Donnerstag.
So my claim that nothing was going on was slightly inaccurate. Yes, Filmabend and organ concert and weekend trip, but the moment I underestimated the GI it came through with a whole 'nother spoonful of extracurriculars. I should never have doubted. For instance, Tuesday was the rescheduled Loschwitz tour (first booked for the same day and sort of overlapping with the VW tour), an opportunity I full advantage of. To my joy. And then my later dismay. And then still later joy again.
Allow me to explain. Loschwitz is a former little winecountry town that's been engulfed by Dresden in a way that Atlanta natives, at least, can certainly appreciate (and also by some sort of vine-destroying mite in a way that, uh, southern cotton growers can certainly appreciate). The architecture is super-quaint, with lots of half-timbered houses and tiled roofs with the round dormer-windows that look like lidded eyes. It has its own tiny Frauenkirche, with still tinier cemetary plot. It's all cobbled streets and flowers and little antique stores. It is ALL UPHILL.
See, Loschwitz lies just over the river. The tram drops you by the Blaues Wunder (a blue-painted metal bridge that's wondrous because 1) it was the first such bridge and 2) it didn't get destroyed in WWII, largely because a pair of locals ran out and physically removed the charges when the retreating SS tried to blow it up. It sucks to be a German who did something selfless during WWII, because the natural response is always, "Gee, it's a shame you couldn't be bothered to save the JEWS, but hey, nice bridge you got here." Anyway.), and when you cross over you're in the center square of Loschwitz, which is quite small but still a good 30% of the town. Lying as it does on the river bank, the center is at 0, elevation-wise. Basically everything else is at +10983408689762, with an approximate grade of 783%. A walking tour there is like mapping a river basin: you walk up into the mountains to find the source of one tributary (e.g. the house where Goethe wrote some damn thing or another), then back down to the lake. Find a new stream and repeat (a half-timbered house where an artist lived; every panel of the plaster is beautifully painted with words or pictures, and of course there are flowers everywhere and CUTE).
It was all okay, though, until we decided to HIKE to the top station of the Bergbahn (there are two ways up the cliff there in Loschwitz: one rides on a rail, one is suspended from above; we followed the latter, the "Schwebebahn"), a trip that involved seriously the steepest "roads" I have ever seen, and God help the people who actually drive on them, particularly when it's raining. I'm in no kind of shape to be climing mountains and I honestly didn't think I could make it to the top, but thankfully our guide was also somewhat miserable, so we commiserated in German (e.g. the mailboxes up there have the "Please no fliers" stickers on them, and we're thinking 'Bitches should be grateful if I climb this damn thing to tell them fruit's on sale') and reached the look-out in one piece (each). It's a short trip on the Bahn, but I think I understand why they can charge 4€ or so for the privilege, because holy crap. Nice view, though. I proved a different pair of shoes unworthy of the name in the process of reaching it, and I dirtied my hand incredibly clutching the handrail on the way back down - I would have slid quite a ways if I'd slipped - but overall I give Loschwitz a "neat".
Still better, on the SB Tuesday morning I saw pictures of some ruined church, the existence of which I never suspected, on one of the on-board monitors. And what should we pass on the way to Loschwitz that day but the Trinitatiskirche itself, which was bombed in 1945 but has been preserved as a sort of monument/community center. The roof and windows are gone, of course, and parts of the walls, but some of the arches are still unbroken, and all the steeples are in place. Over the front door is the text "Kommet her zu mir" (Come unto me), and standing directly above is presumably a statue of Jesus holding out welcoming arms, except it's been broken off just below the knees. Poetic stuff.
And the perfect solution to my photo-project dilemma, too. I went back Wednesday morning, when I had the camera, and while wandering around considering angles discovered there's a big attached cemetary, too, in the Innsbruck tradition of a walled-off sort of garden, with lots of overelaborate monuments and big family plots, many of which are no longer remotely legible. I did my best to make my four pictures high-contrast, since they're going to get transferred from color film to black-and-white photocopies. I hope we get to keep the originals for our own photos, though, because that church is really something to see. I took a few pictures with my own camera on Tuesday, but between that and Loschwitz I suddenly shot from a safe 32/54 frames left with 13 days to go to a rather precarious 19/54 with 10 days left. And the trip to Leipzig and the Dresdner Stadtfest and the GI's end-of-program festivities are yet to come. And I never took pictures of the major sites in Neustadt. I may have to bite the bullet and just buy another camera here, even though everything film-related is supposedly much more expensive in Europe. I want to take pictures because I'm enjoying my trip, and that is worth the extra $12 or whatever.
