Dresden, Germany (June 19)

Hello again my friends and family ...


I hope you are enjoying reading my adventure tales as much as I enjoy writing them! But probably not as much as I enjoy having them ... hurray for me!


;-}


So, I woke up Saturday morning and got my but in gear and headed out to get Colleen in the rented car. And we were off! Woo hoo ... Germany here we come!


Colleen's trusty GPS sidekick got us out of the city, and out into the country in no time flat. And after the first time I tried to take a picture while driving, Colleen kindly told me she wouldn't mind AT ALL if I pulled over to snap some pics. Goodie!


Check them out ... the countryside is just lovely out here.

How quaint ... rolling hills, much foliage, and a tiny little Czech village. Sigh ...

We saw SO many fields of flowers in our travels here, and ALL of them are super lovely!

Close-up of the flowers ... I wanted to get the purple one.

Now, that - is a WAY cool pedestrian bridge! Pesi Zona Colleen!!!!

And into Germany we go ... this translates to "Free State Saxony"

Interestingly enough, aside from this sign - which we might have missed had we not been looking for it - you would never know that you had just crossed a country's border. I am continually amazed at how 'together' the EU is over here ... it is basically as simple as crossing a US state line - - no big thing at all. Actually, in US we have more signs when you cross too! For some reason, it seems so hard for me to grasp ... I mean, I am crossing into another COUNTRY here people! Don't you care who I am and what I am doing in your country? Apparently not!!!

;-}

The first place we stopped, pretty much just over the line into Germany. It was a super cute cafe where we got coffee and used the WC and stretched a little - - well, I stretched while Colleen smoked!

And this ... was at the end of the parking lot of the cafe! How funny!!!!

And this, is the next door neighbor to the cute German cafe we stopped at ... what a LOVELY tudor house you have there sir! I mean mein herr.

I just had to get a pic of this quaint old euro house!

We had pulled over because I spotted THREE castles in a row along a river ... yes, count 'em - I said THREE! This view however, is looking back to the little village we had just driven through and was the location for a few of the previous pics. I just think this image is so lovely ... it looks like such a nice place to live!

Oh ... did you want to SEE the castles then folks? Well, I didn't realize you felt that way! I mean sheesh, don't YOU have castles in the US then? No? Huh - I guess you're right! And if you did (OK, OK, there are a few) ... there sure as shit aren't THREE in a row! On a river!

Enough of that silliness ... and on to the castles!

Here are the first two. The one on the left is closest to the village we just passed through, and therefore farthest from Dresden - - which we are just about bordering at this point. I wasn't able to find any info about these places on the web, and I did a fair amount of searching - but it was hard, as I didn't know the names of them. I really liked the stepped lawn of the one of the left.

Hmmmm ... can anyone say "Ami's Favorite" - - and I wonder why?!?!? This is just SO amazing and fabulous ... I just stood and stared for like 5 minutes. We really were stopped at this little spot for a good 5 or 10 minutes. It was hard to tear myself away. Not like the others at all - - pull over, keep car running, snap pic, hop in, take off!

And so from here on out, the pics are in Dresden! We arrived in the city center, tried to park in a handy garage - but found it was full. And rather than waiting for someone to leave, which is apparently what you do here in Europe, we drove to a municipal lot a few blocks away. Colleen effortlessly negotiated the parking meter, whew, and away we headed towards city center!

One of the first shots I took of Dresden, Germany - the clock tower in the city center.

Some flowers we walked by on the way into the city center, and I just could NOT pass by this super vivid and awesome color blue without a pic!!!

A close-up of the Dresden Clock Tower.

A beautiful building, a museum or church I think, in one of the main squares in Dresden center - - Colleen and I actually ate dinner sitting UNDER this, it was superb! Oh - the food as well as the view!     ;-}

So, from this point we jumped on one of those double-decker tour buses - - as we didn't have much time and wanted to see what the city had to offer. And the buses allowed you to hop on/off whenever you wanted too. 

