15 Juli-- Day 21

Friday! This weekend we made our first weekend trip-- Dessau and Weimar. After class on Friday, we met up and went together to the train station. I love traveling by train. you can gt up and walk around when you want to, you don't have to check luggage. Excellent, if a little slow. We took a mix of regional and intercity trains, so it wasn't too long of a trip. For these smaller trains, you can get away with not reserving a seat. So if you didn't get a seat on either floor of the train, you just had to wait until we got further and seats opened up.

One view from the train. The yellow is all flowers. We passed by a bunch of tiny towns and farms and castles and windmills.

After arriving in Dessau, the seat of the Bauhaus movement, we walked for like 25 minutes with our luggage to our hostel. It was worth it though. I don't think any hostels could possibly match up to this one. First off, it had the greatest playground ever. Second, it was super clean, super bright and cheerful, and we had really nice rooms. Of course, it was a 25 minute walk from anything even moderately interesting... but that's a small price to pay.

The hostel

After dropping our stuff off, we made our way down to the "inner city"...also deserted (think Wading River after 9). We went to a Kartoffelhaus-- Kartoffel=Potato -- and had potatoes. So many different types of food you can make with potatoes. What a versatile food- thank you ever so much potatoes. You make me happy and fat.

The platz where the restaurant was

The same platz in a painting... only like 100 + years earlier.

After a lovely meal with our prof and a guy who had done the lsa and fsp before, and now is doing a fullbright thing and traveling with us, our "chaperones" left us to our own devices. However, the town was positively deserted. Therefore, we decided to get dessert. We went to a restaurant that was in the basement of the local town hall. Apparently, this place, the Ratskeller (rat = advice, not rats) used to be where town halls would store the town's supply of alcohol. Now this one's Ratskeller is now a restaurant. We had dessert, had some drinks, good fun. Unfortunately, it took us about an hour to get back to the hostel on foot.

When we woke up the next morning, it was time to start learning about Bauhaus.