Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Flashback:30.08-04.09.1998- Morgners-Semperoper

Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998 06:28:12 -0500
Subject: :)
Good morning everyone! It's a beautiful day here today- clear blue sky, everything. I woke up and rushed into the city to try to take a picture of the Alps with the lake in the foreground, but unfortunately the sun was coming from that direction and it was a bit hazy in the background... so it'll have to wait. In the meantime, I thought I'd write a bit more, before I go back and start doing SERIOUS work! (Yes, I'm still a procrastinator!) Anyway, I need to tell you that starting Monday I can't use these computers for email. (I've been using the ones in the library where I don't need a log-in or password or anything.) But never fear! I did finally sign up for a password, so that i can use other computers, with an ETH address! The only thing is that I don't know yet if I can use telnet (meaning use my rpi address) from there, so until then, please don't write anything ( :( ) OR if you do, please save a copy so you can send it to me at my new address! (I'll let you know asap what it is!)
THANKS!

OK, so I was telling you about the Morgners, who are SOO wonderful! They were trying so hard to show me as much as possible within 2 short days of their beautiful little part of the country- Vogtland, and the Erzgebirge.

On Saturday morning we went to the Bergbaumuseum- a museum for the coal mining that was done in this region. We all had to wear hard hats for the tour, and even though I didn't quite understand EVERYTHING the tour guide said, (I did get a lot of help from Christiane, though!) :D it was really interesting- it seems like an incredibly scary place to work- NOT the life for me! Oh, and at the beginning of the tour the guide handed out lollipops to all the little kids on the tour, and he gave one to ME! (But not one to Andreas, who is 8 years younger!) We all laughed about that, and I gave my lollipop to him later.
980829-02-Bergbaumuseum

They took me to see the Goeltschtalbruecke, which is absolutely amazing- it reminds me so much of a Roman acqueduct- like Pont du Gard, or something.
980829-13-Goeltschtalbruecke

It is the biggest masonry bridge in the world, built in the 1800's (by one of Christiane's ancestors!!- I guess engineering runs in her family!)
980829-03-Goeltschtalbruecke

At the bottom of the bridge is a little brook, maybe twice the width of the length of a kitchen table! (I'm not going to get into feet and meters here!) It seems kind of funny that so massive a bridge was needed to cross so tiny a stream, but really the valley it was in was quite big, and that was really what it was spanning. We drove up to it in the valley, so we were at its very bottom, and then Christiane, Andreas, Mr. Morgner, and I climbed up the hill to the top.
980829-07-Goeltschtalbruecke

980829-08-Goeltschtalbruecke

980829-09-Goeltschtalbruecke

This bridge was incredible- a whole series of brick arches in a row, and stacked on top of each other, to create a level surface for the trains to cross on top.
980829-10-Goeltschtalbruecke

The span in the center is the biggest, to cross the brook, but the rest are all equal spans.
980829-06-Goeltschtalbruecke

I took a TON of pictures here, about 10 that all fit together taken from the brook - I needed that many to fit it all in- and then a few more.
1998-Goeltschtalbruecke

When you stand directly under one one the arches and look through lengthwise, you see a whole series of arches that could almost be a Romanesque cathedral, except that it's outside.
980829-05-Goeltschtalbruecke

980829-04-Goeltschtalbruecke

Andreas was hoping that I could do a sketch of it for him, but I didn't think to bring my sketchbook. (What, me?!?) :(
980829-12-Goeltschtalbruecke

Then on our way home we saw some beautiful countryside, which Mrs. Morgner kept pointing out, and whenever I turned to see what she was pointing at, a bunch of trees got in the way. "And some MORE beautiful German trees!" Andreas kept saying. :) But everything there WAS very beautiful! Rolling hills of farms, with little villages of red roofed houses.
980829-14-Vogtland

And there were so many windmills there too- sleek modern ones with two blades, rather than the old wooden Dutch ones that you always think of- slowly turning, quietly doing their job on the hillside. There was one point where the field seemed so smooth, and the windmills with their smooth lines and the line of trees in the background all seemed so simple, as if the whole image could be represented in three or four clean lines- so elegant.
980829-18-Vogtland

