Dresden Christmas Visit

Last weekend I was in Dresden to help the Young Single Adults sing in the city (and visit Antje and Aaron). I ran into a Young Single Adult named Daniel while I was trying to figure out where to go from the train station. The story is better told with pictures.

Here are Aaron and I by an old GDR car with a giant Stollen on top (breaking rules of wearing brown and black at the same time--inevitable when you only have one coat):














Us singing (the un-confident alto section suffered every time Caro left to invite listeners to the first presidency Christmas message--where I lost my gloves later). Daniel made it too.














Jasmine and I finally meeting in real life (that's the first person I've met who I only know through their blog):














Antje and I making faces at a text message she got. Imagine us making that "Nrrr" sound that Sica makes. The message says, "Tell me, is Michelle already taken?" (don't worry, I blurred out his name):














The next morning, I was all ready to go jogging when I discovered what Aaron did to my shoes. Boondoggle style. It took me a while to undo it, but it delayed me just long enough so I ran into Daniel again!
















I jogged through the Dresden Christmas market:








These are my all-time favorite German Christmas decorations (you know I love stars already):














Giant glove. Don't know what that's about. Is this the lost glove booth?
















I walked across the bridge over the Elbe called "The Blue Wonder" into a beautiful neighborhood in the hills.


























There I took the Standseilbahn up the "mountain."
















You wouldn't believe the houses at the top. It was like the top of the Avenues in Salt Lake. Big, old, fancy houses with amazing views. I would love to live there.














I headed to the Molkerei, a really old, fancy milk shop. I ordered some cheese salad. I wasn't allowed to take a picture of the store, but I snuck one of my food:














Next door, there was a mustard shop with thousands of varieties. I went in and discovered a table covered with mustards you could try. I thought the mango and guava and others looked good and tried out the Holunder. Blech! The name tricked me into thinking it would taste like the sweet Holunder juice people make and not like mustard! Who wants to just try mustard? Eek.
















At the Young Single Adult family night, we frosted cookies. Aaron, being classy like he is, left special messages for people. Like this one. "Repent."














More classy messages that you'd just love to hand out at Christmas time. "Yay." "Whatever." "Mittweida" (where Aaron grew up). "Smile." "Don't do anything stupid." "Be nice." "Go big or go home" (in English). "Moo" (yes, on a donkey!).












On Tuesday, I went jogging but didn't see Daniel. Then I saw nifty exhibits of the human body at the Hygiene Museum--I didn't have much time, but I saw almost the whole museum in about 35 minutes. I was a bit late for my ride to Leipzig, but the conversation in the car was fascinating, so I think/hope the driver forgave me.

Ah, Dresden.