This morning I took a leisurely trip through Dresden. I took the streetcar into one of the GDR developments and have since decided that the much-detested apartment buildings are actually a good idea. They provide lots of housing in only a little space. Great. What’s better is that the designers planned green space into the grid; between each of the 5-7 story tall buildings is a large park with playground equipment for the kids. Even better, it’s well connected to the city with a street car line. Riverside and Slaughter Lane in Austin should be jealous. If you’re going to complain about how ugly and boring they are, you should look at the rest of Germany, yes, even in the west. I’d rather live in a 7-story tall building with identical floor plans and some tile decoration on the outside than those ghastly pastel-colored cardboard boxes that litter Würzburg, Munich, and the rest of these havens of individuality and free choice.
Besides my affinity for staring at East German Housing solutions, I got to gawk at a giant VW factory made of glass. 
Had I found it during normal working hours (which for Germans may end as early as 4pm), I would have seen the multi-story assembly line in action. I probably would have spent hours in utter fascination, but that is neither here nor there. The fact is that I saw it on a Sunday morning, so there was no way anything in the city would be open, much less be productive.
Then I realized that time was not on my side and bolted across the city on foot with my bajillion-pound backpack (what? 30 minutes until the next streetcar? No way) to the Neustadt Bahnhof, and approached the automated ticket machine, only to be foiled by an old man who beat me by mere fractions of a second. The other lines were occupied by tourists who (1) didn’t read German and (2) weren’t smart enough to choose one of the other 8 language options. As the aforementioned old man dutifully contemplated his options for a train to Chemnitz (by the way, there were only two,) I anxiously tapped my foot because my train would be leaving in 4 minutes. I received one of those looks that old people give which means “calm down, you whipperschnapper” in any language. Finally, he made his decision, I went “tap, tap, tap, tap" on the screen, paid with my exact cash, grabbed my ticket, ran to the appropriate platform (which, naturally, was one of the last ones at the end of the train station), took the stairs three at a time as I heard the conductor blow the “all clear” whistle, and bolted for the door just like we’ve all seen in movies. I made it to the nearest door just as it was closing (and tripped on the last step.) Luckily there wasn’t an old lady with a cane or a parent with a baby stroller; otherwise there would have been collateral damage. I picked myself up as the train nudged its way out, and found a seat while celebrating my small victory of arriving by the skin of my teeth.
I gave my heart rate some time to return to normal before I busted out the book that got me through the next hour and a half. When I arrived in Weimar, I was ready for another adventure.
Unfortunately, Weimar is not the place one goes to find adventure. I paraded out of the Hauptbahnhof with my itinerary and routes planned out on my map. I was impressed by the turn-of-the century architecture by the train station, but that was about it. I made my way through the “highly recommended” sights, only to discover they were just boring things that I’ve seen everywhere else. Woo. The house where Goethe lived? It looks like a cardboard box. Schiller’s residence? Now it’s a glass-façade museum. The stunning palace and fortress? Nothing that great. So I turned around and made my way back to wait for the next available train out of there. It was already 2pm and I was hungry, so I thought I would look around at the charming little restaurants. Bad Idea. Since apparently the only industry in Weimar is the tourist-trap industry, everything was a good 4-7 Euros more than I would be willing to pay, even if I weren’t in austerity mode. So I settled for Subway, where apparently the words “big or small” have their own dialectical twist. I asked for the sandwich of the day (which was actually appealing, Turkey and Ham), but somewhere in the laborious task of not putting olives on my sandwich, the guy forgot that I asked for the special price (you know, the one advertised every 2 feet in the restaurant) and charged me the regular price. I didn’t even get a cookie. I wanted to throw my Fanta in his face, but I did my usual “Gosh, I wish I could complain and argue in German” grunt and evil glare as I went out onto the patio.
Finally, the time came for me to zip off to Cologne. After 200 pages and a short nap, I was there with the big Dom hovering over me. This dome is everything I had ever expected out of a cathedral. This is what I wanted when I saw (the puny) Notre Dame in Paris. The spires seem to go up forever. Even as you approach it from afar, your eyes are required to look upwards for the full extent of the steeples. The façade is worth 45 minutes of awe. I just had to go inside.
They were tuning the organ. This was interesting. While tourists filed past the crypts and chapels, the organ-tuner would belch out a tone, manipulate it to a very sharp extreme, a very flat extreme, and then find a happy center. People walked around with their fingers in their ears, only to remove them as they snapped a (not allowed) picture. The Tuner did this for every chromatic note on the keyboard and the foot pedals. Luckily for me, I bolted before he made it to the high register.
So then I decided, Ok, bedtime. Except it was only 9 pm. I went to the lobby of my hostel (which, by the way opened on the 5th of this month) and watched some BBC news. It was actually pretty interesting. News followed by an educational but pertinent segment about a very interesting/polarizing event/policy, and then a short inspirational piece about people who save the world (or at least kittens in Morocco.) I would probably watch BBC for hours on end if they had it in the USA.
So then I went to bed. The place still smelled like new, so it was a comforting sleep.
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