Wednesday night was our Filmabend. Halbe Treppe is another non-blockbuster sort of film, but I really liked it. Two couples, infidelity, lots of painful scenes, the occasional weird documentary moment when a character would answer a question posed by someone off-screen. But also one of the funniest running gags I've ever seen. Uwe owns an imbiss (snack stand) called Halbe Treppe, and one day when he gets to work there's a guy on the steps in front playing bagpipes; he asks the guy to move a little farther away, and that's the end of it. The next day the bagpiper is back, this time with a violinist. Uwe's marriage is collapsing and he's freaking out, and every day there are more musicians on the steps. By the end of the film he's got a seventeen-piece band (the 17 Hippies, said the credits, I think) playing gypsy music out there, and no matter where he goes he can hear them (for instance, coming out of the pipes when he lifts the lid on his toilet). It's absolutely hilarious, and of course I love southern European music and bagpipes, so great for me.
Then Sylvia's started assigning us individualized homework, so since I'd expressed an interest in seeing it (somehow I never managed to do so) I was to watch Good bye, Lenin! last night and report back. It also has some weird touches, particularly the use of sped-up film, but overall it was entertaining and not anymore maudlin than it had to be. And the way the boys manipulate reality to keep it Soviet is amazingly ingenious. I have to say, though: German film industry, I've about had it with the full-frontal male nudity. I don't care, okay? I do not want to know. Keep it to yourself, please.
Apropos of which, our new chapter is on "Love". So yesterday Sylvia had us do a toned-down version of the wall at the DHM that we all found so fascinating, namely "How was your first kiss?" And kids, I simply couldn't do it. I couldn't be the one to say, "Uhh, this exercise that you modified to make it all-inclusive? It doesn't so much include me. You know." So I said it was "Ganz unerwartet. -Rachel, 23" and mentally changed the war to wird (making it future tense, you see) and basically was a big ol' lying pansy. Poor Pelagia mentioned something about SMSing in her explanation, and therefore dated her story, earning an astounded "Einundzwanzig Jahre ohne... wow" from Joao, who like evidently all normal people had some little story from grade school to share. Sorry, but in elementary school I was punching people, not kissing them. On the other hand, I was lying to teachers about having punched them, so there at least I'm consistent.
Anyway, after watching movies I usually go walking, because they leave me unsettled. Yesterday's incident made me more than usually so, for the second night in a row I walked as far as Synagogue (the first stop across the bridge in Altstadt) before catching the tram. It really is a gorgeous view at night, and the moon is waxing and rising huge and distorted: Tuesday it was bronze, last night it was a ghostly giant until the sky fully darkened, which I could stand there and watch, having nothing better to do. Then there's the Filmnächte screen and associated mood lighting, and overall I strongly recommend standing on Carolasbrücke on summer evenings and watching birds and boats and this one guy who rode his bicycle out onto a spit of sand and sat there silhouetted against the rosy water for a good while.
When I left and walked to the stop, I noticed for the first time that among the grafitti scratched into the plexi walling the opposite stop, the two largest and top-most words are (seriously) "23" on one panel and "lie" on the other. Now what the hell, people. They're written quite large, with lots of parallel scratches, and the headlights of every passing car light them up from behind like a cheap hologram. I may chicken out before my peers, but I refuse to be judged by inanimate objects/grafitti artists of the past.
Of course, on the internet I can be all
I'm 23 and I've never kissed anyone!
because everyone here either already knew that or doesn't give a flying fuck. In a group of 9, I can easily be the most pathetic, but online? Not a chance, y'all. It's good to be home.
Speaking of coincidences, standing on the bridge Tuesday night I'd noticed yet again how low the water looks, but on the other hand - given the broad and low-lying northern bank - I couldn't figure out where (much) more water would go. And it turns out that in 2002 there was a huge flood, with 9,4 meters of water instead of the usual ~2, and the result was a flooded Theaterplatz and the necessary evacuation of various hospital patients and pieces of art. Minimal loss of life, but a huge financial hit to the city. Sylvia brought in an article on the subject as yesterday's outside reading. Between that and the grafitti and the near-instant sighting of the Trinitatiskirche about 90 minutes after I first learned it existed, that's three good coincidences in two days. Perhaps this means something? Dresden is a coincidental kind of place.