980829-17-Vogtland

We drove into a very wooded area, and started climbing up a hillside, (yes, MORE beautiful German trees!) :D It all seemed so warm and cozy, and we had glimpses of a spectaular view as we passed by little clearings. I loved it! Mom, I think you would love this part of the country! It really reminded me of the camp road in some places. HMMM! :)

At one point we drove right along the Czech border. Mrs. Morgner pointed out the border guards stationed at a little post on the cross road. You can WALK across, or take a TRAIN across, but you're not allowed to drive a CAR across the border here. I guess they have lots of problems with smuggling. It kind of eminded me of the movie we saw in German class last semester, Das Versprechen (the Promise), which took place in Berlin during the whole time the wall was there. Our professor had explained that when a car crossed from East to West, the guards would jump up and down on the back seat, and stick a pole into the gas tank to make sure it didn't have a false bottom. (These were two places people would hide in a car to escape to the west.) I asked Mrs. Morgner about what it was like in the DDR, if it was very different from how things are now. She said that for the most part things were good then, just a bit different. There were certain statements and rules issued that you just couldn't question. For example, she wasn't allowed to make an Abitur (The big test in German High schools that allows you to get a High School Diploma) because she was so involved in the church. But at the same time everyone always had a job, there was always someone to care for the children when the parents were at work, and there was a bigger social safety net. Now she said, there is more unemployment, which isn't a problem for the Morgners and their friends because they all have good positions, but for many others it IS a problem.
980829-15-Vogtland

We drove through one town which Mrs. Morgner said was the richest town in the DDR, with more millionaires than anywhere else. It kind of surprised me- I didn't realize there WERE millionaires in the DDR- I thought everyone had pretty much the same- middle-level income- noone too rich or too poor. She said that yes, there were millionaires, just not as frequently, and the wealth differences weren't as extreme as in the west.

That evening Christiane and I fixed dinner for ourselves and had a chance to talk- which was great- we had so much to catch up on in the last few weeks! I met her cat, Feelix (named after Brenda's bear!!!) He was so cute, and still just a kitten! We took him for a walk outside, and I got to see their backyard, which is really a small farm! We walked through the chicken yard- I carried Feelix while Christiane stood guard with a big stick, so that the rooster (who is very mean, I guess) wouldn't attack us. We saw the two sheep, but couldn't get too close, because if they moved we'd trip on their chains and then they'd stomp on us before we could get
untangled! Christiane said only her Dad and her Grandfather can go right up to them. (I didn't get a picture of her sheep for you, Graham, sorry! It was too dark out anyway.) So we had to be careful that Feelix didn't wander too close to the sheep- when we did, the sheep began to stomp their feet nervously. Then we walked around their garden, which is filled with some kind of plant, that I didn't know the translation for. (Maybe they're turnips? I don't really know.) The whole time Feelix kept sneaking through the grass (which was taller than he was!) and pouncing on leaves and things. He really reminded me of Snoopy, when he pretends to be a great lion of the Serengeti or something!

The next morning we went to a Musical Instrument Museum, which was really cool- so many beautiful examples of ancient, medieval, classical instruments, variations of instruments I knew, some I had never seen before.
980829-20-Musikmuseum

Nick, I saw a few Alphorns!!! I thought of you! :) (They're HUGE!) The day we went there were people MAKING instruments there and we could watch, and there was a concert, a quintet, I think, upstairs.
980829-19-Musikmuseum
It was great! Bren, they said they took you here too?

For lunch Oma made Kloese, which were delicious! Bren and Christiane, I thought of day you made them at home, and were so disappointed in your "disaster!" (I still thought yours were yummy, though!) But now I can understand what you were trying to do! :D Kloese are a special potato dumpling made in this part of Germany. They're about the size of my fist, and very stiff, but at the same time very soft and tasty- they go very well with gravy or sauce on top of them! I guess Christiane's grandmother makes them every Sunday! Speaking of food, she also made her Pflaumkuchen (plum cake) which Bren talked about so much- and yes Bren, it was as delicious as you said! It was much better than the Eierschecken (a Dresden specialty dessert that I brought with me to Rodewisch-it's a soft custardy baked dessert, that's cut into squares kind of like brownies), I thought.

