, until the night of the 14th and 15th of February 1945, when British and American bombers levelled 15 square kilometres of the city. In the aftermath of the war, Dresden was entirely rebuilt to its pre-war plans, which means the buildings are much like those in Ieper, they are old style buildings constructed of new stone.

Josh also learned something today. Salomon GT X-Wings are the footwear of choice for today’s stylish urban athlete, enabling the wearer to change speed, direction and terrain at a moment’s notice. However,, they are crap with dealing with shin-deep snow. Running the risk of frostbite just to look good no longer seemed like the excellent idea that it once did. So while Gin browsed Dresden’s Christmas markets, Renton and Josh both went looking for gumboots. 15 Euros later and life was looking up.

Dresden has some of the best Christmas markets in Europe, so we spend a few hours looking through those. Gin was having a ball browsing through the stalls, while Renton and I hung around drinking Gluhwein and sampling the excellent horsemeat sausages on offer.

So after a few days of German culture, it was on the road again.......................Not quite.
The driveway into the campground was on quite an incline, and our German hosts had inexplicably decided that grit wasn't really necessary. They must have thought that no-one in their right minds would camp at this time of year, so they would just let the driveway ice over.
Anyway, there was no way we could get the camper out as it was. So using a spade, a hammer and a knife, we spent an hour digging the ice away from the driveway to be able to leave. The photo shows Gin and Renton halfway through the process, looking REALLY impressed.
Cheers Dresden.

Till next time kids

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Photos

Marital Bliss
Gin and Renton on the lake in Hanover

Cold much?
Yep, that does read minus 13 at 3 in the afternoon. Thermometer at the Dresden campground

Trying to leave
We spent an hour digging the ice off the campground driveway so we could get the camper out