Dresden - Days 29-30


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Europe » Germany » Saxony » Dresden
October 4th 2006
Published: October 16th 2006
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On Wednesday morning, I went to Zoo station to validate my rail pass. I walked up to the counter and said

Sprechen sie englisch

to the reservation agent. She replied with

nein

, which totally threw me off guard. I hadn't expected her to say that she didn't speak english. At worst I was expecting to hear that she only spoke a little. So, the simple word and gesture game began. It really wasn't all that hard, as she did speak a little bit of english. I think a lot of people here aren't that comfortable speaking it so they say they can't speak it even though their english is far better than my german. We got everything worked out and she put the correct dates on my pass so I was happy.

I took a train to Berlin's central station (Hauptbanhof) and found the correct platform for the train to Dresden. As I was waiting, a man came up to me and slowly asked if I spoke english. I kind of chuckled, and replied

Sure do

. He was just trying to make sure he was in the right place, and we talked a bit before he thanked me and left. It really was funny to hear the way he asked if spoke english though. I mean no wonder there are so many funny stereotypes about american tourists.

Eventually the train came and I found a seat in a compartment with some people from Dresden who had just got back from 3 weeks traveling in Africa. They were really cool to talk to and one of them drew a map to the tourist office for me since my LP didn't have even a basic one for Dresden.

I found the tourist office and walked to the Moon Palace hostel, which must have been about 2 miles away. Sheesh! The hostel turned out to be really nice though. Everything was really well kept, and the beds were the most comfortable I've slpet in so far. I met a Canadian guy and a Kiwi girl and we spent the evening drinking (cheap) beer in the kitchen area.

The next day was rainy but I only had the one day to see Dresden so I set off with the Canadian to see the city center. It was almost completely destroyed during the war, and has now been completely restored. It was probably the coolest architecture I had seen to date, although it only took about 2 hours to see the whole city center. After that we retreated to the hostel and stopped for a Döner on the way back.

These Döner kebap places are everywhere in germany. It's cheap and really tasty food that I seem to end up having at least once a day! I don't know what I'm going to do for quick food once I leave Germany.

That night was pretty much like the last, except the Kiwi girl had been replaced by an Aussie. It's hard to not sit around drinking the beer because its just so cheap and tasty. I do miss dark beer, though. I haven't really found any -- its mostly pilsner and weissbier.

While walking around Dresden I came across tons of posters and stickers advertising the Borat movie. For those of you who aren't aware, Borat is a character on Da Ali G show, and he is fucking hilarious. The movie is coming out in November and I'm going to do everything I can to find a theater playing it (in english). It was a bit odd to see the posters everywhere, though. I mean, why Dresden? I haven't seen them anywhere else since.

Stay tuned for Munich.

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16th October 2006

Darkbeer
...for darkbeer you should come to Düsseldorf ;-)

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