Weekend in Dresden

Thursday morning last week Kendra (exchange student from Florida) and I got up early and set off for a ten hour bus trip with our Rotary club of Budapest – Sasad to Dresden, Germany for the weekend.

Skipping the long uncomfortable bus ride where we mainly slept, there and back, here is a little summary of my experience.

In the evening after the Rotarians checked into their hotel rooms when we first arrived we set off to one of the Christmas markets in they city. One thing I love about this part of Europe, including Hungary is the Christmas markets in all the bigger cities. There we had bratwurst hot dogs for dinner with potato and either mulled wine or apple juice. The group then separated a bit to look around. Kendra and I waited and ended up meeting with another exchange student, Martin, from her district back in Florida. With him as a sort of guide we walked around for an hour and a half talking, he couldn’t stay too late as for him it was a school night still.

After Martin caught his tram back home we returned to the hotel to wait and get picked up by our host family for the weekend. A German family with two teenagers took us in for the weekend rather than us staying in the hotel as well.

Friday morning we were again up early for a fully packed day. It started with a trip to a little town over called Meissen. Meissen is the home of the porcelain factory (and museum) we visited. We were given a guided tour which included the museum of porcelain as well as getting to see parts of the process up close, everything is still done by hand!

The whole weekend was filled with multiple languages. Every part of our program had someone speaking German with a Hungarian translator and vice versa, luckily German and English speaking Rotarians were always there to help Kendra and I figure out exactly what was being said.

After the tour and lunch there we headed back out into the dreary weather. We were given a walking tour by a couple who lives in Meissen. We saw the little town, the castle, went inside the church, and even the couples cellar where they served us snacks and the Rotarians alcohol. Looking from above Meissen definitely has the little German town look to it, even in the sad weather it was lovely.

Once we returned to Dresden we still had some time to kill before leaving for our dinner. I ended up walking around another part of the city where most of the old/rebuilt buildings are, as well as more Christmas market.

The dinner that evening was held at the house of one of the Dresden Rotary club members house. It was really beautiful and the food delicious, lots of cheese! He had the most envious book shelf that I couldn’t help taking multiple photos of it!

Saturday morning we got up and went to a bakery in Dresden where we got shown and got to participate in making our own stollen. Stollen is a German Christmas bread once might compare to a type of fruit cake but fancier, and more popular.

Afterwards Kendra and I opted to return to our weekend host family as it was free time. Such a good decision. We got back just in time for lunch, after we did our Hungarian homework, and then our host dad took us back into the main part of the city to see some of the must sees.

This was definitely my highlight of the weekend, he was such a great guide both inside and outside of the museum we visited.

That evening we then went across the river to the other side of Dresden we hadn’t seen yet to an outdoor, and very popular ice rink hidden in the more forest area of the city. There we participated in playing curling though not quite like the Olympic curling, this was simpler. No brooms, just wooden stones that one threw/pushed/tossed (pick appropriate verb) across the ice. In attendance was also the exchange student that the Dresden club is currently hosting, a boy named Jason from Taiwan. We also ate dinner there, which was duck, followed by a delicious brownie for dessert.

Finally Sunday morning we were back on the little bus for another ten hour drive back home to Budapest.

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Now I’m currently finishing my final week of school before Christmas break and am busy making plans with others while not at school. Next week I do have three days of school but they are fun, simply the celebration of the school, class competitions, and presentations put on for the last three days before break.

Seeing all the photos of all the snow over British Columbia is making me really hope for a white Christmas this year, it snowed a little today but nothing stuck, fingers crossed.

-Emma