I knew from the reviews and description on Airbnb that staying with Juan and Jasmine was our best option for Dresden. While everywhere else up to that point we had stayed in our own apartment, I figured we should take the chance and stay in someone's apartment with them.
When we got to the city on the train, we followed our easiest set of directions yet: Get out of the station and walk straight until you get to the main square and the apartment is on your left. I think even Mom or Ali could have led us with those directions! ;)
Juan and Jasmine helped us with our suitcases, gave us the lowdown on the apartment (including the washer so we could wash our smelly work-out clothes), and gave us a map to get around the city. Then Juan asked if he could make us breakfast and dinner the following day. Having read about his wonderful cooking on airbnb, I quickly (maybe a little too quickly...) accepted the invitation.
But, for our first night, we headed out for dinner nearby. We ate at what seemed like Germany's equivalent of Houlihan's and then got gelato. Then we got back to our room, put in a load of laundry, and had our one and only upset of the trip: Mom's iPhone was missing. We tore apart our room and listened for a clunking in the washing machine. Nothing. We got ready to call it and then remembered that it was on airplane mode. After a few hectic minutes, I suggested going to the restaurant before it closed. Perhaps it had gotten left when we were looking at pictures on it. I changed out of my pajamas and Ali and I took off at a run, trying to remember how we had wandered to the restaurant in the first place. When we arrived just before 12, we were relieved to see people at the bar inside. Panting, we looked at the hostess who, after recognizing us, smiled and said in a thick German accent, "Your phone?"
"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!"
Delighted, Ali and I ran back in hopes that we could get to Mom before she tried to open the washing machine (my roommate had broken ours when he tried to open it before the cycle was over). But instead of finding her tearing apart the room even further, we found her sitting on the bed with her Kindle, looking rather peaceful. We, on the other hand, were 'glistening' with the lovely sweats we had broken. We handed over the phone and she said, "I was just sitting here praying that we could find it and being thankful that if a lost phone was the worst thing that happened to us on this trip, we could deal quite easily." Well, my friends, we didn't lose the phone and (spoiler alert!) that was the most traumatic moment that occurred on the trip. Not too shabby!
Our second day, we woke up to a mix of sunlight, clanging church bells, and bike race announcers. But shortly after being woken up, we were fed a wonderful breakfast, thanks to Juan and Jasmine. Most people don't take the time to present scrambled eggs with serrano ham in a little food stack and to decorate the plate with drizzles of reduced balsamic.
Then we set out to explore Dresden. Walking around we saw...
Part of the palace
The recently rebuilt church, Frauenkirche
Many classical musicians: a french horn player, a vocal trio, and a guy playing a grand piano in the square!
I then made Mom and Ali walk to Pfunds Dairy, where I was hoping we could get ice cream. Instead, we got cheese!
An assortment of cheeses
Ali's comment: "There is nothing on that plate that looks appetizing to me."
It was good, but not necessarily the best cheese I've ever eaten. Then again, I've eaten a lot of cheese. But the main reason we went there was because it is included in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most beautiful dairy shop in the world" (Dresden Tourism website). Who knew that was a category?! You'll have to look at one of the links above because they don't allow pictures to be taken inside. But it was a pretty building!
After our snack at the dairy, we headed over to Kunsthofpassage, a series of connected courtyards that include decorated buildings, adorable cafés, and cool, artsy shops. It was there that we did our best window shopping of the trip, not because we restrained ourselves from going into the stores, but because even though they were closed, we did a thorough evaluation of each store.
One of the buildings has used their drains in a rather clever way! Not only does it look cool, but Jasmine said that it makes music too!
Then we wandered back towards the apartment, stopping for ice cream and some people watching along the way. (Who can resist watching the cute little kids playing in the foutain?!) Then, Ali decided (in the city where it seemed like the smallest proportion of people spoke English), to finally pet a dog. She got up off the bench, strutted over to the dog that was with the people a few benches over, and just started petting it. After a few moments, she got up, said "Thank you!" and walked away. The people, with confused looks, just chuckled at her as she walked away.
Although Ali was quite content, the dog doesn't look too interested...
After ice cream, we headed back to the apartment, where we skyped (typical Sunday for me) and wrote about our trip while smelling wafts of heaven come out of the kitchen were Juan was cooking. By the time he placed his curry with veal meatballs in front of us, we were drooling. Again, it was beautifully plated and it took everything in me not to go get my camera and add it to the food pictures of the trip. But I restrained because I didn't want to get weird reviews on my airbnb profile :)
Then, after eating our first desert (creme brulee), Juan goes, "Well if you aren't too tired, I think we should go and have a nice view of the castle and of Dresden." I thought we were hiking up a hill somewhere, but within about 4 minutes we had left our plates sitting, grabbed our cameras, and packed ourselves into their car. After driving through the neighboring town, we came up this:
The castle at sunset, completely unedited. This was the first time I wished I owned a tripod...
Then we hopped back in the car, drove down some more winding roads (evading a couple of potholes that you couldn't see but Juan knew were there), and came upon a hill that looked down over Dresden.
A view of the city by night
Needless to say, our hosts went above and beyond. When we returned from our field trip, we had our second dessert (A second desert?! These are my kind of people!), an anis/mango sorbet. By the time we went to bed, we were stuffed.
When we woke up in the morning, Juan had left fresh baked rolls for us and Jasmine was putting out a thorough spread of meats and cheeses and jams. After Ali and I ran, we ate, packed up, and headed back to the train station to grab our bus to Berlin. We were supposed to leave from another station, but Jasmine called and verified that we could get on at the one closest to our house. So another short walk (in a straight line), and we were on our way!
Moral of the story: Dresden was fantastic... if you ever need to take a pit-stop on your travels through Germany, stay with Juan and Jasmine! We highly recommend it!
Much love,
Amber
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