Dresden: The Cleanest City Ever.

The title pretty much explains itself! Haha. The group arrived in Dresden, which was about a two hour train ride from Berlin, and witnessed one of the cleanest, most beautiful cities EVER. It didn't hurt that we had some of the best weather on the trip that day as well; clear blue skies as far as the eye could see. We immediately went on a city tour, the main attraction being the Church of Our Lady. This church is in the middle of "Old Town" Dresden, and was heavily bombed at the end of World War II. The rebuilding of the church was finished in 2005, giving it the appearance of being really new; however, the building was rebuilt with stones from the original building. This gives the church a really interesting appearance, with white and dark stone signifying the mixing of old and new.

After spending time at the church, we continued our walk throughout the town center, passing magnificent building after magnificent building. It was almost hard to keep up with all of the amazing architecture in Dresden! Everywhere you looked was a new building that was even more beautiful than the next one. Among these buildings were the opera house and the palace. The whole city sits on the banks of the Elbe river, making it even more gorgeous! Dresden is definitely your typical quaint European city, even though it has about 500,000 residents.

My favorite part of the trip was our visit to the Deutsches Hygiene Museum. This museum explored different parts of the body and what makes the human body tick. While I've been in Europe, the class has been discussing the relationship between medicine and the Nazi regime. The Nazis are infamous for the types of experiments they did on their victims and for trying to prove that the Aryan race was the perfect human form. The museum began its exhibit with the explanation of eugenics and the search for the perfect man, which obviously does not exist. The other exhibits explored Living and Dying, Eating and Drinking, Sexuality, Remembering and Learning, Motion and Beauty. The museum was very interactive which made it all the more enjoyable. In the Living and Dying room, you could simulate the feeling of being old by putting on shoes that inhibited your ability to walk, head phones that lessened your hearing and a bracelet that caused your hand to shake so you couldn't write or hold things as well. The whole experienced made me super excited to be sixty years old. Not. Anyways, in all of the rooms there were fascinating exhibits and interesting hands on experiments. It was definitely a hit with our group!

I only have a few more days in Berlin and then it's off to Prague for the weekend! Although it's tiring going to different cities every few days, it's been amazing to see so much of Germany in such a short amount of time. Tomorrow we're going to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which will definitely be a somber and humbling experience, but I've always wanted to see one first hand so I'm very excited.

Bis morgen!