JEM's Folks Pay a Visit

No, I didn't die. I've just been partying like a rock star with my parents! OK, not really like a rock star. More like an elderly German tourist. But partying, nevertheless. And now that I've sent my beloved folks back into the wild blue yonder, you get to watch the obligatory "Fun Stuff We Did Don't You Wish You Could Do What We Did" slideshow. Enjoy.

Berlin
First we picked up Mom and Dad in the airport in Berlin. They're in this picture.


Can't find them? Let me help you.


After a joyous reunion (we hadn't seen each other in person in 10 months), we got crushed in train doors, returned to the hotel and slept. Then we woke up and had until noon to see as much as we could of Berlin and be back at the hotel before they charged us for another day. Here's what we saw in under four hours.

The Reichstag


The Brandenburg Gate


The Holocaust Memorial


Checkpoint Charlie


Assorted remnants of the Berlin Wall


... and other stuff. Debated leaving a flaming bag of dog poo on the Russian embassy's doorstep. Decided against it. Mused about how the U.S. embassy was the only one surrounded by barbed wire and multiple police officers. Go U.S.A.!

Dresden
Then we took the train back to the ranch.

We did many thrilling things in Dresden, like hang around our apartment.

But wait! That's not all! We also visited many cool places, like the Lutheran cathedral, the Frauenkirche ...


... Dresden's glorious opera house, the Semper Oper ...

... Dresden's very old and prestigious art academy (lovingly nicknamed the lemon juicer) ...

... Dresden's Catholic Cathedral, the Hofkirche (while eating delicious ice cream cones) ...
... the pleasure palace in the Great Garden (Dresden's equivalent of Central Park) ...

... the Volkswagen factory ...

... and the palace-turned-museum, the Zwinger ...

... wherein we absorbed many fine works of medieval and Renaissance art. Like this one by Raffael.

And this one by Vermeer.


The Zwinger also houses a rockin' armor museum. Check these out ...

Those little suits of armor are KID'S ARMOR!!! AWESOME!!!

We also took a Trabi Safari. For the uninitiated, Trabis (formally Trabants) are these iconic, microscopic, East German cars made out of cardboard with engines that sound like squirrels fighting in a trash can. They were the Cadillacs of communism. People would apply to buy a Trabi and patiently wait for 15 years or more for their order to be filled. So, naturally, it was a thrill to cruise in one. We couldn't hear our tourguide through the radio for jacksquat for about three-quarters of the tour, and one of the Trabis in our safari actually died in an intersection and had to be abandoned. But I'd still recommend the tour just to get up close and personal with this fine automobile.








We also dined on fine German cuisine, like schnitzel (below), bratwurst, chocolate (Mom, I'm looking in direction) and Big Macs (looking in my own direction).


And we communed with nature. (You can't really tell, but in this picture, there's a medieval fortress on a hill behind us. Which is why we aren't plundering villages.)


Exploring the garden houses (post pending on this fantastic East German tradition) near our apartment.


Dad communicates with a sheep.


Using Dresden as our base of operations, we made a couple of daytrips outside the city. The first was ...

Moritzburg
Moritzburg is a big compound outside Dresden that the royals used to use as their manly, rustic hunting retreat. Dresdners like to come here and wander the woods and the wildlife preserve.


That's probably a good idea. We focused our efforts on the pretty yellow palace, which, from a distance, is rather impressive.

But the closer you get ...

... the ghettoer it looks.


A large portion of the front of the palace was under construction, which vexed me greatly.

Though there were certainly things to delight in. Like some of the interior rooms of the palace (Dad spat in the face of authority by taking this photo — the only one we were able to sneak inside).


The palace is also home to a pretty impressive trophy room (not our picture).


And the 11-year-old in us all found this statue of a snake biting this baby's peepee to be pure hilarity.

And the view from the terrace wasn't half-bad.


And there was a plentitude of pretty, fragrant flowers.


Weimar
Our next daytrip was to Weimar, picturesque village home of great German thinkers Goethe and Schiller. We took the train there.




And then we took the bus to the Buchenwald concentration camp, which is just outside the city.

Visiting a concentration camp is a very raw and upsetting but strangely purifying experience, and something that really warrants its own post. We'll discuss it more later.

When we returned to the city, we only had an hour or so left before we had to catch our train. So we played in the park.


And posed with dignitaries.

And got caught in the rain.

And were stalked by a gang of young men in powdered wigs.


And then we took the train home and we were really pooped.

And we tried to sleep.
But some jerk kept taking pictures of us and waking us up.


And that's it. Well, the highlights, anyway. And then we packed the folks up and shipped them back to America Town. Now, don't you wish you could do what fun things we did? Yeah, that's what I thought, suckahs.

But seriously, my parents are awesome. They were total troopers and absolute joys to have around. I think I forgot how hilarious they are. We love them so much and are so glad they came to see us.

Now, who's next?



JEM