Half-A-Pig Night

The highlight of Paul and Anna’s visit was undoubtedly the night that we have dubbed “half-a-pig” night.

On a Monday night (my night off) it has become a bit of a tradition to visit one of the other venues owned by the same company as Ayers Rock Restaurant. It is a Beerhall called the Brauhaus which is part of a small old castle on the banks of the Elbe river. There are 2 reasons for the visit: firstly, to hear one of the other piano players working in Dresden this month (John Gwen), and secondly, to enjoy Haxenessen. For 7.77 Euros you can buy a half litre of beer and a meal consisting of the biggest leg of ham I’ve ever seen served to one person (covered in bacon too), Sauerkraut and Potato balls (a weird form of mashed potato that is almost jellified). As it is such a German meal and experience, it seemed like a perfect night to visit with Paul and Anna.

Before Haxenessen:

After Haxenessen:

Of course, the evening got a lot more out of control than planned. Johnny Borton (the piano player at Busmanns this month) came down as well.

John Gwen and Johnny Borton – fellow piano players:

Many more beers were consumed and lots of new friends were made. There is just something about German beer halls that makes everyone very sociable (could it be all the beer???). A heated discussion ensued later in the night about the correct ingredients of a B-52. Apparently in Germany (according to one guy we met) they are made with Captain Morgan instead of Cointreau and set alight… after convincing the barman to let us try both versions, I remain convinced that our recipe is much better. We ended up in a bar in the Neustadt with our new friends until 4am!

Who knew that half-a-pig night could get so out of control???

Misheard Lyric

It’s always a bit amusing for me to hear German entertainers singing English songs. One of the performers (a comedian) we saw during Stadtfest was singing the song Candyman as part of his show (you know that song – “who can make the sun rise, sprinkle it with dew…”)

It was fairly obvious from the outset that he really didn’t know the words for this song. A lot of them were mumbled so they at least had the appropriate vowel sounds. But we’ve all done that.

The best moment was when he sang the line that is supposed to be “Talk about your childhood wishes…”

He quite clearly sang “Talk about your jilted missus…”

It gives the song quite a different perspective… hehe

Dresden Stadtfest

The weekend of the 17^th – 19^th August was the Dresden Stadtfest – a city festival celebrating the 801^st anniversary of the city’s foundation and an excellent excuse for lots of food and beer stalls all over the city as well as stages with all sorts of typical German entertainment ranging from tacky europop through some interesting cover bands to hilarious German comedy shows.

The streets were full of people all weekend and there was a really great buzz around the city – even in my gigs!

My favourite part of the festival was the medieval section (conveniently close to my apartment!) which had lots of amazing food such as Knobibrot (a type of flat garlic bread which you add toppings to like a pizza), Schupfnudeln (a german savoury gnocchi) and Fladenbrot (bread baked containing ham and cheese) as well as a lot of pig, of course (pig on a spit, in sausages etc etc).

The drinks were also really interesting including a delicious honey beer, cherry beer and a huge range of fruit wines including Mead (honey wine).

There was even a manual merry-go-round (I wouldn’t want to be the guy that had to run inside the barrel!)

Being able to show Paul and Anna around the Stadtfest was so much fun. I felt like I was showing off my current home at its best!

Visitors

In the last week I have been really lucky and happy to have some visitors come to stay with me in Dresden. It makes such a difference to have familiar faces around and to be able to just sit and chat with people – it certainly breaks up what can be a fairly solitary lifestyle.

First, Macca came from Prague for a couple of nights. We wandered through all of the major sights in the altstadt (old town) including the Zwinger, the Hofkriche and the Frauenkirche and visited the Gallery of Old Masters including the Rustkammer (a display of medieval armour and weapons – very cool!)

The next visitors were tall Paul and lovely Anna – friends from choirs in Melbourne. Last time I saw them was in Dublin last year and I was so pleased that they were able to take a small detour from their backpacking in Eastern Europe to come and visit Dresden for a couple of days. They arrived on the last day of the Dresden Stadtfest which gave us plenty of things to see and do. After a fairly lazy day of relaxing and a little bit of sightseeing, we headed out to the Brauhaus (a beer hall in an old castle on the Elbe) for what we dubbed half-a-pig night (more info in another post). Another lazy morning to recover and we then checked out the German Hygiene Museum (surely, only in Germany!!) which turned out to be quite an interesting interactive exhibition about the human body. The final sightseeing stop was the Glass Factory which is a huge glass building containing VW’s production line.

