I'm off on a new adventure to Dresden, Germany. Here you can find tales of my travels and images of my latest artwork.

24.10.10

Ripsticking on the Elbe

This weekend the weather was great!  Turns out the "fall weather" hasn't arrived quite yet.  Or maybe its just a good-weather fall.  In either case, we took advantage of the cool, crisp days to do some outdoor activities.

Our first nice-weather activity was to take a ripstick ride down the Elberadweg, the path by the river.  To get to the river, we had to walk through Altstadt, the old part of the city.  There are always a lot of tourists and street performers when the weather is nice, and sometimes you can see some pretty unusual things.  On our walk through the Altstadt on Saturday, we saw the following:
A very unhappy guy in an old-fashioned baker costume

Some high heels on a bridge
Like I said, sometimes, you see strange things in the Altstadt.

We had a great time ripsticking along the river.  The Elberadweg is one of the few places in Dresden where there aren't cobblestones (cobblestones are NOT ripstick friendly).
We got a lot of funny looks from people as we rode.  I'm pretty sure they don't sell ripsticks here so everyone was very intrigued.  An interesting thing about German culture is that it is totally okay to stare.  At first I was always really embarrassed and a little angry that people would just stare at you.  Some people even continue to stare if you stare at them.  I think now I've gotten used to it.  In any case, we were stared at a lot.
Following the trend of seeing strange things, as we rode along the river we saw a ferriswheel,
a donkey farm,
and a cat.
It was like a state fair!

We rode for a couple miles and crossed a brand new pedestrian bridge
and ended up at the Watzke ball- und brauhaus.  Now you know where one of my cats got his name.  We stopped in their beergarten to admire the foliage and the river and get something to drink.  A 3 mile ripstick ride makes you very thirsty.
It was definitely a beautiful day to be by the river.
On the way home, while we stopped for a break, Bob realized he'd been eating too many pretzels and drinking too much beer.

No, not really, but isn't that a funny picture?




1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ben is green with envy at the ripsticking site! Looks likes lots of fun, if Bob would stop breaking peoples fences! Ugh! Hope you guys are well. Austin misses you!