Dresden: A tale of two cities

So this past weekend I popped on over to Dresden to visit my good friend Lisa who is there for the summer conducting neuro-research at the Uniklinikum. It's stuff way above my head, but from what I could grasp it seemed pretty cool. Now Dresden is only about 2 and a half hours from Bayreuth, but by bus it's around 4 and with train it can be any longer, not to mention expensive. So I boldly chose to get there through a ride-share. Now you may be thinking "Sommer isn't that dangerous?" and it's true the thought did run through my head that I had no idea what kind of person would be driving me. After all it essentially is pre-mediated hitch-hiking. But in the end it worked out great. It cost me just 10 Euro each way (as opposed to a 22 Euro bus ride each way), I got to practice my German, and the guy who drove me was very clear on when and where to meet him for my rides. The "Mitfahrgelegenheit" is a win in my book.

So Lars dropped me off at the Hauptbahnhof, and since Lisa still had work that day, I just wandered around the Altstadt. And boy was it beautiful. Going into the city, I really only knew about Zwinger Palace and of course the famous Frauenkirche. But there are so many other beautiful buildings; the architecture is absolutely stunning. Personally I love Baroque architecture though, so this was definitely my jam.

Frauenkirche. The dark stones are the original ones that survived the "Firestorm" of WWII

The churches are all free to visit, and if you want you can pay to take the stairs to the top for a bird's eye view of the city. Personally I'm still slightly scarred from going to the top of the Cologne Cathedral. Narrow spiral staircases and shaky legs to me aren't worth it. So I got a feel for the Altstadt on foot and stumbled upon some really great places.

Hofkirche (the Catholic church in the Altstadt)

I'm a huge church and cathedral person when it comes to Europe, and I just so happened to walk into the Hofkirche and was greeted with live (free!) organ music. Apparently everyday between 4-4:30 the Hofkirche has live organ music, so I just grabbed a pew and enjoyed a free concert in an absolutely beautiful church. They were accepting donations, so I essentially just emptied the few random coins in my purse into the bowl. It was just breathtaking.

After hours of wandering around the Altstadt, I walked over one of the bridges into the Innere Neustadt just to get somewhat of a feel for the other half of the city. I didn't wander far (probably because I wasn't wearing the best walking shoes) but just from the little that I saw, I could already tell it was a VERY different city from the Altstadt. The graffiti, the buildings, just all so different, all so...new. It was here that I started getting hungry so I popped in to the first ice cream place I saw, a Venezia Ice and got a scoop of the Macaron ice cream. At €1.20 for a scoop, it was a little on the pricey side, but OMG it was heaven in my mouth. Later I also stopped at a little cafe and got a cappucino, mostly because they advertised free wifi and I needed to let my parents know I made it to Dresden ok. After the coffee, I headed back to the Altstadt to go find a place to eat dinner. 

If you're looking for a place to eat in the Altstadt, you have to head over to Weiße Gasse near Kreuzkirche. It's like the United Nations of food options. I opted for a typical german restaurant so that I could try some of the local food and beer. The Gänsedieb caught my eye, especially when I saw that there was going to be free live music. I went with a hearty Saxon potato soup with sausage in it, which cost less than €6 but holy hell was it delicious! I enjoyed my dinner, my two beers, free wifi, and live music for a grand total of €13 (including tip). Not bad at all in my book.

Heaven in a bowl

Afterwards I made my way over to Lisa's and we hung out, had a beer, talked and got ready to go out. Being the nice night that it was we opted to walk the 20 minutes or so to the Neustadt. Just after five minutes of walking around young people sitting on the curbs drinking beer, I realized just how alive the city came at night. There are people all over the street, drinking, laughing, playing music. I would've been totally ok with people watching, but we had our hearts set on finding a club so we could dance. And boy did we dance. And drink. I wish I knew the name of where we went because they played awesome music. So awesome that we didn't leave until the music stopped and the lights came on, about 4:30 in the morning.

Of course the only pic I got was after we were all sweaty from dancing

Dawn was already breaking when we walked outside, and then we did what any drunk person in Germany does and went and found a Döner kebap place and split what could be considered a wonderful late night snack or just a really really early breakfast. Either way we justified it by the fact that we danced our asses off and it really was a complete meal with protein and vegetables and fiber. And as we ate our Döner and walked back to the Altstadt, we got this view. Incredible.

Dresden at dawn

And to think all of this occurred in less than 24 hours. I'll post about the rest of my weekend soon!