sprechen sie deutsch?

So I got back from Dresden late last night and it was snowing!! (Snih)
But.
Anyways.

Germany was fantastic. It rained the whole time, but it was fine. I stayed with some German friends of my Czech friend. They're in medical school and just the nicest people with a gorgeous apartment. They were having a soiree that night so I got to talk to lots of German people around my age about life and politics and everything else and eat delicious vegetarian chilli and have German beer and bread (mmmm). There were even some little babies around that belonged to some of their friends that were totally into the music.

The next morning, after a great organic (here they call it "bio) breakfast, Honza, Michael, Tina, Katarina and a few other German friends plus a baby set out for the zentrum (center) of Germany. It was fun to hear the Saxon accent which is made fun of by many other Germans. Even the buses were stereotypically German--clean, timely and efficient. Dresden is an interesting city because it was pretty much destroyed by firebombing during World War II. Therefore, a lot of the old buildings are in the process of being reconstructed to look as they did previous to being destroyed. We went into the Frauenkirche, another church (Catholic) and also a Lutheran church whose names I don't remember that had just been completely rebuilt. The Frauenkirche was a little odd because it just looked too new and they used rather pastel colors to do the frescoes. I also saw the famous fresco of the 12 dukes of Dresden, also reconstructed and painted on china from a village nearby.The city was getting ready for its Christmas fair, where apparently all the storekeepers dress up in medieval costume...maybe I'll go back for that! We ended the day at a cafe sipping coffee and hot chocolate and gnawing away on cake...