Day: February 19, 2020

Dresden was an interesting city to visit. The first thing we visited, mostly because it was near where we happened to get off the tram, was the Frauenkirche. The Frauenkirche was destroyed during World War II, then rebuilt in 1994. From the inside, it looks completely different from any other church I’ve been in before. It is painted in pastel colors and is very cylindrical, rather than being a long rectangular room like most churches. Despite being a Lutheran church, it is fairly decorated.

The next thing we visited was a mural of the kings of Saxon. Each king was painted in period-appropriate fashion or armour. Their names were also painted beneath them. There was a long period when they had epithets, but then they stopped using them. The change in fashion of the hats was also noticeable.

After the mural, we went to the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon. There, the main exhibit was clocks. Wall clocks, pocket watches, table clocks, and astronomical clocks, all of them were there. Many had heavily decorated cases. Some moved on the hour or quarter hour. Aside from clocks, there was a mechanical calculator built by Blaise Pascal. Mechanically, it could only add, but through complementary numbers, it could subtract as well. There was a digital display explaining how it worked as well. There were also globes, both terrestrial and celestial, there. There was an entire room devoted to them and a world clock that told the time at every longitude. It did so by having the hour hand point down at all times and rotating the wheel the clocks were mounted to. In the globe room, there were a pair of globes each a meter in diameter, one celestial and one terrestrial. Celestial globes display stars and constellations based on location. Terrestrial globes display maps of the earth’s surface. The last thing in the globe room was an explanation of various projections – the cylindrical projection, the conical projection, and the flat projection. Each one captures a different band of latitudes most accurately – cylindrical projections are most accurate near the equators, flat projections are most accurate near the poles, and conical projections are most accurate in the band between flat and cylindrical projections.

The last thing we did that day was go to the Volkswagen transparent factory. We had been planning to take a guided tour, but we were too late. There was a free to access part where Volkswagen’s plans for electric cars were discussed. It seemed like just an ad, rather than imparting much useful information.

On the 6th of February, (my birthday) we were touring Prague. Instead of the “Hop on Hop off” buses we have occasionally used in other cities, we got a private walking tour of Prague. He was a good guide, and very nice. My favorite thing he showed us was a sculpture of ‘The good King Wenceslas'(who was not actually a king, just a duke) sitting on the belly of a dead horse that was hanging upside down from the ceiling.  The creator said it represented the corrupt government and he would take it down when the country was stable again. Our guide said that a cheating business man was now top of the government. He had never done any politics and just decided that he wanted to be in charge. Remind you of anyone? After that sculpture we went to the old town square with the astronomical clock which got really crowded and we waited for about fifteen minutes, and then finally it got to the hour and it went for about a minute and then quieted down. It was fascinating hands, but I was disappointed with its performance.  The other tourist attraction is the Charles bridge. It was about as amazing as any old bridge. right next to it though is the Lennon wall that is all about the Beatles. 

Then we climbed up the hill to the castle, where the tour ended. Then we went into the castle. I guess it was ok. I preferred the other castle that we went to the 9th.

For lunch we went to a restaurant in a monastery.  I had a vacuum cooked burger. Delicious. It was like a pulled beef sandwich.

Next we walked down the hill, across the river, and to an escape room that we were doing for my birthday. That was really fun and took 65 minutes or something like that. It was a Nautilus themed escape room that was really good and very steampunk. We got to drive the Nautilus, which was really hard because the screen telling you which way to go was on the other side of a low wall behind the steering wheel. But we managed. We died in the end, even though we completed it.

9th of February

On the 9th we had a mission. To start with we were getting to a game shop that sold polyhedral dice. Including 4 sided dice, 6 sided dice, 8 sided dice, 10 sided dice, 12 sided dice, 20 sided dice, and 100 sided dice. (The 100 sided dice is really just a 10 sided, and another 10 sided marked with 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 00. So you roll the both of them and add them together, so if you rolled a 7 and a 40 your roll is of 47.(If you get 00 and 0 that is 100, but if you get 00 and 1 that is 1). We already had 3 d4s, 11 d6s, 3 d8s, 3 d10s, 3 d12s, and 3 d20s. At that point we had no d100s. We got 3 more of every dice. A private set for each of Nate, Ben, and me. Why we need so many dice is because of Dungeons & Dragons, or D&D. We have had a starter set that Dad Dungeon Masters, and all of the family play. But the times when we all want and can play D&D at the same time is pretty minimal. So recently Ben, Nate and me have started a campaign, because we want to play a lot more than everyone. I Dungeon Master, meaning that I tell them what is going on and they play. I have COMPLETE power over the world. Nate and I also have a campaign by ourselves, because we like to play even more than Ben does. Nate also likes DMing, and he has a campaign with Ben and I playing. We have 1412 pages of Dungeons & Dragons material related to playing, DMing, Monsters, and creating characters. After all the dice, we went to a candy store with cheap, bulk candy. We bought a preferably unnamed amount of candy. It was called Pedro store. Our guide had recommended deep fried cheese as an excellent fast food lunch. Mom, Dad, and Nate got sausages, and Ben and I got fried cheese. It was really good. Hard to eat though.

The other thing we had on our sights was an alchemy museum. In 1400ish a underground alchemy workshop was built. There was a legend that a fiery horse appeared on the other side of the square above, and vanished in a puff of brimstone. What is more likely is that a thing in the alchemy lab exploded and flames went up through the cobbles, and lit a donkey on fire that tragically expired in front of the house. Scary though. This alchemy lab was only found again in 2002, when Prague had huge floods, that caved in the roof of the lab, so that when the flood retreated a huge hole was in the middle of the square.  There were secret tunnels that led to several other alchemy labs. I found that very impressive. They also found the recipes for 4 elixirs, liquid gold, elixir of eternal youth, with they also found a full bottle of it, elixir of love, and elixir of memory.

After that we took the tram and walked to the other castle in Prague that I found so much nicer that Prague castle. Partly because of the local feeling, and partly that it was nicely shaded and I was hot. Something of the two. Tim

At 11:38 we went into a large ornate Baroque period Library. Honestly, I think that books are enough decoration, but the makers of the library didn’t know that I would visit and that I thought that books were enough, so I won’t blame them. ? (Breath in, breath out) Then we went for DUNH DAH DUUUUNH!!!!! LUNCH. (bet you didn’t expect that!). For lunch, all except for dad had mozzarella and basil and tomato sandwich. Dad had a mozzarella and sun-dried tomato sandwich. After lunch, we went to a beautiful organ (pipe) concert. Then we had apple strudel, a really good Viennese pastry.

After that, we went to an armor and musical instruments museum. Then we went home. Next day we went for a 30km bike ride.