Yesterday, Jon and I spent the day in Meißen (in English we use Meissen), which is about 40 minutes outside of Dresden.

The city was founded in the 10th century when Henry the Fowler built a castle here during his war against the Slavs. At the time, this was a strategical move because the Germans were in the process of Ostiedlung, or the expansion of the German territories. Meißen eventually became the center of one of the marches* in the Holy Roman Empire as the Germans attempted to wrest the area around the Elbe river from a Slavic group known as the Sorbs (who still live in this area). As the Germans were making their military and political presence known around the Elbe, Otto I, the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, decided to spread the German religion as well and he created (with the Pope's consent) the Diocese of Meißen. The purpose of this diocese, along with the other dioceses that Otto I created along the marches, was to convert the pagan tribes along the marches to Catholicism.  This task was not completed until the 13th century and the dioceses were greatly helped by the monastic communites that interacted with the Slavs. 

Meißen was a poorer diocese at first yet it came to be endowed by later Holy Roman Emperors, when the bishop was not in conflict with the emperor. While I am not sure what prompted the leaders of Meißen to build a Gothic cathedral, I believe that they most likely had the money needed and wanted to increase the prestige of Meißen with a new, fashionable cathedral. At any rate, cathedral construction began in the 13th century next to the Albrechtsburg (the castle within Meißen).

This is a picture of Albrechtsburg (the late Gothic castle, not the original castle) with the cathedral in the background. Since Albrechtsburg had been built on a hill above the Elbe, there was not much room to build the cathedral. As a result, the cathedral in Meißen is one of the smallest cathedrals in Europe. In spite of it's size, it is considered to be one of the most pure Gothic cathedrals in Europe. 

While I took a lot of pictures within the cathedral, these are my favorites. They are from all the main areas of the church (the exterior, the alter, an area where some of the Margraves of Meißen are buried, and the area behind the alter). The alter piece (the second picture) was done by Lucas Cranach, who was a German Renaissance painter. He was an important artist within the Renaissance and other paintings of his hang within the cathedral was well. 

After leaving the cathedral, and just in time too since a wedding was being held there shortly after we left, we decided to have lunch and visit the equivalent of a wine bar before continuing on to tour the porcelain factory in Meißen. The wine bar was amazing and while I do not know what I drank, I do know that it was good. 

Jon must have thought so too because he actually drank all of his wine. After our refreshing stop to drink wine, we continued to the porcelain factory. We visited the porcelain factory because Meißen is the birthplace of European porcelain.

 In the 18th century, Meißen was no longer a margraviate and it was instead part of the Electorate of Saxony, which was ruled by Augustus the Strong. Augustus was a patron of the arts and he acquired large collections of art as a result. He particularly loved porcelain, which at the time was an Asian specialty. However, these art collections cost money, which Augustus needed. In fact, at one point, Augustus traded the Prussians Saxon soldiers for a porcelain collection because he didn't have the money necessary to buy it.

Early in the 1700's, Augustus heard of a man named Johann Böttger, a self proclaimed alchemist. Böttger was imprisoned within Albrechtsburg in the hopes that he would be able to produce gold. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to produce gold, but when he was imprisoned he was in custody of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, a mathematician who was attempting to make porcelain. Von Tschirnhaus wanted Böttger to help, but Böttger refused him. However, Böttger's attitude changed after Augustus ordered him to help. This was for the best because in 1709, after the death of von Tschirnhaus, Böttger announced to Augustus that he had a recipe to create porcelain and by 1710 production of porcelain had begun in Meißen. The invention of European porcelain overlooked the fact that Böttger had been unsuccessful in creating gold. 

Meißen did not keep its monopoly on European porcelain for long, which necessitated the creation of a trademark, which is shown above. The K.P.M. is no longer used, but the crossed swords is the trademark the Meißen porcelain uses to this day. Even though Meißen lost the monopoly that they had enjoyed, Meißen porcelain was used among the upper crust of society. Aristocrats from all over Europe, and eventually the upper class in America, used Meißen porcelain due to its rarity and quality.

The above is a Meißen porcelain set that was used by the Russian aristocracy. 

Even today, Meißen porcelain continues to be a rare and expensive porcelain. Looking around in the store, we saw many items that were well over a thousand euros. While I would be unable to buy Meißen porcelain myself, it was awesome to see the process of how porcelain is made as well as the porcelain collections that they have. 

After leaving the porcelain museum, we traveled back to Dresden where we rested before going out. Last night was the first time that we went out, and it was a lot of fun. The bars are small and hard to fit a large group into at times, but there are many, many bars to walk to as you try and find a place to sit and drink. In addition, there are a lot of places to eat near the bars, especially the döner shops where they sell gyro's among other things. We did not get back until the early morning and I was surprised by how many people were out at that time. Our tram home had a decent amount of people on it and we were not the only ones walking back to our apartment. It was a great time though, even if I was very sleepy towards the end, and I look forward to trying more bars at some point. 

