Dresden!

Dresden is my location at the moment, and I'm having a great time here. The first night I was tired, so I just went to a park near the hostel and relaxed. The second day, Hannah and I borrowed bikes from the hostel and rode up the Elbe River to the Blue Wonder Bridge and back. I guess the whole trip was around 10 kilometers. It was a really nice way to spend the morning. We got to sit by the river a little bit, and see some really nice houses along the way. Of course, we saw some not so nice East German apartment blocks as well. Later, we met with my friend Andreas who lives outside of Dresden, but studied in Finland during the past year. He showed us around the old part of the city, which isn't really that old since it was all rebuilt after German reunification. We then went to the new part of the city, which is actually older since it wasn't completely destroyed during the war.

Today we went to Saxon Switzerland, which is a nearby national park with lots of beautiful rock formations, and trees. Another traveler we met at the hostel went with us, and luckily, he actually knows some German, which was really helpful. Otherwise, we would have been completely lost trying to find the hiking trail.

After we walked around the park we rode on the train to a little town and had some food. The woman at the snack counter was so nice! I think she was really impressed with Mario's German, and the fact that we aren't from Europe. At the end of our meal she offered us free cake, but we were too full, so she gave us little bottles of a local liqueur instead. She said that we're not allowed to drink it though, so I guess I'll just hang on to it for luck. It was a really good time, and I got some beautiful photos of cute little German towns, and the beautiful Elbe valley.

Well, I'm nearly out of internet time so I have to write fast. Hopefully my writing isn't too hard to follow. Tomorrow we're off to Nuremberg, and I hope we have just as good of a time there.

Edit: I was just looking at my last post, and remembered that I wrote about running into someone from Davis High in Berlin. In a totally crazy coincidence, I actually saw more people that I know from California in Berlin. In the fall I took a German lit. class, and while I was waiting for the subway I saw my professor, along with a bunch of HSU students touring Germany. Crazy... this world is so small!