So that was about the end of my weekend with the Morgners. Mrs. Morgner bought me a little Hummel plate (!) like the ones they gave you, Bren, to take with me as a memory. (Hummel is made in this region) I couldn't believe it! It was so sweet! She and Christiane brought me to a store to pick it out, and I found one called the Globetrotter, of a little kid with a backpack, hiking along with a church and mountains in the background (that's me this year!) So it's sitting on my shelf in my room in Zuerich, where I can see it and always think of the Morgners! Mr. Morgner picked a bouquet of roses from their garden to bring back to Dresden with me- beautiful colors- red and pink and orange and yellow. They were beautiful!
980830-02-Blumen

I felt so sad on the whole train ride back to Dresden, but at the same time so happy, because I had such a wonderful weekend with such a sweet family, who I felt so at home with! Christiane, now that I can email you too, nochmal VIELEN DANK FUER ALLES! (Du und deine ganze Familie!) :)
980830-01-Postkarte


One day the next week our class took a tour of the Semperoper, the famous Opera House in Dresden, designed by the architect Gottfried Semper (hence the name!) :) in the late 1800's- it opened in 1878. Like everything else it was flattened with the bombing in 1945, but it was rebuilt, in time to reopen in 1985- on the 40th anniversary of the bombing, to the opera that was the last performance before its destruction. This is an incredible building! So detailed, so ornate, so formal. The vestibule, which makes an elbow-macaroni shape around the perimeter of the theater has big vaulted ceilings, covered with paintings of Greek myths.
980904-01-Semperoper

Side thought- did you ever notice that the FRONT of a theater/opera house (where the main door is) opens to the vestibule directly at the BACK of the theater itself? So is the vestibule at the FRONT or at the BACK? Strange, isn't it? the same is true for cathedrals- it all makes perfect sense until you try to put words to it.
980904-02-Semperoper

Anyway, the walls of this lobby were covered with artificial wood paneling, with a square of real mable framed in the middle of the large panels! It made for a strange contrast, I thought.
980901-Semperoper1

But there was "Kunstmarmor" or artificial marble everywhere- floors, walls, columns- of so many different colors. When it was rebuilt they had to figure out how to reproduce this fake marble, which was a lost art form of the 19th
century. From what I could understand (which was not everything, because it was auf Deutsch) they made a thick dough and poured it into a mold. When it hardened they cut it just like they would real marble!
980904-03-Semperoper

The theater itself was amazing! There were four balconies, each with only 2 or 3 rows of seats, so everyone had a good view.
980904-06-Semperoper

The fronts of the balconies were decorated ornately with a creamy white, pale pink, and gold leaf, and globe lights protruding on big swoopy gold holders, almost like candelabras or averly curly "S"'s lying on their sides.
980904-05-Semperoper

The curtain, which wasn't a curtain at all, but a drop, had a detailed painting on it, and the sides and top of it were painted to LOOK like a curtain, deep red, with the coat of arms of the ruling family of Dresden in the center.
980904-07-Semperoper

Above the stage was the "Five Minute Clock"- kind of like an early digital clock. It displays the time in Roman numerals, and every five minutes -click!- the minutes flip over, like an odometer in a car.

