Reise!

Dresden. We left friday, the 12th on the train for Dresden. We didn't know until that morning whether the train would be running, because there have been a lot of train driver strikes here, particularly that week, but it was. We left early in the morning so we had most of the day in Dresden to explore the city.
Here is the famous or pretty-famous Zwinger garden and museum in Dresden which was completely destroyed in WWII along with almost everything else in the city-center.

Then the next day we re-boarded the train for Vienna. This train ride was longer and cool. Trains are sweet. Played cribbage with Peter who is another guy on the trip and read Brecht's "Arturo Ui." And we drove along the Elbe for a bit and there were some sweet cliffs along the way where apparently they used to shoot Western films during the DDR time.

And then Vienna.

This is what it looked like in Vienna all over. Very white, stately, elegant - kind of like Gondor, except not quite as cool. And the weather was pretty much perfect there the whole time. We hit up all the good touristy spots - castles and churches and museums. Picnicked in the park with wine and cheese and good bread and a guy playing the violin pretty much just for us the whole time. And lots of cafes. That's pretty big in Vienna I think, kind of like Paris a little bit. I felt like I should be Ernest Hemingway, or at least write a lot in the cafes. There were actually people like that though, sitting in the cafes writing. It was pretty cool.

Here's some of us in front of a fountain .

Of course I had to step over this line.
And I got to hear the Vienna Boys Choir sing in church on Sunday morning, and a couple of us went to see "Ein Sommernachtstraum" - "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and a perfekt example of how German's always smush words together when possible. That was actually a really cool performance. And of course the most touristy thing possible, a horse coach ride through the city.
And then we left for Prague on Wednesday by bus. We got there at night in a somewhat not-so-safe-seeming part of town and didn't know how to get to our hostel and didn't have any Czech money and didn't speak and Czech. Luckily though we found two girls from England who were staying in a hostel near ours and they showed us the way. Also one of our group members had his luggage stolen out of the bottom of the bus somewhere along the trip, so that was a bummer. Not an auspicious start.
Then the next morning we started out bright and early to exchange some money and explore the city. Someone googled Deutsch Bank in Prague to find out where we could exhange money and then led us in the false direction. So after about 2 hours of walking along the highway in the wrong direction in the rain and about 35 degrees we made it back to the hostel. Quite a blast. Good company though, and we spent most of the time trying to decode Czech with help from our two Russian speakers and Latvian speaker. A fun game for people who like languages, although confusing when it is all in three languages that you completely don't understand.
But after that Prague got better although it was very cold the whole time, as it is now in Berlin: below freezing nights.
Ok, I need to go watch a theater version of "Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers" one of the most famous novels of all time. I liked it too.