I have to say that I didn't get a lot of good pics from the bus, despite it's claim of having photo ops - nor did I actually hear much of what was being told to me. The tour was in German over the loudspeaker, but they had headsets that you plugged in and turned to the channel of your language. Cool - or so I thought. The German tour guide was SO loud, that I had to turn up my headphones to the point of pain (practically) to hear it. And, due to the elongated speech of German - - many of the English explanations were given before we had actually arrived at the monument. Sooooo ... all in all, not very fun. 

This one is REALLY cool ... I love all the windows, and the cool statues around the rooftop. AND ... there was a moat around it!!

This is a nice one of a Dresden bridge, and some sort of palace looking building in the background. Nicey nice!!!

This was cool. It is one of two statues, on either side of a long green-way in between the two sides of a large road. I did actually get to hear what the tour guide said on this one. Both statues represent the power of water ... this one being the destructive power.

This one represents the life-giving side of water. I just love these!! What a neat idea!

This statue honors all the women who helped clean up the rubble from the WWII bombing. 

Of the almost 15 sq miles that was destroyed during the WWII bombing raid on Dresden, only THIS building survived in that area. 

BUT ... in terms of the not-so-good tour bus ride ... 

And this is a big BUT ...

It did introduce us to Die Glaserne Manufaktur ... or, in words you can understand - The Transparent Factory. This is a VW car factory that is see-through! WHOA! So so so so cool! 

Colleen and I got SUPER excited, Colleen just a smidge more than me - her being the engineer in the family, as I own a VW and she owns an Audi (basically a VW) ... and we were both interested in checking out this neat, high tech, and super cool place.

Check this crazy place out!!!

See ... it is all GLASS!

Another view ... see the circular tower on the right? Check this out ...

It is modeled after a cars cylinder, and stores the completed Phaetons (the only car that VW produces in this factory, their full-size luxury sedan).

A view of the 'cylinder' from the side of the building, along my right you can see a railing  - which looks over into a ...

A lovely fish and duck pond!

With its very own duck house!! How CUTE is that?!?!?

So, Colleen and I decided to take a tour of the facility - even though it was a German speaking tour. Because, the tour was the only way to get into the assembly area itself - - and we wanted that BADLY! Danke VW!

We had hoped when the tour guide found out we didn't speak German, and we ended up not being the only people in the tour with that circumstance, he might throw us a couple of English 'bones' as it were ... no such luck. He was NOT a terribly friendly looking man, I have to say.

But ... we DID get into the assembly area. And that is all that matters.

A view from the lobby, looking into the assembly area. 

A cool model of Die Glaserne Manufaktur in the lobby.

So, we are on the tour now - and this is taken from the 2nd floor just before we enter the assembly area ... of which no pics are allowed. This is looking down onto the 1st floor, into the 'showroom' if you will. The Transparent Factory functions as a car dealer as well, so you can go there and order a custom made Phaeton - nice! The car you see on display is a 1936 Horch, which is the 1st auto company in Saxony - and Herr Horch later created Audi there as well. This '36 car actually belongs to the Emperor of Ethiopia and is on loan to VW. You can also see, in the background - - stand-up movie terminals where they tell you how they make the Phaeton's. Behind the terminal, behind the glass wall there, is one floor of the assembly area.

This is a close-up of the assembly area behind the stand-up movie terminals. The cars you see in a line are actually on a conveyor belt ... the FLOOR is the belt. It is a fish-tale floor that MOVES the car from station to station to be outfitted with the next thing in line. How COOL is that then?!?!?

So, as I said we couldn't take pics inside the assembly area - - and anything I write here is mine and Colleen collective intelligence at work, since we could not understand the tour guide.

So, the place we were taken into was a raised viewing area over the assembly floor. The area was oval shaped, and basically fit inside the middle of the circular conveyor belt. So, we could walk all the way around the viewing area's wall - and look down onto the entire assembly area, well that floor at least. There were at least two floors that we could see.

The car frames are assembled at another plant, and shipped into Die Glaserne Manufaktur via specially made trams - these trams use the city's public transit rails, and schedule their trips to have the least impact upon the city's busy traffic. Cool!