On either side of the stage, where the box seats were, the levels were held up by caryatids (columns carved to look like people.)
980901-Semperoper4

The ceiling, which was a big circle, plus sides, had paintings of four women radiating out from the center, each representing a country where great theater literature came from (Greece, Italy, England, and Germany, I think?) and the names of opera composers and playwrights next to their respective countries. In the center of the circle was the most immense chandelier, with I don't know how many hunderds of these globe lamps on it, suspended above the audience below!
980904-04-Semperoper
980901-Semperoper3

Oh, and each of these balconies had fresh air from the roof pumped in to it through its front railing! (The air intakes were on the tops of the backs of the seats, I think.) I thought that was pretts cool, especially since it was in the original building in the late 1800's!
980901-Semperoper5

A few of my friends and I got tickets to a concert in the Semperoper on the last night we were in Dresden.
Semperoper-Postkarte-2

It was absolutely incredible!
Semperoper-Postkarte

We were in the top balcony, behind the last row (we had standing room tickets, and eventually sat on the stairs.) which I thought was great- we were close enough to the ceiling to see the brushstrokes, and shadows that were painted on to give it extra depth!
980904-07a-Semperoper-full

The acoustics were amazing- picture Troy Music Hall (which, by the way you STILL need to visit, Mom!) :) and multiply it by 5- that it, if you can actually talk about acoustics in terms of multiples! The sound was so full and round, the music was so inspiring. I love classical music anyway, and in a theater like this it is so much more powerful. I think I like it for the same reason I like playing music- it gives me a chance to clear my thoughts by letting my mind wander while soaking in the inspired genius of the music. I feel like I have so much more energy, like I'm ready to conquer the world's problems. It sounds crazy, I know, but this is how I felt being at this
concert in the Semperoper! I loved it!
Semperoper

After the concert we met everyone else at a Kneipe for a sort of going away party. The two weeks had gone by so quickly, and we had made such good friends, it was hard to believe we'd all be leaving in the morning.
980825-2-classmates vor der Hofkirche

980825-3-KlassenkameradInnen vor Semperoper

980825-1-KlassenkameradInnen

So that was Dresden.
980824-4-Semperoper

Talk to you again soon!
Take care!
Lotsa love,
Cory :)

Flashback: 28-29.08.1998-Dresden-Morgners

Date: Fri, 06 Nov 1998 13:09:59 -0500
Subject:
Hi everyone!

I have a little more time, so I thought I'd write some more. There are still a few things I'd like to tell you about during my stay in Dresden, before I can move on to more recent things. (this stuff was all in the email that disappeared when I lost my telnet connection about a month ago!!)

First, about my weekend at the Morgners. (This is the family Bren stayed with for a month when she went to Germany) Christiane came to visit us in NY this summer, and we became really good friends in the few weeks she was there. So it made goodbyes not quite so bad when we dropped her off at JFK, because we could say, "see you in a few weeks!!!"
1998-CT-CM-JFK

So when I got to Dresden I gave her a call, and we planned to get together over the weekend, and I could get to meet HER family!!!! Which was really great-her whole family is SOOO nice! No wonder Bren enjoyed her time with them!!!

So on Friday Christiane and her boyfriend Andreas (not to be confused with her BROTHER Andreas- kinda like you and your Toms, Aud!!) drove into Dresden- which is about a 2 hour drive from Rodewisch-and I met them there in front of the Goethe Institut when my classes got out for the day....actually, I only SAW them, and WAVED to them as they went by! THey were standing on the Strassenbahn (tram, streetcar)and when it stopped in front of the Goethe Institut they didn't press the button in time, so the doors didn't open and they couldn't get off! So they smiled and waved kinda helplessly, and got off at the next stop! I thought it was really funny, especially since I was the foreigner!

Eventually we caught up with each other, said hello while laughing so hard tears were streaming down our faces,and spent the day together in Dresden. We ate lunch in a Hungarian restaurant, where Mr. and Mrs. Morgner ate sometime when Mr. Morgner was a student in Dresden! It was new to me- I had never eaten Hungarian food before, but it was delicious!
(Sorry Nora, I have no idea what I had- something like a stuffed pepper.) Afterwards we went to the Frauenkirche, which we could really only see through the scaffolding. (Did I tell you about this already? It's a beautiful church that like everything else was destroyed at the end of WWII. It was left in ruins up until recently, as a reminder of the war, and also, I think, because they didn't have the money to restore it.
Dresden-Frauenkirche-postkarte

They've been raising money in the past I don't know how many years to rebuild it, and are still doing so today. Bren donated DM 5.- to put a piece on the Lego model of it when she was here, and I bought a poster of it, which now looks so nice above my desk in my room in Zuerich. I saw the CAAD drawings of it in a journal once- Architecture or Architectural Record, I think- which are amazing- every stone was recorded, so that they know which ones have to be recut, and where all the old stones go.

