Day 6 - Germany, Land of no water

So again I'm late on my updates. It's just that I get home and pretty much fall asleep instantly from a very tiring day. So my apologies again.

Quick thing about the title of this post. Can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but it is nearly impossible to find water in Dresden (or most of Eastern Germany from what I'm told). I guess they're at a real shortage and conserve like crazy. There are no drinking fountains. When you go to a restaurant you aren't given water; rather, you must buy it. etc etc. Kind of sucks because it is SO HOT here.

So this post might not be as interesting as the others (assuming the others have been of marginal interest). I didn't do much in the form of sightseeing or new adventures yesterday. Actually spent the bulk of my day at the conference centre seeing presentations and mingling. It just seemed like yesterday was the one day that every conference has where there are interesting things back to back all day.

On an interesting/related note. Remember how i said it was really, really hot? well, some of the conference rooms are even hotter. I was attending this one panel in which my undergrad advisor was presenting. It had to be at least 95-100 degrees in the small room, literally. There were also about 30 people crammed in. Some were even sitting on the floor. The session was an hour and 15 minutes. I lasted abot 1 hour and 5 minutes. That's when i started to feel lightheaded and almost passed out. I quickly excused myself from the room and had to spend an hour rehydrating myself. I felt miserable. Funny thing is that I was actually consuming tons of water/orange juice all day too. It's just an uphill battle and I lost. Sun 1 - Brian - 0.

So at the end of the conference day, my advisor, Annie Lang, was officially named Fellow of ICA. It's a real prestigious appointment, which meant it was time to celebrate. Annie took a big group of us, students and faculty from around the country alike, out to dinner. The only place we could find that had enough seating for our group was this German-style steak house. It was on this really cool street that had lights criss-crossing overhead. I believe the name of the place was Applaus. Here's a pic of us at dinner:



After dinner we headed back to the hotel bar in which we had a nightcap. This was the first time I was able to be awake at night in Dresden which allotted me the opportunity to see the buildings all lit up. Quite spectacular. Pics and commentary, of course:


This didn't come out quite as I had wished in the photo, but this is the sillouhette (spelling?) of one of the main buildings downtown. I thought all of the headpiece sculptures across the balcony looked really cool in the shadows.


I love this picture. It's of the palace downtown that was built for the first person to rule Dresden. Can't remember if it was a prince, mayor, or famous ruler. The lights make it look really beautiful.


I love the colours in this one. the lights shining up on the top level of this building created a divine blue and the lighting outside was perfect for photos. No flash, baby.


This is the same building, but further back. A magnificent prospect, indeed. I wish it was this kind of lighting all day. I could have stood there for hours, but my group was anxious to get back.

So we got back to their hotel and sat down for a couple rounds and joked about vulgar things. You know, the usual conversation you have with your advising committee (blank stare....).

It was time for me to return home so I made the long walk back to my hotel and pretty much fell asleep instantly.

Oh! remember how I said I accidently deleted some pics yesterday? Guess who found them! Here's a couple that I wanted to share:


I liked this building because of the use of different types of bricks. Kind of reminds me of my cat, lizzy. The light coloured bricks are actually new bricks used to replace bad ones from the firebombings. This building is one of the many reconstructed. The dark bricks are the old ones. They're dark from all of the fires during the bombings.


I just thought this sign was funny. You don't see many US businesses here.


I'm so glad I didn't lose the pics I took of this grafitti art. This was an excellent collection of well done stuff. Wanted to share it with you all.

Anyways, I've got to think about starting the day here. Hope all is well stateside. I only have about 2 1/2 days left here so I plan on making them eventful.

Till tomorrow,

br