European Odyssey, Part 2 at 10:01 AM

The whole "tomorrow" thing didn't quite work out as planned, because now we've been through Dresden, Dusseldorf, and Munich, and I'm typing flat on my back on an overnight train to Rome. I don't know how long this will last, but we'll give it a shot.

After we spent the night in Dresden, we woke up the next morning and took about an hourlong walk through the city. The picture is of a statue of Martin Luther - a Dresden native - in front of Frauenkirche, which was the largest Protestant church in the world upon completion. It was largely destroyed when Dresden was flattened by bombs during WWII, but has been restored very well. We have a tour book for Germany (if you're ever traveling abroad, bring Rick Steves' tour books – they're fantastic,) and it has a detailed description of a bunch of the sites along a walk in the main part of the old town (Altstadt.) So we did that first, and then it was time to get our bags from the hotel and go to the Historic Green Vault.

The Green Vault was amazing. It was basically a treasure trove of showing off all of the Royal treasure of Augustus the Strong, the Crown Prince of Saxony and King of Poland during the Baroque period. It's pretty much everything you would expect from a bunch of rooms full of treasures. There was a room full of nothing but things made of ivory, a room for bronze, a room for silver, etc. There was also a room (the most impressive to me) full of jewels. There were sets of sapphires, rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. The jewels were all in sets. There were swords with scabbards containing these jewels (one sword had a scabbard completely coated in diamonds), along with broaches and buttons for royal robes, etc. All very cool. The whole thing was explained with an audioguide that came with the tour. You walk into the room, and hold the guide up to your ear (it works like a telephone) and it explains what exactly you're looking at. That makes the experience much more enjoyable, because it gives everything context. We've found that to be the case at most of these German museums. They've all been really impressive (outside of the Checkpoint Charlie museum, but maybe that's because we were sleepy.)

After the Green Vault (which unfortunately did not allow cameras inside), we got on the train (6 ½ hours) to Dusseldorf. That was another one where you just don't think of the travel time involved with the trip. But in the end, we got into town at about 8:00 or so. It was pretty cool getting back to the Hauptbahnhof of one of my old stomping grounds. A lot has changed over the time that I've been gone, and everything seems a bit more modern.

The plan in Dusseldorf was to hit the hotel and drop off our stuff, then head back into town for dinner. But by the time we found the hotel (we happened to run into a couple of girls that were staying there and they showed us where it was,) we were too tired to go back out, and the rowdy crowds downtown make Jessica a bit nervous, so we went down to the hotel restaurant. They said it was open until 11:00, but when we got down there at 10:30, the guy said they were closing up because business was slow (a slight difference between German businesses and US businesses – they just kind of close when they want.) He told us to go to the bar and get something to eat if we wanted. So we did. I saw a bunch of stuff on the menu that looked like it was worth eating, so I got the mixed plate, which under the description said "a little of everything." I cannot tell you what was on that plate, my friends, but none of it was on the menu that I was looking at. So that was obnoxious, but it ended up being okay. I can't honestly remember what it all was, but there was bread involved, and some peppers stuffed with cream cheese, and something else. Perhaps I've blocked it out. But Jessica got a cheeseburger, and in hindsight that probably wasn't a bad idea given the other options.

The next day the plan was to get up early and go into the pedestrian zone to take a walk before getting on the train to Nuremberg to see the museum there. We really were going to do this, but just couldn't get going early enough in the morning. I had even set an alarm, but I ended up turning it off. It didn't end up being a big deal really, as mostly what I wanted to do was just see one of the areas where I was as a missionary. At this point I haven't been back in almost 10 years, so there isn't really anyone here that would remember me, and there aren't a lot of sites to see in my old areas, so just seeing the Hauptbahnhof, and walking by the taxi area where we used to pick up and drop off new and old missionaries was fun. So we didn't get to take the walk downtown, but we hopped on the train to Nuremberg.

The museum here was also fantastic. There was an audioguide again that provided a lot of helpful details about the exhibits and also narrated some of the videos that were being shown. Seeing as how we've been in Germany, we've seen a lot to do with World War II, obviously. This museum probably did the best job (understandably so, since this was one of their main headquarters) in showing how it was possible for the Nazis to come to power. It's not as though it couldn't have been avoided, or that the atrocities that they eventually committed are understandable, but the social and especially economic conditions of the time were such that Hitler's propaganda machine and his public demonstrations were very effective in winning over the people. Not to mention the fact that Hitler created tons of jobs by starting to build the Autobahn and beginning Volkswagen (which means "car of the people".) Inflation had gotten to the point where it cost 8 billion Marks for an egg. They had actual million-mark bills on display from this time period. Unbelievable stuff. Inflation, folks. When it gets that bad, that really sucks.

Nuremberg played a huge part in the rise of the Nazis and was one of their bases of power. Seeing the architecture of the places the Nazis built totally reminded me of the old emperors and their fortresses and amphitheaters. Everything was concentrated on building the mythos of Hitler and his ideas. This showed us the social and political part of Hitler and the Nazis, and two days later we would see the human cost of their reign in Germany. But all in all, this was a fascinating museum.

On that note, it's getting late. So I'm taking a Tylenol PM and seeing if I can get some sleep on this train. Till later.