They're all identified and sitting on shelves next to the church now- so as much of the original building will remain as possible!
980902-01-Frauenkirche

The whole thing is covered with scaffolding right now, and is scheduled to be finished in 2006, in time for the 800 year celebration of the city of Dresden!)
980903-Frauenkirche


Christiane, Andreas and I took a tour of the building,
980828-01-Frauenkirche

which meant really that we listened to a lecture in the crypt- the "tour guide" spoke so quickly that I didn't understand most of what he said!
980828-02-Frauenkirche

...fortunately the lecturers at the ETH speak much slower, so I can follow my lectures for class! Phew! :) But I did catch that the restoration of the Frauenkirche is going to cost DM 250 000 000, which is the same as the cost of 22 km of Autobahn! Kind of puts things in perspective, I thought- they have to do so much fundraising to rebuild this cathedral- an important historical building and a symbol of the city- yet to build so much highway doesn't take nearly as much thought.

At the end of the afternoon we left Dresden and headed to Rodewisch, and arrived at about 7 or 8. Then I got to meet Christiane's family! First I met her grandmother, Oma, who was SOO nice! She insisted that I put on a pair of slippers, or Hausschuhe, so that I wouldn't catch a cold, but I told her I didn't think to bring any. She and Christiane and I laughed, because they decided I was just like Brenda! Then I went upstairs which is where the rest of the house is (that sounds dumb, I know- let me explain- Christiane's grandparents have an apartment on the ground floor, and everything else- kitchen, living room, etc. is on the first (second, US) floor.) ...and I met Christiane's parents. They both told me I LOOKED like Bren!...only shorter! WHich I thought was funny- I never realized we looked so much alike! Mr. and Mrs. Morgner are wonderful. I felt kinda bad because I had a little trouble understanding Mrs. Morgner because she speaks with a stronger Vogtlandish dialect. (Which is nothing compared to Schwyzeduetsch! ..but that's later!) But I did pick up on a few words:
itze=jetzt (=now) and Bemme=Stueck Brot (=piece of bread).

Mr. Morgner has a very "fatherish" smile, and talked to me about architecture and engineering at the university of Dresden (he's an engineer). And I met Christiane's BROTHER Andreas, who really reminded me of Nick the last time I saw him! (Andreas is 13) in different things he said and did, the way he picked on Christiane... it was really funny! And Bren, he's so much TALLER than he was in your pictures from 2 years ago!
980829-01-Morgners


OK, I know this is a horrible place to stop, but I think I should get going. I WILL finish this story soon!

Lotsa love,
Cory :)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Flashback: 22.08.1998- Zürich - Dresden

Tue, 6 Oct 1998 11:37:44 -0400

Greuzi mitenand!
(Hi everyone!)

I finally got this whole email thing figured out so that I can use my account from home, (I don't have one here yet) so I thought this would be a perfect time to say hello to everyone and try to catch you up a bit on my life in the past 2 months! (That's a really long time, so I'll try to be brief!) :)

Fuer alle meine Freunden vom Goethe Institut, ich hoffe, dass euere Adressen geht- ich habe schon versucht, an Ariela zu schreiben, aber das Computer liess mich nicht! Und ich glaube, dass ihr alle auch Englisch versteht, oder? Wenn nicht, bitte schreibt mir, und ich kann naechsten Mal auch auf Deutsch schreiben! :)

Europe is absolutely incredible! I flew here with Allison, a friend of mine from school, who is also studying at the ETH this year.
980822-flight into ZH

