Monday, 23 June 2008

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Update from German teacher (Ann), June 26 Guten Tag, ihr alle! We're roasting in Dresden! Actually today is only in the high 80s but the last couple of days have been roaring hot in the 90s (and no AC), so it's been challenging. We got here on Tuesday after an uneventful bus and tram ride to a stop only 200 meters from the youth hostel -- right next to the very modern shopping and banking building called the Dresden World Trade Center. A VERY different atmosphere -- this is the largest youth hostel in Germany and is about 6 stories tall with long corridors of rooms. We each have our own bathrooms in our rooms, which is good ,and the girls have two rooms and a bathroom. We were checked in by a young man with a beaky nose and long blond rasta-locken (dreadlocks) who looked like one of the twins from Matrix. Had to sign loads of pieces of paper and go over all the rules with the kids -- lots of do-nots -- which got us giggling. We walked the 5 long blocks into town through a residential area -- Communist-era apartment buildings, mostly renovated, and past one of the two largest tram stations with lots of little shops. We walked past the Zwinger, a Baroque palace built as a museum by Augustus the Strong in the early 1700s. Fabulous imposing architecture, lots of cobblestoned roads cut by tram rails, and no shade. Whew. We spent quite a long time in the Hofkirche, also Baroque, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in February 1945, very recently been dedicated the cathedral of Dresden. It was moving and powerful to see the displays of what Dresden (the Florence on the Elbe) had looked like before the war, immediately after the destruction, and now. Then we had a...

SharonParish

Sharon was born October 26, 1956. Died with grace and love from thousands around the world May 31, 2006.

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