Dresden

FYI: This post is being composed in a cafe on a street corner near my hostel in Brussels, one of the more interesting cities I've visited in Europe. Just sitting here, slowly sipping on my cappuccino (is this considered pretentious?) and listening to the French, Dutch, and English conversations around me while waiting for my friend to arrive. More on that to come!

The only thing I knew about Dresden before visiting was that it had been heavily damaged during World War II per Slaughterhouse-Five. It's fairly close to Berlin, about 2.5 hours with bus, and two friends in January actually trekked out there for a day trip. Fortunately for me, I had the chance to stay there for a weekend - and what a weekend it was :)

Dresden is quite different from Berlin. It's a lot like Prague if my memory serves me, namely it is an incredibly cute city.

What distinguished it particularly from Berlin was the people. Berlin, aside from the neighborhood where I live, is full of young adults eager to go out and have a great time. I was slightly surprised when I hit the streets of Dresden to find that the average age of the surrounding people in touristy areas was 40+. Fortunately, that was not the case in Neustadt, which is where the bars and our hostel were located.

Something Dresden has in common with Berlin, on the other hand, was this lovely little Hinterhof. Tucked behind the facade were cute stationary, dress, and jewelry shops in addition to quite the dandy installation on an inside wall.

The city is quite small and walkable - but take that with a grain of salt, as we almost missed our bus home when walking from Neustadt to the Hauptbahnhof and actually had to take a cab to make it on time. If the weather had been nicer when we were there, it would've been even better to stroll around and hang out in parks with a beer or two.

The Dresden skyline is quite renowned, and I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of it on the train home from Prague. I was able to see it during a beautiful sunset when my bus first arrived in town, one that unfortunately no camera in the world could accurately capture. Take my word for it... it was glorious.

Much of the Altstadt that comprises the skyline and tourist zone was actually destroyed during WWII, so there are parts of the Neustadt that are older than those buildings. They sure look the part though!

One of the highlights of my weekend was reuniting with a travel companion I had met in London in February who also happens to be one of the nicest people I think I've ever met. I danced the night away in someone's apartment to the early hits of Britney, Destiny's Child, and everyone's two favorite 90s boy bands while sipping on peppermint schnapps that looked and tasted like Listerine from a bottle that was nearly as big as me.

It was a wonderful weekend that brought me a bit closer to my friends here and provided me with a nice little break away from Berlin. I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend in Dresden, and I look forward to going back one day!

Der Erste Mai

May 1st is International Workers' Day AKA Labor Day in Europe. I'm not really sure about the historical context behind the holiday, but I do know that the day has developed quite the reputation in Berlin. Instead of taking advantage of the day off and going on a spontaneous trip over the long weekend, I was highly recommended to stay in town and enjoy the festivities in the streets of Kreuzberg.

After a late start to the day, my friend and I were dropped off at an U-Bahn station by my host siblings. Coincidentally, we met up with our fellow Californians who were headed to the party with a huge group of Germans. Since there were 20+ of us, we ended up having to walk much of the way because there was no way all of us were getting on already completely stuffed trains.

It was absolutely insane how many people there were. I had a hard time contacting anyone I was planning on meeting because texts took many minutes to send and calls were simply not going through from too much activity on the network. We were warned by the Germans who had been before to try and stick together as much as possible, or we would completely lose one another.

Our first stop was, oddly enough, Hannibal at Görlitzer Bahnhof. We stayed there for a while and I contemplated not drinking at all, but it was way too bright outside and I was not too keen on dancing. My friend offered me some of this:

"It tastes like Dr. Pepper but with alcohol!"

And the party began.

After illegally obtaining a very, very large bottle of jäger, we headed to our second stop. We stayed long enough to get confetti-ed, watch a guy climb up a light pole, and finish the bottle of jäger. At this point, we all realized that we needed to take a bathroom break in Görlitzer Park, the unofficial bathroom for the day, but a friend and I lost touch with everyone else in the group at some point. We ended up sitting in the (very crowded) park for a bit and meeting up with another friend after some painfully slow back-and-forth texting.

I was going to go home at this point, but then I was able to get in contact with another one of my friends with whom I had earlier planned to meet. It took a while, but I found this group and we went to a hip hop stage (where I randomly ran into a couple of the friends I had lost in the first group I was with) until we needed to buy more beer. We proceeded down Oranienstraße and there were live acts and flamenco music and Indian music and it was just such a wonderful time. At some point we stopped for greasy Chinese food, and the guys I was with kept saying, "I want to hear you order in Chinese!" which didn't end up working out.

The day became night and everything in between is quite hazy in my memory. I wasn't drunk, just blissfully buzzed, enjoying the music, dancing, and soaking in the atmosphere.

It was a day/night quite unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I got in a couple of personal milestones of the embarrassing nature, too. Thank you for a great time and getting me out of my funk, Berlin.