We arrived in Zuerich with all our bags and a list of phone numbers of youth hostels to call. We felt kind of lost, and bugged the nice people at the baggage claim a bit too much with our questions of how to get the phone to work, why some of the phone numbers weren't working, etc. Pretty much stupid questions that just seemed really daunting in a new country in another language. So after about 45 minutes of figuring out how to get our money changed to buy a phone card to call various places, we realized that we still didn't really know what we were doing. So Allison pulled out a phone number of a friend of a colleague of hers from work this summer, and she called him to ask him to point us in the right direction. His response was not, "take this train, get off here, etc", rather "I'll be there in 15 minutes." ! Turns out this guy, Dr. Marc Steinfels, is the president of his company, and just left his office at a moments notice to help 2 American students he'd never met before! He met us at the airport, put all our bags in his trunk, and drove us to his office, in a kind of roundabout way, so that he could give us a quick tour of the city! We got to his office, and he made the rest of the phone calls for us, to find a youth hostel, and call Allison's landlord to see if we could leave luggage there for a few weeks while we travelled. And he was very particular to make sure we had good lodging- he wouldn't let us stay in one hostel that was in the midlle of the city, because it had mixed m/f rooms! Afterwards he took us out to lunch- we tried to pay, but he wouldn't let us- then drove us out to Dietikon (to Allison's apartment) to drop off our luggage, past where I would be living, and then to the youth hostel- he even walked into the lobby with us, to make sure we would be ok! So in the end he took 5 hours out of his Friday to help us! Wow! Welcome to Switzerland!!! :)

The next morning we found our way to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) and left for a 10 hour journey to Dresden, with stops in Basel and Frankfurt am Main. I really enjoyed this day- European trains are very comfortable, and we got to see SO MUCH in one day! It's amazing to see how much the landscape changes between the two cities. Zuerich is not in the high Alps that you think of in Switzerland- it's in the middle plateau region, which means that it has large rolling hills-about the size of those along the Hudson near Albany, or near Cooperstown or Ithaca, but not really big mountains-those are further south. But when you travel to Basel (west and a bit north) the hills start growing, and the train winds through various valleys and little towns.
980823-1-train to Dresden

The colors here are fantastic! The fields and meadows are a brilliant green, the forests a very clear dark green, and all the houses have brown or red-orange tile roofs. I wish I could've taken a picture of it all, but the sun was in the wrong place, and it would've come out funny.

The train went north from Basel- which means we were in Germany at this point- and we went through more incredible landscapes- rolling hills of fields and vineyards, with big blue mountains in the background.
980822-BadenWuerttemberg

It started to flatten out we got closer to Frankfurt. Bren, I tried to look for names like Glashuetten, but we came in from the other direction. Frankfurt looks like a nice city, shiny and clean (at least as far as I could see from the train) and I could see the new "green skyscraper" (Norman Foster?) in the distance- pretty cool, I thought. From Frankfurt on things got flatter, and more like wheat and sunflower fields for the most part. (yeah! Fields and fields of sunflowers!)
980823-2-train to Dresden

But there were places where it was fairly mountainous again, and we went through a few cities whose names I remembered from the GAPP trip with Mrs. Mattiske- Fulda, Eisenach, Erfurt.
980822-Thueringen

980823-3-train to Dresden

980823-4-train to Dresden

By the time we arrived in Dresden, it was dark and rainy. But when we crossed the Elbe river, we could see all the big famous buildings in the Altstadt(historic city center) all lit up, with their reflections sparkling in the water.
980823-6-train to Dresden

It was really beautiful, I thought. We had a little bit of trouble finding our youth hostel, which is not so cool in the pouring rain, but once we found it it was very nice, with big windows that open out to the little terrace below. We could see over all the rooftops of the neighboring buildings, and I thought that if it was light out it would look kind of like European rooftop scenes that you see, even in movies like Mary Poppins! :) At some point we were sitting in the room and started hearing booms outside, and realized that there were fireworks somewher in the city, and that we had a great view of them from our windows! So we opened the windows (they're the cool kind that tilt in when you turn the handle one way, and open like doors when you turn the handle the other way) and sat on the window ledges and watched the fireworks from our room! Not too bad, I thought! :)