*A march is frontier between two countries that is usually militarized. For example, medieval England had the Welsh Marches that they used to keep order in the area around Wales and eventually used the marches as a way to invade/subdue Wales. Also, in German a march is known as a margraviate. 

This afternoon, after classes, Jon and I explored the campus of TU Dresden (TU stands for Technische Universität). Our exploration was an accident as we were attempting to find the library, and Jon's map was outdated. In the process of locating the library, however, we saw a lot of the campus, and we saw some areas of Dresden that we would like to further explore. 

Since all the signs were in German, I have no idea what purpose these buildings serve. However, I thought they looked really cool and they give character to TU's campus. We also saw some abandoned buildings. Again, I do not know what their purpose once was, but I did take a picture of them. 

These buildings were quite different than the rest of the buildings at TU, but Dr. Gommlich mentioned that they were renovating their campus, so I would assume that these buildings will be replaced with new ones. After seeing all these areas of campus, we were still no closer to finding the library, so we backtracked to a welcome center that we had passed earlier to ask for some guidance. The lady working gave us a new map (and Jon is very excited to have this map ☺) and highlighted the library for us. As it turns out, the library is close to our apartment so we had to backtrack once more. 

 This is yet another view of campus that we saw while actually walking towards the library. I wanted to share because our apartment building is in the distance. You can't see it very well, but it is the building behind the sparse red trees. 

At any rate, we finally made it to the library, but we were still unsure of which building it was. Since we don't know German, this can be hard to determine since we can't read the signs. In order to remedy this problem, I would really like to learn some basic German. Luckily, I found a flyer today that was advertising free German lessons in a church near us, so we will probably go to one or two sessions.

 Fortunately for us, a German student stopped and asked if we needed help. Admittedly, she did ask us in German first, but, after seeing our quizzical faces, she asked us again in English. She informed us that the buildings that we were looking at were the library, and then she proceeded to show us where the entrance was.

 This student was incredibly helpful and explained to us the layout of the library (where the cafeteria is, where the study areas are, etc) and explained the rules of the library (like the fact that you can't take your bag into the area where the books are). After she left us, we explored the study area, which was full of students. There was no room anywhere for Jon and I to sit, so we decided to check our bags in the lockers that they provide. The lockers do require you to use a euro but once you put the key back in, you get your euro back (this is a pretty standard practice in Dresden and it was in Pau as well). 

Finally, Jon and I were able to explore the library that we had been looking for all afternoon, and it did not disappoint. The library is huge and very beautiful. Jon and I actually did a circle around the bottom floor as we were leaving because we couldn't find the exit. 

We will definitely return to the library, even if it is for different reasons. I think that it will be a nice alternative to studying in the apartment (which is boring at times), and Jon loves the fact that he has free Wi-Fi there. At our apartment, we have only 2 gigabits of internet a day, so Jon is unable to download games on his Vita and what not. At the library, he is not only able to download them, but they download pretty fast (according to him at least. Since I know nothing about this, I can't verify how fast it is). Needless to say, he is very excited about this. 

Other than what turned out to be an exciting trip to the library, nothing else is on the agenda for today. I am sure that I will not hear from Jon until he is hungry now that he has the games that he wants, so who knows what I will do.

Hope all is well at home and we miss you all!  

  

Other than some reading, Jon and I have had a lazy day. Most stores are closed on Sundays and while we could have gone to Altstadt, we decided to stay in and rest instead. Since it has been a busy week it has been nice to spend a day resting!

Yesterday, however, we spent the day away from Dresden in the town of Königstein, which translates to King's Rock. Königstein is 40 minutes outside of Dresden by train and is located in the Saxon Switzerland. This area has a lot of biking and hiking paths so Jonathan and I are planning to go back so we can partake in those activities since yesterday we explored the fortress. 

The castle was first built in this location by a Bohemian king in the 1200's and it was used by Bohemia to defend their northern border and to defend the Elbe River, which they used as a trade route. The castle itself was built into the rock, which helped fortify its' foundations. 

 Eventually the castle became a part of Saxony and the dukes continued to use it for military purposes. The current fortress was built by the Saxons after they acquired the castle, so it is their buildings that we see today. Even though the fortress is impregnable and has never been conquered, the Saxons were not military minded (after all Augustus the Strong reputedly traded soldiers to Prussia in order to pay for his porcelain collection) so the fortress was primarily used as a refuge, a hunting lodge, and a state prison (and a POW camp in times of war), among other uses. Today, Königstein is a military museum, but I have a feeling that many people go for the views as well. 

The views from the fortress were spectacular and well worth a visit to Königstein. 

