September 20. 2010
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| On the Elbe |
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| The sandstone made steep and interestingly worn formations. |
So I know I promised to write about school but Im going to postpone that until the end of this week (the end of my hospitality weeks--sitting in and watching). I did make the teachers brownies on Friday as a end of the week gift and, more importantly, a thank you for having so much patience we me, my german, etc. I got to the school during the last period of the day so I dropped off the brownies with a teacher in the staff room and wasn't back until Monday. The ploy seemed to have worked! The teachers continually greeted me, or else greeted passed by and came back, to say "oh die 'Brownies' [capitalized because its German :-p] war sehr lecher, Danke!" The word 'lecker' essentially means delicious. One teacher asked me if the brownies were calorie free, describing how they consisted of a good inch and a half, crud I mean 4cm of chocolate. I told her it was an old American trick to make a calorie-free brownie..
I have been trying to take advantage of the good weather we've been having here (but also there are COLD, frigid nights already) to get outside. This last weekend another Fulbrighter from Saxony, Dan, and I headed down to the Sachsische Schweitz for a little hiking. We set out with a book my current Mitbewohner lent me with a somewhat detailed description and about 3x3cm map to guide us. On the train trip down (only 30min by S-Bahn!) we talked about how European trails are, in general, poorly marked. For example, they use little pictorial markers--not unlike flags, three horizontal stripes, usually white-color-white, or a colored dot with a white background--to guide hikers. As hiking is a popular pastime here and many of the trails can be a little confusing because the parks are not the vast expanses in the US and they do run into civilization one would expect that they are well marked. Wrong. It seems that typically markers are placed along sections of the trail that are obviously the trail. In short, saying, "good job! you're headed the right way!" Where they fail is that they are distinctly lacking at intersections, turn-offs, forks, etc. In short, saying, ". . ." well absolutely nothing at all or, perhaps, projecting, "good luck! But you should know where you're going anyways or just relax and enjoy yourself." Furthermore, distances are measured in hours instead of kilometers. I do not have the fairest idea how to measure an hour on a map.
We ran into several difficulties on our little walk. The first part was absolutely clear because we walked along the top of a rock formation until we descended from it. We had trouble once this section was over. There was a part of the trail that had our sign, white-yellow-white, pointing one direction, ales Klar. Then we reached a fork. Only white-red-white and some other landmarks that we were not going towards. So we walked in roughly the direction that the first sign had told us. We ended up in a small village. Hmm. Asking a nearby German for help he looked at our book and pointed out that we should, in fact, be in a forest and we definitely were not. He directed us to walk through a field and find the trail again. We both realized if we were in America we would be looking around for the farmer, ready to hit the deck when he or she started firing warning shots at us to get of her land. Thank goodness it wasn't a American farm. We made it back to the trail and were again on the right path. At this point we did realize that it would help to read the directions instead of just using the map (remember, 3x3) and started following white-red-white. I, however, cannot explain to you why the yellow trail markers wouldn't just continue at this point. We ran into a couple similar problems but managed fairly well after that. Every once in a while we would see the white-red-white again on a tree or somesuch. It was reassuring but the significant walking past the forks in trail still left us in long minutes of wonder. In the end we took the shorter cutoff. Although I feel like we did well with the directions we must have had significant wayward walking because the "three hour" distance was four and a half for us. Other neat/different things about European hiking is the access to civilization, mostly meaning food, bier, and lodging. We even stopped at a small restaurant on the berg for a bier during the hike. We also passed several B&B's on the way down and ate at a B&B/restaurant upon our return. Overall it was a successful trip for sure!! When I go again I will continue to expect to go the wrong way and humble myself to understanding that their 1hr distance is longer for me. . sigh.
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| I made it to Meißen to the West of Radebeul. After I coffee I was ready to bike home. . although I prolly should've taken the opportunity to look around more |
When I was getting back on my bike I talked to an old woman from Hamburg. I took her picture in front of the cafe for her as we talked about Saxony and where we were both from. Her accent was a little difficult but not as bad as the Dresden dialect. I think I should start bringing books with myself when I go exploring so that I can sit and read at the cafés for a while. The only downside that I see is that, Im starting to hate cobblestones (well, at least when on a bike). . I don't know why they insist on making every path with those little vibration creating things! They have them on parts of the path here and there. Quite annoying. Some of the sections of them are these HUGE stones that felt like they were trying to buck me off my bike if I don't go super slow.  |
| Dresden at the end of my ride |
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