It turns out the fireworks were a part of a "Stadtfest" or city festival that took place that weekend, and Allison and I had a chance to walk around and see some of it the next day.
980823-Dresden

So for the next two weeks we took a German course at the Goethe Institut in Dresden. I really had a lot of fun with it. I met some wonderful people there, from so many different countries, and even from that respect it was great, that we HAD to speak in German if we wanted to talk to each other! We saw a lot of the city, which was absolutely beautiful.
Bruehlsche Terrasse- Postkarte

Dresden's kind of a museum city, where there is definitely a part that has all the famous sights, and several things that every good tourist should see.
Dresden-Postkarte-2

I took lots of pictures, including some at night, which actually came out quite well! It's more on the scale of Boston, or maybe smaller(?) where you feel you can get a fairly good grasp of the city in a day or two, as opposed to NYC or Rome, where everything is so overwhelming and huge that you need much longer to just get a basic understanding of it!
980901-Dresden

980824-3-Turm

We took a tour with a tour guide, who unfortunately, I had a bit of trouble understanding, due to the wind, the number of people in the group, and my lack of German comprehension. But I did get to see a lot that day, and later, in our own excursions.
980824-Zwinger-skizze2

980824-1-Zwinger

980901-Zwinger-aquarelle

980824-2-Zwinger

Zwinger-Postkarte

980901-Zwinger

The entire historic center of the city was bombed on Feb 13, 1945, and has been/is being restored since then.
Dresden-Postkarte

It's amazing to see all the churches, city hall, museums, opera house, etc, that look like they've been like that for over a hundred years (more in many cases), and then see the plaque on the side and realize they were entirely rebuilt in the last 50!
Hofkirche

I bought 2 postcards for myself, one in b/w, with a view from next to a statue on top of a building (the Kreuzkirche, I think) looking down at the rubble that is the remains of the city after the war,
Dresden-1945

and one in color, taken a few years ago, from the same statue, looking down on what is there taking its place.
Dresden-1990s

It's really quite profound- I guess that's the right word for it. The b>/w one really hit me. I can't imagine being there in 1945 and looking around to see my city looking more like a pile of ruins than Pompei does today! But from that picture, that's what it looked like. No life anywhere, just ruins.

One day I went to a little outdoor cafe with a few of my friends, and a retired man sat down with us and we started talking. He was very friendly, and he had so many things to say about the world, and about life and how beautiful it is. It was clear that he had lived through a lot in his life. At one point Stefano asked him about the war, why exactly Dresden was bombed. He explained that it was purely out of revenge, because the city had no strategic military purpose for the Allies. The Germans had bombed London- the historic, cultural part- during the war, and thus deprived them of so much. The Allies were so angry at all that Germany had done, that they wanted to do something in retribution, so they destroyed the city of Dresden, a beautiful Baroque city known as the "Florence on the Elbe." As he spoke, tears suddenly welled up in his eyes, and then burst. "Can you imagine," he asked us "being 3 years old and walking through the city with your mother and pulling an empty pair of boots out from under the rubble, and seeing the feet still lying there?" To this day it was such a sharp image drilled into his mind that it took him several minutes before he could stop crying.

This conversation made the whole thing so much more real to me than any photographs, any plaques, any cranes I could see still working to reconstruct what was there before that night.
980901-04

ok, I've been writing for a bit longer than I'd planned, and I should probably get going so that someone else can use this computer. I will catch you up on my adventures soon- I hope this isn't too long-winded!
980824-5-Turm bei Nacht

Taryn, if you have Jared's new email address, could you send it to me? And Nana and Pappap, could you send me Bud's again? (Also what I have to write in the subject line) Is he in the Mediterranean yet? I saw all the Navy ships in Naples, and I thought of him!
Thank you!

I hope everything is going well for all of you! I miss you!

Oh, and before I go, everything here in Zuerich is absolutely wonderful, but I'll have to tell you all about it in the next letter!

Bis dann!
Mit liebe,
Cory :)