Signs that you're in Germany

Fossilized ammonites in the train station stairwell:

A kitchen-supply store that proudly frames "Kuechen" with "XXL Ass"*:

A fancy 3-course beige dinner:

I flew to Berlin on May 29, then caught a train to join S in Dresden. We took a walk that evening so I could get some sunlight and nip jetlag in the bud. Enlarge the photo to see the center bubble mid-pop!

 

*S insists this is a serious name. Ass means "ace," as in "the best." There's also a popular kid's card game here called Top Ass, which also makes me snicker.

Famous people's houses

Yesterday morning, Stefan and I walked over to Friedrich-Wieck-Strasse and saw the Friedrich Wieck house.

Then we walked up to Schiller Strasse and looked at the Schillerhäuschen wherein Schiller wrote Don Karlos.

How foresighted of Schiller and Wieck to facilitate tourist pilgrimages by being famous enough to have had their streets renamed after them!

Dresden

Another roadtrip: we're in Dresden! Schumannophiles will recall that it was during the May 1849 Dresden Uprising that pianist Clara Schumann single-handedly plowed her way through the fighting to whisk her children out of town to safety while her brilliant weenie of a husband stayed home. We are renting a Ferienwohnung in the Wachwitz neighborhood, outside of the main city, right on the Elbe. Tomorrow morning, I will make a pilgrimage half a kilometer up the road to bow before the house of Clara's father, Friedrich Wieck, who moved to Dresden-Loschwitz in 1844.

Unfortunately, I forgot to pack my USB connector, so I can't download any photos until next week; but first impressions indicate this is a beautiful place.