Flower Market + Dresden!

Hello, everyone! Here are a few pictures from the last week or so. I didn't end up working that much last week - the 12th graders are starting to take their Abitur, or the exams they have to take to graduate high school, so when a teacher has to monitor these tests their classes don't happen. Also the 11th graders are taking their midterms and lots of classes are going on day trips.

I think it's annoying that the weather has been stubbornly staying in the 40s and low 50s. I wore a sweater to work today. It's May!! I had also forgotten that in German during the spring/summer it rains every day for about 20 minutes then stops.

Last Friday I went to see the flower market at the Domplatz. It was so pretty! All the local gardeners had brought in their flowers as well as more practical plants. There was also a military band there playing on a stage, which was pleasant.

Pretty tree in the Domplatz

After looking around the flower show for a while, I decided to climb Petersberg again.

When I first saw this building, I thought it looked like a crime scene. When Erfurt was on Tatort, it was a crime scene...

All of the steps have a nice grill so you can always see the ground.

My favorite morning train treat - a Schockocroissant!

On Saturday I met my friend Melody in Zwickau and we went to Dresden together. I had never seen the actual city - I'd just been to Philip's apartment in Arnsdorf, so it was fun to walk through the city!

Communist mural in Dresden!

The Frauenkirche! It was destroyed during World War II and not rebuilt until after the wall came down.

"A life without friends is like a trip without a hotel."

There was a place in a mall we cut through where you could brush your teeth and get a consultation! We stopped to brush our teeth, but the line for the consultations wasn't moving so we skipped that part. A picture of us brushing our teeth ended up on the company's facebook page!

We saw some drummers dressed like Brazilians in the train station! (This is probably related to the World Cup. Every single ad on TV right now is World Cup-themed.)

There was also a Kinderfest in the train station where there was loud music and a magician!

Outside the train station there was a group passing out pamphlets. Their banner said something about how horrible Obama was. I took their flyer, but I wanted to tell them that I voted for Obama! There were several parties out campaigning all weekend - the European elections are coming up and in Erfurt they're at the same time as city council elections. All the light posts are covered with political ads again.

After we finished looking around Dresden, we went and stayed the night at Philip's apartment. We had barbecue chicken and roasted vegetables for dinner and it was delicious!

So far this week, I had to discuss magazines and the internet with a group of 7th graders. When I heard what the topic was, I guessed that someone would either mention Playboy or porn. I was right on both counts, so I bought myself ice cream!

I used a lot of exclamation points in this post, but a lot of weird stuff happened to me recently, so I'm not going to take them out!