stina on the move: Letting you in on a secret and Getting yelled at (again)

Our one full vacation day was probably my most favorite day ever.

I got up bright and early to test the gym at the hotel - and let me tell you, right after the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, it was probably my favorite thing there. They had the nicest machines and each one had it's own TV with about 50 channels!

I'm going to let you in on a secret: I did not only go to the gym to do my regular bike/ weights routine.

I ran.

I went on the treadmill after my workout and ran for a whole mile.

It was amazing.

That's all I can say for now.

Right after, we went for my all time favorite and absolutely amazing breakfast and Nick surprised me with an appointment he had scheduled for me at the hotel spa to get a massage! AAAAH!

I was already excited about this
fancy spa-water with cucumber and lemon!

Seriously, at that point, the day was already going beyond anything I could ever hope for. Running, bottomless breakfast, and a massage?! All within one morning?! That's just incredible!

Unfortunately, I looked like an idiot for a little while, with the towel imprints from the massage table…

At noon, after the imprints had faded, we headed out to visit some of the museums in the area.

So pretty!

The museums were all in these buildings.

Look at those bells! And they worked!!

Here is where things took some sort of slight turn - away from the sweet and wonderful morning. We wanted to see two museums: the physics and mathematics museum and the old gallery.

When we bought the tickets, the very nice lady at the register informed us that we could get a combo-ticket that was much cheaper and included those two museums we wanted to visit, plus the porcelain museum. We didn't want to see the porcelain. Nothing against plates and vases, but we just wanted to spend the time looking at other things.

Since it was very cold out and the museums all seemed connected, we were hoping to use our extra ticket for those vases to cut through that part of the building to get to the mathematics and physics exhibition.

Unfortunately, by the time the lady at the entrance to the porcelain told us that that wasn't possible, she had already scanned us in. When she realized that we were going to just walk out again, she was not pleased about us not wanting to see the pretty dishes and vases. So we did what everyone else would do and walked in just to calm her down - and to see if she was wrong and if there actually was a way to cut through the porcelain museum.

For about 5 minutes, it was actually pretty cool. Then, I accidentally walked too close to one of the porcelain peacocks or teapots and set off the alarm.

So that was fun!

We pretended nothing happened in hopes that people would stop staring.

I even took a few pictures, because we thought that the porcelain animals were really neat. The bear was Nick's favorite, so I wanted to make sure to get a picture of that, too…

… then someone yelled across the big hall to put my camera down, because taking pictures was strictly forbidden. (Has anyone ever yelled at you at a museum?! The sound of the words bounces off those walls and I'm pretty sure the porcelain dishes were shaking.)

Within the 7 minutes of going in there, I got yelled at twice and triggered an alarm.

We will never be able to go there again.

For your own safety, I am not posting the pictures I snapped before everything went downhill.
But here is a picture of the museum from the outside.

See all those plates and vases behind the windows?!

The other two museums were very nice!
For my literary research, I have worked on pieces that relate to astronomical studies in the late 18th century, so seeing all those instruments was really cool.

This one was definitely my favorite.

They also had a creepy drumming bear-alarm (alarm-bear?!). His eyes were moving, too. I can see how this will make you jump out of bed and run for your life!

At the gallery, taking photographs was not allowed either. This time, however, I knew about it beforehand. No yelling. We might go back again some time!

The gallery is in this building.

We proceeded to the recently rebuilt "Church of Our Lady" (Frauenkirche), which was probably one of my favorite buildings there. In 1945, when Dresden was attacked and completely leveled, the church was destroyed in the bombing. The site remained in ruins for many decades and 60 years later, in 2005, the reconstruction was completed.

The dark bricks you see are original remains that were reused.

Nick and I even walked all the way to the top and were able to enjoy the most wonderful view of the city.

OMG I'm gonna fall down!!!

I should mention that I am deathly afraid of heights. So in my head, I was preparing myself to die any second the entire time we were up there.

Back at the hotel, we went for the shortest swim in the history of mankind. When we got there, the pool was empty. There was just us and two other people. Within 3 minutes, the place filled up so much that there was no more room in the water. So we left and figured we should just do what we do best: eat!

For dinner, we went to a really cool tapas place. If you ever go to Dresden, you should definitely check it out! I promise I will remember the name by then.

We were determined to get gelato for dessert right next door to the restaurant, but they seriously closed 2 minutes before we got there. Rude!

The best way to deal with devastating situations like this is to walk through the entire city and find another place with largest dessert portions.

Oh yea, and you know where we found those cakes and giant ice cream scoops?! At a place where every other customer was about 70 years older than us! I'm not even kidding. That café was incredible and those old people didn't mess around with their dessert. We both had to fight really hard to finish what we ordered.

They also had the most interesting decoration there.

Of course, the humungous (and very colorful!) chandelier that was hanging right in front of our face was made out of porcelain. This time, however, nobody yelled at me for taking pictures.