So, the car frames are stored in the back of the factory (we couldn't get back there to take a good picture) and then lifted and held via a crane-like tool onto a moving track on the ceiling. From there, they are placed onto the fish-tale conveyor floor - along with a unique  kitted-out tool box. Now, these tool boxes are HUGE ... like the size of an industrial refrigerator laid on its side. These boxes contain EVERY part needed for THAT particular car ONLY. The boxes are assembled on the ground floor, and moved to the elevator (made for this purpose specifically) by a robot transport device. The boxes get affixed to the floor, and the car comes down to do the same ... 

And from there they BOTH move along the conveyor floor to different stations ... electrical, seating, engine, etc. It is REALLY REALLY super duper cool!!! 

I had SUCH fun not being able to understand the guide ... as I was able to let my imagination run wild with "hmmmm - now what could that be for" and "ah ah! I'll be this does that!" and "Colleen! I think the FLOOR moves!!!" I will admit, I would have liked to have the real tour ... but I get a lot of joy doing this sort of thing - using my brain and imagination to try to figure out how something works. Been doing it for years, with movies and books and TV shows and structures. So, I had much fun during our time at VW.

Colleen was super excited, because the things that she is in charge of QA'ing at her job (pharma, but same technology) were actually being used at VW. Some sort of control panel with lots of sophisticated software ... sorry Colleen, you must be cringing at that explanation - but I cannot remember what you told me!! I do remember it was a Siemens product though!

So ... from there we went down to the 'showroom' and watched the info-movies at the terminals, gawked at the Horch and the Phaeton on display, marveled at the culture that the factory makes sure to incorporates into its functioning (see below), and laughed at the creative and fun and cool old VW commercials shows in the large balloon-like structure (see in my first pic of the lobby above).

This poster explains VW's cultural component to Die Glaserne Manufaktur.

This is a poster of a recital by Helene Grimaud ... on the PRODUCTION FLOOR - in 2006.

This is a poster of "Klassik Picknickt" ... an open-air concert with the Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra) in 2009.

A pic inside the balloon-like movie theater which allowed you to pic and choose among VW's old car commercials; from various cars and eras and countries. Neat!!

Self-portrait in Die Glaserne Manufaktur's fab bathroom!

More of the lovely grounds of VW's super-cool factory ... in the distance you can see one of the trams that I was talking about earlier, with the car parts.

This is the side of the factory, so you can see most of the assembly area here. Neat! The pic zooms pretty damn well too ... maybe not here in the blog, but on Picasa it does quite well. I have a link to Picasa at the end of this blog.

And so that was our FABULOUS and probably one-of-a-kind experience at VW's Die Glaserne Manufaktur ... ummmm, can you tell that I like to write that?!?!   ;-}

And off we went back into the center of Dresden.

It was now late, and Ami was getting hungry ... and as Colleen nicely pointed out - "you get cranky when your hungry" ... ummm, yup!

I just loved the bridge between these two buildings ... the windows in the bridge are NOT actually yellow ...

That is actually the SUN shining through the windows ... making it seem yellow. FREAKIN' AWESOME!!!!!!

One of the many HUGE and neat squares in Dresden center.

A fabulous church in the corner of one of the cool squares in Dresden.

Again, this is the building that we ate dinner in the shadow us ... sigh ...

Yeah Colleen!! I'm SO happy she came to visit me ... it was lovely to have a friend here.

This is in the courtyard of the hotel we stopped at on our way back to the car, to ask where a mailbox was ... as I wanted to be sure to mail my Dresden postcards FROM Germany - plus I had purchased stamps from there too, which I believed wouldn't work in Czech. And ... the super lovely lady behind the counter said she would mail them for me! Danke Mein Damen!

My final shot of Dresden ... a really cool dark Gothic-looking statue. Neat!

Well ... Meine Damen und Herren ... I hope you enjoyed your virtual trip to Germany!

I certainly enjoyed the real one!!!

Here is a link to the day's photos on my Picasa page ... Willkommen in Sachsen

Thanks for reading ... and I'll see you soon.

Lady Jud