American Girl in Deutschland, Among Other Ausgezeichnete Places: 124 - Dresden Hygiene-Museum, Night Tour of Semperoper

8.6.12 - Freitag, Friday
Woke up, showered and went down to Fruehstueck (Breakfast). It was large buffet with some delicious things among it. Cereal, tea, veggies, bread, mean, cheese. I think the main items were definitely the bread, meat, and cheese though. After all, we were in Germany still. We then received a lunch packet that we would carry around with us and eat whenever we felt like it. It was pretty awesome that we got all of that!

After lunch, we made our way to a Dresden city tour, where we would see a few historical things, hear some history and enjoy the general view and knowledge. Most of the pictures from the day are probably from the tour. The architecture was amazing, but it was also pointed out to us that several of the buildings had been destroyed once or twice, which is sad, but the renovation was very impressive.

(Market square - Rachel in front of Martin Luther Statue - and the church from the night before, in the day light.)

(At Theaterplatz, another large statue - A wall depicting all the kings and rulers of Dresden. It was very fascinating. - Semperoper, Semper Opera House. We would tour it later)

(Another view on our way to the Zwinger - Inside of the Zwinger Palace. - A cool water fountain/ steeple)

After our tour, we walked toward our next destination, the Hygeine-Museum. We had no prior information about the place, so Rachel and I were speculating that soap would be really boring. When we arrived, we were given two and a half hours for lunch, which was pretty good, sandwich, apple, yogurt, candy bar, Capri-Sonne (Capri Sun), little meat snack thing, and there might have been more. Of course, this didn't take two and a half hours, so we decided to walk around. Rachel and I had seen a little farmers market thing not too far, so we wandered in that direction with our fellow traveler Emilien. It seemed like most other people were using the time allotted to try and catch up on lost sleep from the night before. We quickly wandered through the market, Rachel bought a scarf, I laughed at the Watter Buffalo meat stand, and then we found a very long pathway with trees and flowers everywhere and a building at the end. We adventured toward it. There was a very nice lake behind it, but my camera decided to not cooperate, so I didn't get too many pictures.

(As we walked toward our lunch break location/ the Hygiene-Museum, I spotted this. It's everywhere, forever. - After enjoying lunch outside of the Museum, we wandered a little. - We found this old building at the end of the walk way [Palis im Grossen Garten].)

We ended up arriving back a little late for the tour because our little escapade was further away than intended. Not too late, we were still able to meet up with everyone and go. It turns out that it was "The Museum of Man" as the woman would say. There were glass people, preserved nerves from people, large cells of various things, what aging feels like, physical preferences, and physical and mental tests, etc. It was a lot of fun. We were given a little time to ourselves to wander around the museum. Rachel and I wandered back to the mental test area to play "Mindball" which measures how relaxed you are by your brain waves. The more relaxed person will then move the ball to their opponents side by simply 'clearing their mind'. I did pretty well. :] After that, we wandered through some of the physical tests like balance and strength, and then we went to an exhibit called 'Passion'. It was very odd. It was kind of about passions that people have in life, but it seemed more like a strange art/ history exhibit.

(Glass person - Enlarged Cells - Rachel wearing/ using everything that would make her feel like she was 70 or so.)

(A fly showing scale on the cells - Random historical place? - Dinner at a Russian place.)

After the Hygeine-Museum we were supposed to have free time from approximately 4 until 10:30. It would be the perfect time to be able to go inside the churches and visit some tourist traps, purchase a few needed things, and to take our own tour of Dresden. We hop on the bus to return back to home base but <commence complaining, this is something I would have been more grateful for if everything didn't close at 5 or 8 and I needed to buy things.>: our bus driver took us on an impromptu tour around Dresden's outskirts and hills and what not when were only a few minutes driving from the Hostel. Eventually after an hour of that, he dropped us off by a passage way that led up into the hills that gave you a bit of a view of the town. Meanwhile, Rachel and a few others, left the group. We visited a small shop that was going to close in 40 minutes, I figured out where I could pull out some money so I could buy things. We had to wander across a bridge and then ask two people because the streets were ridiculous, made it back to the store, looked more, then walked a little ways from the bus for somewhere to sit that wasn't on the bus.

Once everyone arrived back, we piled back onto the bus and were returned to the Youth Hostel, grabbed a map to figure out where we could eat and buy things. Turns out there was a large shopping center not too far away, of course it was late so almost nothing was open aside from two restaurants. It was about 7:40 at this point. We decided to take a look at the Russian place and thought it sounded good so we sat down, when a few more people showed up and joined us. We chatted, ordered food, ate and left at about 9. No chance of visiting places until Sunday. We headed back to the Hostel and relaxed a little before we had to head over to the Semper Opera for our night tour at 10:30. The concept sounded really cool.

We arrived a little early and ran into two of the people we had dinner with. We chatted while we waited, took a few pictures, played around on monuments, then it was time. We went in, without knowing what to expect. It was very impressive. There are more pictures on my Shutterfly website.