Our trip to Dresden was the earliest we had to wake up. I forget what time it was, but it felt ever earlier than it actually was. As soon as we got to the train station our tour guide started. He was really interesting and had tons of knowledge, but i don't think he took a breath the entire trip.
(Herr Coffman and our tour guide in the Semper Opera workshops)
We were on our first train for a long time before we stopped at Halle. We got a history lesson on that train ride about Halle and the surrounding area. We had an hour to kill before our next train so we took a brief walking tour of the city. It was really nice. It had this kind of old meets new aura to it. All of the buildings had the old facades, but a lot of them had modern lighting and some other modern touches.
(Quick stop in Halle)
We got onto our next train and it took us to Leipzig. Leipzig is an end station, which is pretty self explanatory. The trains only go in and out one way, you cant go through Leipzig, just to it. Anyway, we finally made it to Dresden, after more history of Leipzig and the surrounding area.
From there we saw a church that was completely destroyed, along with the entire city, during the fire bombing. They had used sophisticated computer technology however to use as much of the old church as they could. So the old pieces are dark and the new ones are light. Making it look like a giant chocolate chip cookie church.
(The restored Frauenkirche. Notice the old black stones used in its reconstruction)
They did the same thing with a lot of the city. You can catch glimpses of dark parts all over the place. Then we saw the large Porcelain wall. It was really neat looking, oh and there was an Audi R8 parked next to it :). After that we went by the Opera house expecting to just see the outside. But by some strange coincidence, we were there on their open house day. So we actually got to go inside and see the theater. On top of that the Workshops for the sets were also open. So we walked around and got to see them building the parts for the sets and some old things they had made before. That was really interesting to see.
(The Semper Opera workshops)
After all of the opera house touring, we went to a Bier garden. It was right on the river and one one of the prettiest views I’d ever seen.
(Biergarten and View)
However, the meal was a little less than great. Dawn, Emily, and I ordered the Weisswurst, which is a white sausage... boiled. None of us could get it down. Even though i was extremely hungry. I ended up eating some of Jennifer's food. This caused us to miss one of our trains back. So we had to wait another hour and didn't make it home until midnight. Our tour guide parted with us at our stop in Leipzig. I learned a lot from him on the trip, but I also didn't have enough time for my own thoughts. We finally got some quiet time on the train ride back. I think that was the best night of sleep I’d gotten. Simply because i was so exhausted.
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