Dresden (26th Dec 2016)
What exactly is Boxing Day? It's a holiday I always took for granted, picturing family's going to the ring to have it out with each other just like the Kardashians did on Season 4. The truth is, Boxing Day is celebrated differently depending on which country you're in. In Germany, Boxing Day is called St. Stephen's Day and is a public holiday usually spent with family and friends. St. Stephen was the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death for betraying Moses and God. Just a little fun background information. Anyway, a friend had told Gleicy that Dresden was definitely worth visiting. It's 3 hours South-East by bus from Berlin and known for it's beauty. She gathered two more Brazilian guys and the four of us were off on our little Boxing Day adventure!
Just one day after Christmas and the first Christmas market we came across was closed. The sadness was overwhelming. However, towering above these deserted, white tents was a gleaming golden statue of a man on a rearing horse, which mildly uplifted my spirit. Unfortunately, the 26th of December 2016 was a Monday and most museums are closed on Mondays. We came across a very unique but closed Japanese Palace. I wonder even now what a Japanese Palace was doing in a small German city but I guess I'll just have to go back to find out. Until this point, we had just walked around relatively normal-looking roads and buildings. When we reached the bridge everything changed. We were met with the most beautiful, mesmerizing view! Along the other riverbank stood buildings upon buildings with astounding architecture. A church stood towering with a blackened steeple, small sculptures posed on rooftops and golden names glistened around the art museum. We took our time crossing that bridge, enjoying the view. I remember commenting that Dresden even had it's own little beach. I was talking about the sorry strip of grey sand and pebbles that lined one side of the river. But hey, I'm sure everything looks better in the summer!
Once we reached the other side we had a variety of things to do. We decided to walk down the river and take advantage of the afternoon sunlight hitting the buildings on the other side. Yes, I took a lot of selfies. But so did everyone else (who wouldn't?). Eventually we found ourselves in a cute square with a big tower. Low and behold, there was an open Christmas market!!! The smell of Goulash and Bratwurst was too strong to ignore, so we all ordered ourselves traditonal German food and drink. It started to rain heavily. It was here, under the shelter of glowing red tents and with a mug of hot Glühwein in my hand that I ate the best sausage I had ever tasted in my life. It was fat, mixed with herbs and encased in a hot dog bun with ketchup and mustard. I will never forget Dresden for this reason. We were happily trapped by the rain under that tent for over an hour, also enjoying the festive vibe which I had previously feared had disappeared. This was the high point of our day.
As the sun started to set, it got colder and the crowd started to fizzle away. We were walking around more impressive buildings while simultaneously runnning out of things to do. We embraced the warmth of a church as long as we could (recurring theme) and re-entered the drizzly, dull outside. Gleicy and one of the guys told us they had spotted a mosque in the distance and for lack of anything else to do, we slowly hunted it down. After walking for what felt like 20 minutes, we were finally only half way there. A busy highway between us and the mosque led us to the decision to sit down for a while. I was thinking that this was the strangest looking mosque I'd ever seen. After a further 30 minutes of us admiring it in silence, one of the guys burst out laughing and asked us to guess what the building actually was. Turned out, we'd wasted half an hour of our lives staring at a former cigarette factory. This was the low point of the day.
A little exhausted, we trudged our way back to the centre and found refuge in a cafe until it closed and we were kicked out. We still had two hours for our coach back to Berlin and we had completely run out of things to do. We found the Flixbus office and changed our coach time to the one leaving next and rested in the station. I may have fallen asleep. Surprisingly, we did not find a souvenir store in this city (much to our dismay as we'd predicted cheaper prices) and so we left only with photos and the lingering taste of Bratwurst in our mouths. If you find yourself with free time in Berlin, I highly recommend daytrippin' to Dresden. In the winter, make it a short day trip (we arrived at 1 pm and left around 7pm) and try not to go on a Monday!
