My Last Weekend in Dresden

I still can't believe that it was almost a year ago that we packed everything up to come over the ocean to Dresden.  And I really can't believe that in two days I'll be back in the US for good.

I had to make sure to make the most of my last weekend in Dresden...

Friday night we had a going away dinner for some of our other friends who left yesterday (they're going to Malta, NY too).  Then we participated in a free-style powerpoint party.  Yeah... my husband and his work friends are super nerds.  It was really silly though.

Yesterday we took one more trip to the trödelmarkt to see all the silly things people sell.  It was a beautiful summery Dresden day and it was nice to take a long walk.  Then my mom and I did some last minute baby shopping so the new baby can have all sorts of awesome German clothes and toys!

Last night we walked to the Neustadt for dinner at Ausonia, our favorite pizza place.  We were lucky to walk through the wine festival on the way there.

On the way home, we saw an awesome saxophone quartet.

The moon was almost full and we snapped some beautiful pictures of Dresden at night as we walked over the bridge on the way back to our apartment.

There were even fireworks!

Today we walked back over to Neustadt for brunch.  We happened upon another big event- A Dresden bike tour.  We didn't participate, but it was fun to see all the people lined up with their bikes!

After brunch, we drove out to Pesterwitz to go cherry picking.  Germany is known for their sour cherries- specifically schattenmorelen, which are often used in baking.  They are fantastic, but definitely sour!!  Cherry picking was a ton of fun... with the exception of the old, scary, mean German lady that we had to talk to to get a box and find out where exactly to pick...

Here's the "three" of us :)

mmm... sour cherries... 

This afternoon, we finally made it to the Albertinum, the newly renovated art museum in Dresden.  I figured that being an art teacher, I should probably go to the biggest art museum in Dresden before I left!

Tomorrow will be a day of packing and getting Bob ready for the movers, and then Tuesday I'll say goodbye to Dresden...

So... this is it for Miss Kris living in Germany.

This blog will still be here (which I'm so glad about, because it's awesome to have something to look back on and remember my year here), but I won't be posting here anymore.  Thanks to all of you who've read this throughout the year... I loved the feeling of still being connected to people back home...

From now on, I'll be posting about (almost) being a mom and our new life in Malta, NY at www.dribblesnibblesscribbles.blogspot.com.  It might not be quite as kid-friendly, as I expect some upcoming mom-rants, but I'd love to have you follow our new adventures...
I probably won't be posting for a few weeks, but check back soon!!

A Saturday at...

You guessed it, our favorite bier garten!

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as nice as forecasted- it was a little cool and partly cloudy, BUT I have to say, I'd much rather it be cooler than hotter, so I wasn't complaining.

On our way to the bier garten, we saw a parade- the start of Deutcher Evangelical Kirchentag which starts on Wednesday.  It's a big festival that's held in a different city each year- this year in Dresden.

Once we arrived at the bier garten, we realized they're going all out for this celebration.  We might just have to check it out.

The beginnings of a stage and bleachers

Covering a giant cross

We spent the day relaxing in the semi-sunshine with our friends.

My 6 year old friend picked this bouquet of flowers, beautifully arranged in the imported coors light can

Bob practiced his building skills on some ponies

and the guys got thoroughly involved in a silly game called fox-tail that they take WAY too seriously

The International Dixieland Festival

Sunday was the last day of the International Jazz Festival in Dresden.  Bob's parents are in town, so we took them down by the river to see the parade. (along with a bazillion other jazz fans!)

It was actually one of the better parades I've seen!  The nice thing was that it was mostly made up of big trucks with jazz bands playing in the back.  AND it was pretty much JUST BANDS!  Not that I don't like to see groups of marching boyscouts and girlscouts (which I used to love when I was a girl scout) or guys in fancy military uniforms, but bands are definitely the best part of any parade.

A one man band 

A Feldschloßchen Band (too bad all the bands faced the other way)

A dixieland umbrella dancer

The zoo truck (complete with band)

A marching band

This weird guy that walks around with a horn that sounds like a bird...
everywhere... not just in parades.   

It was well worth the wait and sitting in the heat and having some guy keep kicking me in the butt...

Later on, we went to a dixie land concert by the river and sat on the grass on a blanket.  It was actually the Air Force band stationed in Germany- they were pretty awesome, but not quite as good as the parade!

It was a great day of Dixieland :)

Farmer's Market at the Großer Garten

I love farmer's markets.  Especially when they're giant!  There used to be this awesome farmer's market that we used to go to some weekends in Rochester, NY, when I was in college.  I heard that there was a pretty decent farmer's market here in Dresden at the Großer Garten every Friday when the weather is nice, so today I thought I'd check it out.