Yesterday was a bland day filled with government bureaucracy. We registered ourselves as Dresden residents so we could wait a half an hour to register to make an appointment for our German visa that we won't even have until February. On the plus side, the tedious part is over until then. 

Today was a much more exciting day as we were able to explore the city on our own, and we had an amazing time. This morning we set out with some of the girls in our program to explore Prager Straße which is one of the shopping districts within Dresden. Jon and I explored this area the other day and we found this store:

We looked inside and it is pretty much identical to the T.J. Maxx's at home (only everything is in German), but it was fun to check it out!

Since we had already explored this area the other day, Jon and I split off from the rest of the group so we could go to Altstadt. It's the old city within Dresden and Dr. Gommlich took us on tour through Altstadt on Wednesday. I really wanted to go back as it has the older buildings within Dresden (plus I wanted to visit the Old Masters art museum). 

   

I am not sure if that is technically part of the Old Masters museum, but it is part of the courtyard that the museum is attached too. All of the building is beautiful, but that is my favorite entryway into the courtyard. We decided not to go through the museum today (mostly because we didn't have a euro to check our backpack), but we will be going to at some point! I look forward to seeing which paintings they have.

After the art museum, we walked over to the Royal Palace, which was rebuilt in 1701 by Augustus the Strong (who seems to have built a lot of the city structures that still remain in Dresden). The Palace was ruined by the bombing that occurred in World War II, but they have since restored it.

Thankfully, the collections that were in the Palace were not ruined during the bombing since they had been moved to the Königstein Fortress (which is where we will be going tomorrow). Since the collections have survived, the Palace is now a museum, which we will go through at some point (and Jon is pretty excited since one of the collections is an Armory).

After the Royal Palace, we were going to go to Neustadt which is on the other side of the Elbe,  but instead we opted to eat and visit the Frauenkirche,which is a Lutheran church.

 That statue of Martin Luther was actually one of the few structures in the City Center which wasn't ruined during the bombing. The morning after the bombing, the citizens found him on the ground and he was in one piece. The church, however, was not as lucky; after having survived the bombing, the dome collapsed. The citizens organized all the blocks that they could find (which were numbered) and when they rebuilt the church, they used the original block wherever they could. That is why the church is two different colors; the darker blocks were part of the original church.

The inside of the church was just as beautiful, and even though it said not to take pictures, we did.

The church has an organ as well, and at some point we are going to go to church service there so we can hear the organ play. I am sure that it sounds amazing, and I am really looking forward to hearing it. After leaving the church, we made our way back to the Hauptbahnhof, which is the main train station. There are a lot of shops around the Hauptbahnof, and  Jon and I wanted to go to the Asian market so we could stock up on items that other German grocery stores don't carry. In Jonathan's opinion, it is the only place in Germany that sells bowls too. 

Overall, today was a fantastic day, and tonight we are going to rest for our excursion tomorrow! We are going to the Saxon Switzerland, and if we have time we will make sure to write a post about it! 

                                                              Hallo Freunde und Familie!

  

Welcome to our blog about our experiences as we travel overseas!

Even though Jonathan believes that blogging ruins the human experience, I think that he is wrong and want to share everything with our friends and family back at home. Blogging seems as though it will be the easiest way to communicate with everyone (if you are interested of course!), so I hope that you all enjoy it. 

As you all know the weather when we left Cleveland was horrible. Our flight was one of the only United flights that left Cleveland, so it was overbooked. As a result, they attempted to check our carry on bags... However, I wouldn't let her check our bags (since we wouldn't be able to pick them up until we landed I Berlin), and it turned out to be a wonderful decision on my part. 

Once the flight left Cleveland, we had no further problems until we reached Berlin. Our flights were comfortable, and Jonathan was amazed at how nice our flight to de Gaulle was. Apparently, his flight to Japan was not as comfortable, and his hardest decision as we flew was deciding which movies to watch in only 6 hours. The only bad experience was the fact that our luggage did not make it to Berlin with us (an experience that many other people from Newark experienced as well). 

Finally, we made it to Dresden where we were met by the program director and his assistant. They showed us to the International Guesthouse, which is where our apartments are located. They seem to be pretty well situated on campus, but we won't really know until our orientation.  The apartment itself is nice, though it is small, which we were expecting. 

As you may have noticed, we were able to go grocery shopping already. The grocery store is pretty cheap,which we love, and it has a nice variety of food (and even though we don't know a lot of the words on the labels, we are doing a good job of finding what we need).I hope that we will find a bigger store that will have more specific items, but overall the grocery store will be great for day to day use!

Other than the two "rooms" (there is dividing wall between them), we have a small bathroom as well, and a desk area across from our beds. The apartment is cozy, and the best part is our view, which overlooks some of the city.

All in all, Dresden has been great so far and we are really excited to continue to explore the city!