Greetings from Dresden

I'm in Germany this week. Back in September, I submitted a paper which was accepted for presentation and publication. This was great news, of course, as this was the first time I've been able to publish results from my dissertation. On Sunday, I started traveling, from Charlottesville, VA to Dresden, Germany-- over 4000 miles!

My trip started out quite well, with a free airline ticket! Apparently the flight from Charlottesville to Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, was ''overweight.'' I checked in, I was asked if I wanted a free ticket in exchange for taking a cab instead (and of course, United paid for the cab, too).

I had a nice cab ride, and got to Washington about the same time I would have if I had flown.

Next up was my 8 hour flight to Frankfurt. I arrived in Frankfurt just after 7 AM local time (6 times zones different from EST), somehow needed to be able to stay up the whole day to beat my jet lag.

I finally arrived in Dresden at 10:30 AM local time, and by early afternoon had collected my conference things and eaten lunch. It was time to walk around a bit to try to stay awake.

The convention center (congress center, as they are called in Europe) is right on the Elbe river.


Snow? Yeah. It's been cold, ha.

I walked along the river toward the old city center. The architecture is quite different from what I'm used to in the US. There are a lot of statues.

Statues on the museum,


and statues on the church,


and some gold statues someplace else.


During World War II, Dresden was (without cause, it is alleged), firebombed by the US and I'm told that the old city was essentially leveled. Then started in 1989 and over 20 years, different parts of the old city were rebuilt from photographs. A stunning example of the restoration is the Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady. This was all that was left standing after the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frauenkirche_Dresden_1991.jpg.

This fragment still stands in front of the restored church, as a reminder of the war that brought its destruction. The church now looks spectacular.


The stained stones are from the original church, stones gathered from the rubble.

After my walk in the cold, I still needed to take a nap to get through the rest of the day. There was a reception in the evening and the conference proper started the next day. It's Thursday now, and the conference is over. If the weather cooperates, I'll go walking around a bit more in the city tomorrow. On Saturday I take a train to Nürnberg.