Allow me to explain. Loschwitz is a former little winecountry town that's been engulfed by Dresden in a way that Atlanta natives, at least, can certainly appreciate (and also by some sort of vine-destroying mite in a way that, uh, southern cotton growers can certainly appreciate). The architecture is super-quaint, with lots of half-timbered houses and tiled roofs with the round dormer-windows that look like lidded eyes. It has its own tiny Frauenkirche, with still tinier cemetary plot. It's all cobbled streets and flowers and little antique stores. It is ALL UPHILL.
See, Loschwitz lies just over the river. The tram drops you by the Blaues Wunder (a blue-painted metal bridge that's wondrous because 1) it was the first such bridge and 2) it didn't get destroyed in WWII, largely because a pair of locals ran out and physically removed the charges when the retreating SS tried to blow it up. It sucks to be a German who did something selfless during WWII, because the natural response is always, "Gee, it's a shame you couldn't be bothered to save the JEWS, but hey, nice bridge you got here." Anyway.), and when you cross over you're in the center square of Loschwitz, which is quite small but still a good 30% of the town. Lying as it does on the river bank, the center is at 0, elevation-wise. Basically everything else is at +10983408689762, with an approximate grade of 783%. A walking tour there is like mapping a river basin: you walk up into the mountains to find the source of one tributary (e.g. the house where Goethe wrote some damn thing or another), then back down to the lake. Find a new stream and repeat (a half-timbered house where an artist lived; every panel of the plaster is beautifully painted with words or pictures, and of course there are flowers everywhere and CUTE).
It was all okay, though, until we decided to HIKE to the top station of the Bergbahn (there are two ways up the cliff there in Loschwitz: one rides on a rail, one is suspended from above; we followed the latter, the "Schwebebahn"), a trip that involved seriously the steepest "roads" I have ever seen, and God help the people who actually drive on them, particularly when it's raining. I'm in no kind of shape to be climing mountains and I honestly didn't think I could make it to the top, but thankfully our guide was also somewhat miserable, so we commiserated in German (e.g. the mailboxes up there have the "Please no fliers" stickers on them, and we're thinking 'Bitches should be grateful if I climb this damn thing to tell them fruit's on sale') and reached the look-out in one piece (each). It's a short trip on the Bahn, but I think I understand why they can charge 4€ or so for the privilege, because holy crap. Nice view, though. I proved a different pair of shoes unworthy of the name in the process of reaching it, and I dirtied my hand incredibly clutching the handrail on the way back down - I would have slid quite a ways if I'd slipped - but overall I give Loschwitz a "neat".
Still better, on the SB Tuesday morning I saw pictures of some ruined church, the existence of which I never suspected, on one of the on-board monitors. And what should we pass on the way to Loschwitz that day but the Trinitatiskirche itself, which was bombed in 1945 but has been preserved as a sort of monument/community center. The roof and windows are gone, of course, and parts of the walls, but some of the arches are still unbroken, and all the steeples are in place. Over the front door is the text "Kommet her zu mir" (Come unto me), and standing directly above is presumably a statue of Jesus holding out welcoming arms, except it's been broken off just below the knees. Poetic stuff.
And the perfect solution to my photo-project dilemma, too. I went back Wednesday morning, when I had the camera, and while wandering around considering angles discovered there's a big attached cemetary, too, in the Innsbruck tradition of a walled-off sort of garden, with lots of overelaborate monuments and big family plots, many of which are no longer remotely legible. I did my best to make my four pictures high-contrast, since they're going to get transferred from color film to black-and-white photocopies. I hope we get to keep the originals for our own photos, though, because that church is really something to see. I took a few pictures with my own camera on Tuesday, but between that and Loschwitz I suddenly shot from a safe 32/54 frames left with 13 days to go to a rather precarious 19/54 with 10 days left. And the trip to Leipzig and the Dresdner Stadtfest and the GI's end-of-program festivities are yet to come. And I never took pictures of the major sites in Neustadt. I may have to bite the bullet and just buy another camera here, even though everything film-related is supposedly much more expensive in Europe. I want to take pictures because I'm enjoying my trip, and that is worth the extra $12 or whatever.
