Just returned from Berlin! Internet was 1.5 euro/hour there so I chose to wait until I returned to Prague to post. Actually, for now I'm going to post about Dresden, though, which is where we were today (on the way back).
First we went to a VW manufacturing plant where they make the Phaeton, a luxury car. I guess I'm not that interested in cars, and honestly it was a little sickening to me. So much awesome technology and so much care and effort put into these... cars. Seemed like a huge waste of time to me. I mean, I appreciate that Vera and Michael set this up and gave us the opportunity to take the tour (which apparently is something a lot of people like to do), but it wasn't my thing at all.
I enjoyed walking around Dresden much more than the tour. It is a beautiful city. It was very strange, though. I mean, before this, all I knew was that Dresden was in Germany, and it was heavily, heavily bombed by the Americans during WWII. How do I know this? Through Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut). It's kinda sickening that I didn't know anything about it prior to reading the short story. No one here seemed to know about the bombings. Telling of the American education I suppose. These were not minor bombings. This was massive devastation. The entire city was bombed out and rebuilt. I felt guilty being there, being an American. I felt guilty for the lack of knowledge our group had about the city and its past and the bombings, felt guilty enjoying Dresden. But I did enjoy it. It has since been rebuilt completely. That was strange to me to... that there were no visible remnants of that past. Everything was intact, grandiose, beautiful.
Anyway, we walked through a beautiful marketplace. I saw a lot of jewelry that Zoe would love, but I already bought her some presents and I was out of Euro. Ah well.
Back in Prague now.
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