It was pretty awesome.  Not quite as big as the one in Rochester, but you could probably find anything you wanted at this farmer's market... from olives

to half chickens

to vegetables and flowers.

Not to mention a bunch of other odd things like clothes, wallpaper, baked goods, and china.

While I was near the Großer Garten, I figured I'd take a walk since the weather was so nice today.

It was really beautiful.

And I got to see this funny looking squirrel.

AND, the Großer Garten has a lot of cool plants... perfect for Jell-O prints...

Sessions, Sessions and More Sessions, and of course, FREE STUFF!

The art conference was AWESOME!  I went to a whole  bunch of workshops on making art projects, saw some seminars about cool things like the Google Doodlers, and got a bunch of free samples from the exhibition hall.

Here are some of the coolest parts of the conference:

Making Art Projects:

I learned that you can use the recycled paper insulation (for your house) to make really cool paper mache sculptures. 

Definitely making these at my next job!

Cool Things I Learned About:

Google Doodlers:  One of the Google Doodlers gave a talk about how the doodlers make doodles and showed us a whole bunch of different doodles.  He also talked about the Doodle 4 Google competition (which all kids reading this blog should do because it is super awesome, and if you win, you get your doodle on Google and all sorts of other good stuff.)  Check out some awesome doodles here.  See what I learned about here.

Wayland:  Wayland is a marine artist that makes giant murals- in fact, he's made over 100!  He gave a really inspirational talk and showed some images of the murals he's made.  We even got to do a "draw along" with Wayland.

Wayland painting in the exhibition hall.

FREE SAMPLES:

All I have to say on this one is I'm glad I brought an extra suitcase.

Seattle is also a really cool city for Art Glass.  We saw a lot of fancy glass art, espcially by my favorite glass artist, Dale Chihuly. 

West Coast Here I Come!

Thursday I left for the west coast, which is very exciting because I've never been further west than Texas.  This year, the National Art Education Association's annual Art Educator conference was held in Seattle, WA.  Since I'm not teaching, I figured at some point I should do something art-teacher-y, and this was the best thing I could think of.  Since I have no art teacher friends in New Hampshire, I brought my mom along for the ride.

We left NH at 6am and arrived in Seattle around 2.  After a harrowing ride in the "downtown airporter" (we walked the airport from end to end looking for it- thinking it would be with all the other "airporters" (which it wasn't), ended up finding the shuttle in the PARKING GARAGE, got in, though the driver couldn't find our reservation, drove into Seattle, stopped at a bazillion other hotels to pick people up, even though the van was full and couldn't fit anymore people, arrived at the hotel where the driver insisted we hadn't paid yet even though we had paid online, paid AGAIN, and finally were left off on the hotel curb...) we made it to the hotel!!

After getting our bearings and taking a rest (the plane ride to Seattle is surprisingly long), we went to the Crayola Opening Night Event. 

Me inside a cool sculpture.

 The event was held at the Experience Music Museum which happened to be right next to the SPACE NEEDLE.  You can't visit Seattle without going to the Space Needle....



Even the outside of the museum was awesome.



The Space Needle.  Very needley.

The Museum was really cool inside.  There were a lot of make-and-take events sponsored by Crayola, like a fish printing station and a "make a latte out of model magic" station, and lots of desserts and COFFEE.  The coolest thing in the museum was definitely this:

Super amazing guitar tower.

After we'd had enough dessert and music museum, we decided to go up the Space Needle since it was night  (which is the best time to go up) and we were right there.

The view from the top was AWESOME!

Friday and Saturday of the conference are full of sessions about teaching art, and learning about art, and making art, and getting free art stuff... 

A Very Different Commemoration of the Dresden Bombing

Last weekend was the human chain.  A peaceful demonstration by thousands of Dresdners.

This past weekend was nothing so peaceful.  We had been warned in e-mails and by fellow Germans that Saturday there would be a Neo-Nazi march.  This in itself was not to be violent, but in past years, extreme leftists (the opposing party) had attempted to stop the march and to use more violent forms of protest.

We went out on Saturday to view the action from afar.  We weren't sure if we should venture out at all, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see an event that is a huge part of Dresden history.

As we walked from Altstadt to Neustadt (where the march was said to be held), we didn't see any violent uprisings, but we did see trams stopped along bridges to keep floods of people from storming,

more police cars than we've ever seen in Dresden

and police decked out in riot gear.

We passed the riot police blockade without incident, but as we looked back, we were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to cross back to our side of town.

After scouting around and grabbing some coffee, we successfully made it back without seeing any Neo-Nazis marching, or any violent riots.  Reading about it later on the web, I think I'm glad we made it out and back without any incident.

Later that evening, we did hear shouting outside our window and looked out upon a march of hundreds of leftist protestors.

If you are interested in reading more about this event, check out the following webpages:
allvoices.com
dw-world.de