Grosser Garten

 

Last November Jethro and I took our last bike ride through Grosser Garten before the snow came.  I think for the rest of my life as I'm falling asleep I will go back to that day, with the crisp autumn air and leaves crunching under Vicky's tires and Jethro happily chirping in his seat behind me as we rode over the quiet, empty trails and golden leaves drifted to the ground all around us. It was one of the most perfect moments I can remember. 

 

There are so many places in Dresden that I will miss that I couldn't begin to count them, but at the very top of the list would be this park. I hope that when I die I find that Heaven has a park just like this one.

JEM

Verkehrsmuseum!!!

For Jethro's second birthday we decided to check out Dresden's Verkehrsmuseum (transportation museum). If you're coming to Dresden and you have a boy (or man) who will find looking at Renaissance art for three hours boring, here is a fine cultural alternative.

There are cars!

 Airplanes!

Humungous engines!

 Trains!

 Motorcycles!

 

Old trams!

 

Boats!

(we didn't get any good pictures of boats)

My men were in hog heaven. And for me there were lots of creepy mannequins to be startled by.

 

So it's not the Louvre. But we loved it.

JEM

Schwebebahn!!!

For my first birthday here (my 24th, which seems like a very long time ago) some of our then-new friends gave me two tickets to ride the Dresden Schwebebahn, the world's oldest suspension railway. Naturally we procrastinated/forgot until last October, over three years later, when upon our arrival to the base of the Schwebebahn, I discovered I'd left the tickets sitting on the dresser. (Thanks, anyway, Benjamin and Susi. It was still a really thoughtful gift.)

 

The Schwebebahn climbs 273 meters up the western lip of the ridge that surrounds Dresden.

The ride is really fun.

And the view at the top is amazing.

Come to Dresden and ride the Schwebebahn. The end.

And for future appearances of my black "leather" jacket, please read the Alpine Line, who's author inherited it over New Year's.



JEM

Frohes Fest

My last German Christmas has come and gone. I weep bitterly.

We made several visits to the Striezelmarkt this year. But Jethro and I had to pay it one last visit on its last day of operation. We meandered, bought a little Räuchermann, and I let Jethro go for a spin on a pretty terrifying merry-go-round that looked like it had been welded together in a junkyard using only found objects.



Then came the time came for us to go. (READ: I needed to use the little girls' room and didn't want to PAY FOR IT ... turns out there are some aspects of life in Germany that I won't miss). But despite my full bladder, I found leaving the sounds of German Christmas carols and the smells of Glühwein and crepes and roasting bratwurst behind me to be difficult.

Fortunately we'll be bringing a few small pieces of Christmas in Dresden back to America with us to help us remember the four lovely Christmases we spent here.

I think we had a skiff of snow on one of those Christmases, but otherwise our Christmases here have been pretty mild. This year was certainly our snowiest Dresden Christmas.

And while we're looking at our balcony, I need to mention something that is not related to Christmas.

We have a ton of pigeons in our neighborhood, and they seem to be particularly fond of our building thanks to the old woman on the third floor who insists on feeding them. We haven't had too many problems with them, but a couple of months ago Jake cleaned our windows. And apparently he did a pretty good job because later that day this large smudge appeared on our back door:

If you examine it closely, it's pretty clear that a pigeon slammed headfirst, with full wing extension, into our backdoor.

You can even make out the little beak. He or she apparently wasn't too seriously injured because there was no unconscious bird on our balcony or nearby.

And so I feel OK about finding the whole thing hysterically funny. We never washed the mark off, and every time we open the curtains we have a good laugh at the bird's expense.

And on that note, I hope you all had a great Christmas. I leave you now with a scene from our less-than-Biblically-accurate rendition of the Nativity.

JEM

P.S. Those other FIELDTRIP!s I was talking about earlier are still coming. For reals.

FIELDTRIP! to Meissen

Before I say anything about Meissen, I want to say that my account of it won't do the place justice. We just wandered around it for a few hours one Saturday morning in September without a plan or a guidebook, just to get a feel for the place before naptime. Jethro's naptime.

OK, and maybe Jake's and my naptime, too. It's an important part of our weekend ritual, and I refuse to apologize for it.

Now, let us begin. Meissen is an absolutely picturesque little German city on the Elbe 25 kilometers outside Dresden. It's home to about 30,000 people and an inordinate amount of history and fame, given its size. The reason for that is porcelain.

It was in Meissen in 1708 that the first fine white porcelain was concocted outside Asia. The story of its creation is a surprisingly gripping one, involving a charlatan alchemist who claimed to be able to create gold out of ordinary materials and Dresden's favorite egomaniac, Elector of Saxony August the Strong, who put the alchemist to work with a mathematician and scientist to uncover the formula for porcelain — and give August another reason to feel fantastic about himself. 

 

Meissen porcelain is still regarded as the some of the finest in the world.

 

 

There's a big porcelain factory in Meissen, but we didn't go to it. Judging by their advertising campaign, it's probably not a good place for children. Or husbands.

 

In case you were wondering, the item being sold here is the strategically positioned teacup. 

The closest we got to any porcelain was through shop windows. After examining the price tags through the thick glass, I decided I shouldn't let myself or my 2-year-old get any closer than that. The only thing I saw that was within our price range was a porcelain thimble.

Downtown Meissen is great for strolling. There are beautiful shops and buildings and narrow, winding cobblestone streets.

"Wake up, you're having a bad dream!"

If you're up for a good cardio workout, push your 200 pound kinderwagen up the 90 degree switchbacks that lead to the city's impressive gothic cathedral, built in 1450.

All that, a yummy lunch of Sauerbraten and Rotkohl in the town square and home in time for a nap. Thanks, Meissen. You are just the gem everyone said you were.



JEM