Dresden and the Trains

The Trains and Dresden is probably a more apt title. Though only 4 or less hours by the way the crow flies, Dresden took us 6 hours to get to and 9 to come back from.
We met at the train station at a bright and early 6:00AM, giving Tiff and I roughly 5 hours of sleep each. We caught about a half hour more sleep on our first train, then stopped in sleepy little Bahn. The Hof Hauptbahnhof (which, since there's only one Bahnhof there, could be called the Hof Bahnhof. Isn't that fun to say?) didn't really have much to see, just a big Baraque train station that was at least 150 years old. 2 hours later we arrived in Zwickau, which I think was a rough translation of the german word for between since Zwickau was in the middle of nowhere, between (zwischen) everything. Sorry, bad English-geek humor there. Zwickau was really just a blur to us anyway. We had 4 minutes to make it to our next train. From there we rode (and napped) all the way to Dresden.
For those of you that don't know, Dresden was once the capital of the Dutchy of Saxony, part of the Ottoman Empire, which was once also a smal part of the Carolingian Empire, and, much later, the Prussian Empire and the German Empire. People have apparently always been fond of smashing Dresden to bits. The city has suffered repeated destruction: by fire in 1491, from bombardment by the Prussians in 1760, and during the suppression of a constitutionalist uprising in 1849. The latest of these was in 1945, when a wing of Brittish Bombers levelled the city (at that point insignificant to the nearly-over war) with a firestorm of bombs. It left it looking like this:

After the war Dresden became an East German industrial center, rebuilt many of its buildings, and churned out all kinds of new construction. Its new masters rebuilt large sections as "the ideal communist city," but luckily left the old city under pretty much the same layout. After the German Reunification all kinds of art and culture societies set to rebuilding, rennovating, and restoring the rest of Dresden. They're still at it today.
On the train I'd spent about an hour examining the contrast between East and West just as I could see it out the window. Every third railway station was abandoned, many buildings still look like they've suffered through a war, but it's economic decay that's killed them. It was dismal, and the Bahnhof in Dresden seemed equally so.
Dresden is a truly big city. I'm not sure how it compares to Munich as far as population is concerned, but it sprawls like an American town. Ironic, for the model of socialism. Tiff and I split away from Liz and Jen and headed for our Youth Hostel. It was a good 20 minute hike to the Louis 20, so named because it's building 20 on Louis street. The rooms were 4 beds each, us and strangers. My roommate slept the entire time. Luckily, he was the only one, and he didn't snore.
We headed back to the city under a light rain, stopping for bread, Nutella, and Peanut Butter along the way. The old city of Dresden in purely Baroque, in all its grandeur. It's an awesome sight, even if you don't particularly care for Baroque (which I don't). The churches are gorgeous, and the Palace is magnificant.
We spent our afternoon pattering around said churches and palaces. We saw the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady (St. Mary), still being rebuilt. We saw the bishopric church there, whose name eludes me, and the Zwinger Palace, which houses 5 galleries, all of which were closed by the time we made it there.
The grounds were enough to make the trip worthwhile, though.
Dinner was a great theme restaurant called Pulver Turm. It's built in the ruins of an old gunpowder storage tower (or turret, or whatever you want to call it), and is manned by an 18th century staff. We had an authentic Saschen (German spelling of Saxon) dish of fruits, bread, delicious hams and other less identifiable meats, jam and preserves. Liz and Jen met us there and Liz managed to utterly disgust the Germans near us with her mixing of the rasberry jam with butter, a 10 minute process that left this reddish lumpy-puree. She claims its delicious. I imagine it is, thinking about the taste, but the visual appeal is lacking.
After dinner we slept, and the next morning Tiffany and I made a brief stop at the Japanese Palace (which must have been built to house Japanese dignitaries once, but was a very European building now used as a museum) for a quick look around.
It's a good thing we caught an early train back, because we were delayed several times on the way home. It took us from 11:00AM until 8:00PM to get back home. We got in some studying then, but most of the time it was too crowded with people heading to Oktoberfest.
Once we got home we had enough time for homework and sleep.