Anecdotes: My Vacation in Germany or Dresden, just Dresden

After missing the train to Dresden, I embarrassingly borrowed a person's phone, ringed up my friend (mind you, I'm still in Ingolstadt), and asked to stay one more extra night. It was super awkward.

Also, my card couldn't be used to buy bus tickets (as it wasn't a GERMAN credit card), so I had to ask my friend to pay it for me first too. After unrolling the sleeping bag that was kept after we hugged it out, I had one last sleep at Der Bayerische Mädchen's place.

So I went ,on the bus, and went straight to Dresden. Nothing interesting happened in this pretty long bus ride.

I went straight to my couchsurfing host's place. He was a tad bit late, but it's all good. The bus arrived onto Dresden around 7pm, and I hadn't eaten lunch (and dinner) yet. So, he brought me out to eat some kebab, and have some drinks with his friends. This was the first time I've tried banana beer, or as they called it, Bananaweizen. Its actually pretty good! Its taste exactly like a banana milkshake, and the kick will come later. We basically spent our night in that banana bar (I was quite tired), and he told me that I will be spending my next night with 2 more Hungarian couchsurfers. Their (The Hungarians) Couchsurf host bailed on them last minute and they needed a place to stay. I'm like "yeah sure, whatevs dawg." and he's like "yea cool brah". That wasn't how the conversation was but it was 2 months ago and I can't really remember it verbatim.

My host is constantly busy during the day because he needed to complete his thesis, so I went out to visit Dresden alone. The closest thing to his place was the Albertinum. A once-an-armory-now-used-as-a-museum-but-was-destroyed-by-WWII-and-the-2002-floods museum.

Figure 12.1: An unedited photo of the Albertinum

I spent the ENTIRE day inside this museum. There was just too much to see inside this three story museum. Every floor, every wing, is a different era, different themes, different collection. Rodin's The Thinker, was one of the sculpture being showcased inside it.

Unfortunately, the museum closes at 5pm. I basically wizzed through the third floor in 40 minutes in fear of being asked to leave. As I buzzed my couchsurf host's buzzer, no one answered. Oh great, he isn't home. Thankfully, his wi-fi is still reachable from the outside, so I messaged him. As I was messaging him, there was this 2 girls, just loitering outside the place. Very suspicious. They walked away, and then returned 5 minutes later, then they walked away, then returned again 5 minutes later. I approached them, all tuff guy-looking, and turns out, they were the Hungarians couchsurfers whom I'll be sharing my mattress with.

Our host brought us out that night to checkout the Dresdner night lights.

Figure 12.2: My phone's camera isn't good at night

Then we went to a Biergarten, had a beer, and I taught them Chor Dai Di, because why not? That was basically our night, we were all tired and what not, so we had an early sleep. One of the Hungarians (let's call them Ungarn A and Ungarn V from now on) was very very well prepared. She had all the touristy books and pamphlets. She woke up at like, 8/9am the next morning? and started looking through her materials, picking the next place to visit. Ungarn V woke up really really late that morning. Ungarn V, the host, and I practically stayed in our bed, despite being awake, just so we don't wake up Ungarn V. When Ungarn V finally woke up, we asked our host to join us, but unfortunately day time is thesis time, so we went out without him. I joined their party that day, and checked out the Dresdner Frauenkirche, Der Zwinger, and some other stuff. It was actually very much fun, and having them around was very nice too (they practically speak fluent German, all I said was Ja oder Nein). Unfortunately, they needed to go back to their Uni, as it was only a weekend trip, so we traded Facebook and I was on my way.

Dresden is extremely extremely beautiful, I couldn't get enough of it. Before going back to my host's place, I walked around the city one last time, taking as much nice photos as I can. My host made dinner, and we watched Scarface while we dine.

I took the bus to Berlin the following day. Upon reaching the ZOB, I immediately took the Bahn to the airport. From there I went to Qatar, then Kuala Lumpur. No time to visit Berlin as I had a flight to catch. Real talk though, this trip, was my first time going abroad on a holiday alone, it was my first time going to Germany, and most importantly it was also my first time couchsurfing. It was an incredible experience. I was legitimately sad when I reached Hamad International Airport, as I was boarding my flight back to Kuala Lumpur, not because I'm going back to Malaysia, but the experience I had in the past 9 days was so joyful, so fresh, so exciting, and so great, that I had a constant downer face as I lined up into the plane (the cutthroat prices of Hamad International Airport did not help either, a BK whopper set costs around USD30?) I met lots of interesting people, did lots of things that I've never thought I did, and what not. Its really hard to put this feeling into writing, but all you need to know is that I would do it again if given an opportunity.

Some pics from the trip y'all.