Today’s breakfast at the hotel was amazing! They had a wonderful assortment of breads with cheeses. There were eggs, coffee, veggies, fruit, yogurt… You name it, it was there!!
Then it was off to Dresden!! Dresden is in Saxony which is one of the regions of Germany. Our first stop was the Dresden Frauenkirche, Church of Our Lady. We sang Even When He Is Silent, and I think it was the best we’ve sounded on that piece yet 🙂 This church was bombed during WWII and took a total of 60 years to be restored. On the outside you can see how there are darker stones those are from the original church. They placed the original stones that were left as close as possible to where they were originally.
We then went on a walking tour of the city. This is the procession of the princes. There are 24,000 tiles that make up this structure. It is a hand painted depiction of the 800 year’s under Saxon reign. When the bombings happened during WWII, the flames did not burn the tiles!
Below is King August II. His horse is the only one that is on it’s 2 legs. August II was known for being very strong. Legend says, he broke a horseshoe with his bare hands and was known as “the strong”. Legend also says that he had over 365 children, however 9 are accounted for, and one of those being August III. He was also known for his number of mistresses.
We then walked some more and ran into the Semperoper, Dresden’s opera house. The white flags in front of the building say, “Augen Auf! Herzen Auf! Türen Auf! Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar.” Which translates to, “Open your eyes, open your hearts, open your doors! The dignity of man in inviolable.” Richard Strauss had 21 works premiered here as well as a few of Richard Wagner’s. 
Next, we walked around the top of the to see the beautiful views of the square in front of the museum where August II lived.
Below is a depiction of men who have had a little too much to drink. It is depicting the G-d of Wine. You can see how their eyes and stature make it seem like they are drunk.
Next we went to the art museum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Inside was the art collection of August II and III. This included Giorgione and Tizian’s painting Sleeping Venus. Which gave Manet inspiration for his painting Olympia. 
Then we saw Raffael’s painting Die Sixtinische Madonna. I have seen those two angels at the bottom of the painting many times, as I am sure you have seen as well. This piece was commissioned by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto in Piacenza. It hung on the high alter there. Honestly, going into this museum I had no idea what they had on exhibit. I was so excited that I was able to see these two amazing art works!!
This is a painting of the church we sang in that morning. It is cool to know that we literally walked down that street all day today and this painting was painted in 1751!!
Then we were able to have about 4 hours of free time in Dresden. Some of us found this cute restaurant called Alex. They had Schnitzel and it was turkey. When I was in Vienna they had the option of chicken, so I was eager to try the Turkey. It was soooo tasty!
I was with great company for lunch! Connor, Ione, Zack, Anna, Anna’s mom, Tiffany, Matt, Sami, and Hannah. The french fries were so great and NOT greasy!!
Connor, Sami, Zack, and I went to the Christmas market. This is the biggest one in Germany.
Connor and I walked around the different shops and saw that there was an ice sculpture being built,
And a puppet show! No we did not understand what they were saying, but it was really cute. I found some really cool gifts that I can bring home to my family.
Dresden really comes to life at night through the lights of the Christmas markets.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Ratskeller. We started with potato soup, then our main course meal was the meal Eva made Sasha and I our first night, and for dessert we had potato pancakes with apple sauce and ice cream. The pancakes were more like pancakes then latkes, but they were still pretty good. The restaurant had many arches in it, so many of us could hear other people’s conversations from across the room. We were sitting at about 5 tables all together. I was able to hear Corey from where I was sitting, but Ben noticed that you could hear better if you put your head over our empty beer glasses. Corey could hear me too from where he was sitting. At the other side of the room, Dr. Walker was able to hear Michael and Matt. It was a cool and fun listening moment for us!
Before we left, I went around to each table to let them know that they were more than welcome to come watch me light the Hannakah candles. Tonight, Dr. Walker, Abby, Anna, and Seth came to Sasha and I’s room. Seth is also Jewish, so it was nice for him to join me in saying the prayers. I really have been enjoying showing everyone our tradition that truly only takes 5 minutes.
Tomorrow we leave at 8:45. We have a shorter service in the other Bach church, and are going to have plenty of free time in Leipzig. Stay tuned!
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Otterbein Concert Choir Germany Tour 2017 