As well as having some really great times, it was fantastic to be able to explore more of Dresden with friends. It gives me a bit more motivation to see some of the sights that I haven’t gotten to yet.

Paul and Anna left on Wednesday morning and my next visitor, Jen Ryan, arrives on Friday (tomorrow!).

Prague

I have been a little lazy lately (both with traveling and writing my blog) and so to kickstart some sightseeing and general activity, on Monday 13^th August I made a last minute decision to go to Prague to visit my friends Cristina and Frank (colleagues from my first ship, the Paradise). This is my third time in Prague and it is a beautiful city, but it’s funny how differently I view a city when I am there to visit friends rather than sightseeing. I have already seen many of the major sights of the city, so this visit was mostly just walking around with Cristina while Frank was working, going to cafes and just hanging out and playing with their beautiful puppy, Diesel (I can’t believe how much he has grown since January!)

One fantastic surprise of the trip was that my friend Macca (a tour guide with Intrepid Tours) also happened to be in Prague that day in the middle of a week off work. It was great to have a coffee in Prague – just like the old days at BaDaBing, but on the other side of the world!

That night, I had a great Italian meal with Cristina and Frank followed by Mojito night at their local bar (literally in the next building from their house). I am so glad that Frank speaks Czech – it is a completely foreign language to me. Even pronouncing something from a menu is impossible for me. I was quite proud of myself for asking for some directions about catching a tram from the train station, even if it was in German. It is amazing that the 2 countries are so close and yet their languages are so different.

The next morning I did a bit of walking around the old town, mainly to take photos to prove that I had done some sightseeing! There are a ridiculous number of tourists in the city, though and that never makes me feel terribly safe – always on the lookout for pickpockets.

On the train journey home I had great intentions to finally finish the novel that I have been carrying with me for the whole trip so far and not enjoying very much, but it was much nicer to chat to the couple from Perth who sat next to me. They had 14 weeks in Europe and the USA and were on their way to Berlin in the middle of an amazing trip.

Power Failure

I don't know what it is about me, but I managed to make the power go out in the restaurant last night... luckily it was only for an hour, but it meant some scary flashbacks to Amsterdam... though I'm sure I'm not the only one that has had flashbacks of Amsterdam...

Dresden Buskers

are still as good as last time I was here. It's not just a Christmas thing - how great is that! There is a quartet of 2 violins, clarinet and bassoon that are amazing and yesterday there were 2 cello players in the street that were also great. Such a musical city! I try to ignore the 2 violinists that are in the same place every day and are really bad, though.

10 Hours and 5 Trains later...

I've arrived back in Dresden.

What an epic journey though. With connections in Innsbruck, Munich, Nurnberg and Leipzig, I was sure something would go wrong somewhere. But it didn't! Everything ran very smoothly, all the trains ran on time, I was able to carry the 3 bags containing my entire life between the platforms in time (even in Munich which has a really horrible train station with long platforms) and now I'm back.

It's amazing what a difference it makes to be back in a city where I have worked before. It already feels so comfortable after a day. There is no settling-in period to try and find all the necessities (like an internet cafe, a book shop, a CD shop and the nearest H&M Clothing store... oh yeah and a supermarket... just shows my priorities).

I started work last night and had a great gig (I even made 20 Euro in tips which is almost as much as I made in my whole month at Aqua Dome) and so am now looking forward to a great month!

And just to make all of my Melbourne friends jealous, did I mention that it's really warm here today? :-)

For those of you who are wondering what H&M is, it's a cheap but cool Swedish clothing label and I am totally addicted to their clothes at the moment. Today I bought a jumper, a short sleeved short, some leather sandals and a linen shirt for under 50 Euros! Value! I hear they are opening a store in Melbourne soon - check it out!

Oh, and for anyone that reads this that isn't on facebook, get onto it - I'm totally addicted and much better at staying in touch with people on there than with regular email.