The Dresden and Berlin Thing

What to do in September? Where is action, fun and culture? So we (Reini, Hannes and me) decided to go to Dresden and Berlin by car. We started on Saturday morning and went through the Czech Republic and entered Germany late in the afternoon! After crossing the 'Erzgebirge' we reached Dresden around 6.30 pm. Easily we found our hotel in 'Neustadt' and we decided to spend the evening at an excellent brewery alongside the Elbe river ('Brauhaus Watzke'). Having had some brown ales we enterd the party district of Dresden. Without any plan we entered at least 'Downtown'.

On Sunday we visited the picturesque Old Town of Dresden with its palace, 'Zwinger' and the rebuilt 'Frauenkirche'. In the afternoon we took a tram to the old iron and steel constructed bridge crossing the Elbe river which the natives call 'blue wonder'. (Reini – where is the picture of the 'blue wonder' or took it Hannes?) There was a nice beer garden at the banks of the river called 'SchillerGarten'.


The next day we crossed the so-called Saxon Swiss. The Elbe river has washed its way through the sandstone rock mass and therefore built strange and impressive structures!


We walked down to the swedish holes and after a short stop for having a banana wheat beer we climbed up to the fortress 'Koenigstein' and tried to save the view. Later we continued our travel to Berlin.

Our hostel was close to the new central station. As beeing tired we decided to go to bed earlier but nevertheless visited capital beach for a drink. On Tuesday we started our visit of Berlin with the Ku'damm (shopping mile), the palace of Charlottenburg and the Olympic site (stadium, bell tower, etc.). Next day we continued with the well worth seeing Pergamon museum! We strolled down 'Unter den Linden' and crossed the 'Brandenburger Tor'. After going up the dome of the 'Reichstag' we hat some strange snacks at a local kiosk. Afterwards we went to 'Potsdamer Platz' and had there some homebrew wheat beer. By crossing the 'Siegessaeule' we went back to our accomodation. We decided to go to some disco so started at the 'Hackesche Markt' and ended up at club 'metro'.

We grew up a little bit later on Thursday and took the suburban railway to Potsdam. Having visited the palace of Sanssouci should be a must for every Berlin trip. Back in downtown we took a shortcut via 'Alexanderplatz' with the TV-Tower to the quarter called 'Nikolaiviertel'! Another home-brewed brown ale sweetend us the late afternoon. Our visit ended up with a strange club visit in the evening supporting a band from Paris with its eclectic and ecstatic bunch of aprox. 25 fans.

Going home on Friday took us back to the Czech Republic where we had some traditional czech food at a motorway restaurant. Beeing back in Vienna arount 8 pm was the punch line of this fine trip.

KW's 30th anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated KW's 30th Birthday. Therefore I went up to the W4 on saturday morning. I was a little bit late because I had to pick up my sisters doorkey from her place and I even needed to buy a ficus as a birthday present. I arrived at my homeplace around 1 pm and then had only about a hour to prepare the gift.

KW invited us two months ago and he wanted to do a barbecue. As the weather conditions in August were not the best I feared that it would rain but KW had good relations so it was the best day for the last 14 days. Sun was shining and the temperature went up to 27 degrees. Nevertheless I know the W4, so I took with me a second shirt and a coat (what a wise decision).

Past 2 pm I went up to KW's place. I arrived the moment they tried to take a group picture. So I hopped in the crowd. Then we started with a beer and KW's dad - the barbecue master - asked the guests to pick up some grilled meat, mushrooms and sausages. They offered salads and bread as well and I enjoyed the stuff at all. Afterwards we were forced to eat kind of a birthday cake.

As KW is a shutterbug he took nearly 1000 pictures this afternoon and night. We had big conversations and lots of drinks. And when it was then dark KW started to hold a speech (you could even see and hear that he was close to be drunken ;-) The speech was taped on video and a lot of other nonsense was taped.

The guests with children left earlier and around midnight the others tried to start going home. It took a little bit longer to say goodbye to them as there were games like 'we leave after this beer, we leave after this drink, just one more cigarette, etc.'. So at quarter past midnight I was the last one left (I needn't go home by car). We talked about one hour and then I decided that it was time for me to go home because I didn't want any more beer. So I hugged KW, kissed his girlfriend Doris and said goodbye to his brother.

Getting up today was hard – good party KW!