Wednesday night was our Filmabend. Halbe Treppe is another non-blockbuster sort of film, but I really liked it. Two couples, infidelity, lots of painful scenes, the occasional weird documentary moment when a character would answer a question posed by someone off-screen. But also one of the funniest running gags I've ever seen. Uwe owns an imbiss (snack stand) called Halbe Treppe, and one day when he gets to work there's a guy on the steps in front playing bagpipes; he asks the guy to move a little farther away, and that's the end of it. The next day the bagpiper is back, this time with a violinist. Uwe's marriage is collapsing and he's freaking out, and every day there are more musicians on the steps. By the end of the film he's got a seventeen-piece band (the 17 Hippies, said the credits, I think) playing gypsy music out there, and no matter where he goes he can hear them (for instance, coming out of the pipes when he lifts the lid on his toilet). It's absolutely hilarious, and of course I love southern European music and bagpipes, so great for me.
Then Sylvia's started assigning us individualized homework, so since I'd expressed an interest in seeing it (somehow I never managed to do so) I was to watch Good bye, Lenin! last night and report back. It also has some weird touches, particularly the use of sped-up film, but overall it was entertaining and not anymore maudlin than it had to be. And the way the boys manipulate reality to keep it Soviet is amazingly ingenious. I have to say, though: German film industry, I've about had it with the full-frontal male nudity. I don't care, okay? I do not want to know. Keep it to yourself, please.
Apropos of which, our new chapter is on "Love". So yesterday Sylvia had us do a toned-down version of the wall at the DHM that we all found so fascinating, namely "How was your first kiss?" And kids, I simply couldn't do it. I couldn't be the one to say, "Uhh, this exercise that you modified to make it all-inclusive? It doesn't so much include me. You know." So I said it was "Ganz unerwartet. -Rachel, 23" and mentally changed the war to wird (making it future tense, you see) and basically was a big ol' lying pansy. Poor Pelagia mentioned something about SMSing in her explanation, and therefore dated her story, earning an astounded "Einundzwanzig Jahre ohne... wow" from Joao, who like evidently all normal people had some little story from grade school to share. Sorry, but in elementary school I was punching people, not kissing them. On the other hand, I was lying to teachers about having punched them, so there at least I'm consistent.
Anyway, after watching movies I usually go walking, because they leave me unsettled. Yesterday's incident made me more than usually so, for the second night in a row I walked as far as Synagogue (the first stop across the bridge in Altstadt) before catching the tram. It really is a gorgeous view at night, and the moon is waxing and rising huge and distorted: Tuesday it was bronze, last night it was a ghostly giant until the sky fully darkened, which I could stand there and watch, having nothing better to do. Then there's the Filmnächte screen and associated mood lighting, and overall I strongly recommend standing on Carolasbrücke on summer evenings and watching birds and boats and this one guy who rode his bicycle out onto a spit of sand and sat there silhouetted against the rosy water for a good while.
When I left and walked to the stop, I noticed for the first time that among the grafitti scratched into the plexi walling the opposite stop, the two largest and top-most words are (seriously) "23" on one panel and "lie" on the other. Now what the hell, people. They're written quite large, with lots of parallel scratches, and the headlights of every passing car light them up from behind like a cheap hologram. I may chicken out before my peers, but I refuse to be judged by inanimate objects/grafitti artists of the past.
Of course, on the internet I can be all
I'm 23 and I've never kissed anyone!
because everyone here either already knew that or doesn't give a flying fuck. In a group of 9, I can easily be the most pathetic, but online? Not a chance, y'all. It's good to be home.
Speaking of coincidences, standing on the bridge Tuesday night I'd noticed yet again how low the water looks, but on the other hand - given the broad and low-lying northern bank - I couldn't figure out where (much) more water would go. And it turns out that in 2002 there was a huge flood, with 9,4 meters of water instead of the usual ~2, and the result was a flooded Theaterplatz and the necessary evacuation of various hospital patients and pieces of art. Minimal loss of life, but a huge financial hit to the city. Sylvia brought in an article on the subject as yesterday's outside reading. Between that and the grafitti and the near-instant sighting of the Trinitatiskirche about 90 minutes after I first learned it existed, that's three good coincidences in two days. Perhaps this means something? Dresden is a coincidental kind of place.