23rd December 2005 – Day 81

Since the tour at the VW Gläserne Manufaktur will only start at 1000, I slept until it was 0900 before waking up. Nan was already awake by that time and he went to make his sandwiches. I simply took a plastic bag and threw the bread, salami and cheese in. I figured that I can make the sandwiches on the train.

Although we reserved our tour in English, we found out that the tour was only conducted in German. That makes me wonder why would they bother asking yesterday during the phone call.

The particular model of vehicle produced here is the Volkswagen Phaeton V10 TDI. It looks good on the outside and has some pretty interesting functions. For example, the driver and passengers inside the vehicle can actually choose their own preferred temperature.

Sounds like a complex case of heat exchange to me.

Volkswagen Phaeton

V10 TDI, like I know what that means.

There was also a driving simulator which many people wanted to try out. The guide said that the Phaeton drives and feels much better than the simulator. Well, they should give us a test drive of the vehicle instead!

We rushed off to the Dresden Neustadt Bahnhof after taking a few more shots. Nan thought it would be better if we went to the Dresden Hauptbahnhof. When we reached, we thought that the train was already gone or that it doesn’t stop at the Hauptbahnhof. But Nan was right, we saved ourselves some time and did not have to rush.

The next place we went to was sächisches Schweiz, or Saxony Switzerland. As said before, we followed the advice of the hostel owner and bought a Stufe 2 ticket and proceeded to Stadt Ratten.

The Dresden transport company designated the Stadt Ratten just outside of the Stufe 2 region, conveniently charging tourists who want to visit the Bastelei more.

When we reached, the whole town was quiet, which made us wonder what could be here.

Being lazy, both of us were looking for buses that would bring us up the Bastelei. However, it seems that the bus is located at the earlier train station.

Nevertheless, we crossed the river by a boat which was operated by making use of the water current and a thick metal cable.

I noticed that there wasn’t any rubber lining or tyres by the side of the boat. When we asked the operator, he replied,

“Wir sind in Deutschland”

and proceeded to do the hand-waving-in-front-of-the-face gesture. Did he meant that Germans aren’t very clever? Hmm…

The Bastelei is just a big boulder to commemorate someone. If not for the thick mist, it would have been wonderful. It was quite beautiful up there.

After the Bastelei, we went looking for a faster way down to Stadt Wahlen. There was indeed a bus stop, but the bus was not operating. We tried to hitchhike, but nobody stopped.

So we walked through the quiet, cold and damp forest. Little Red Riding Hood must have been really brave (or really stupid) to walk through a forest alone. Luckily for us, there were no wolves.

After an hour or so, we reached Stadt Wahlen and managed to catch the train back to Dresden City. Both of us were quite tired by then and slept through the whole trip.

When we reached, we went around the Christmas market again and saw that prices for Dresdner Christstollen were slashed. It’s quite strange that most of the tin boxes were sold out instead of the Christstollen.

I had a dinner of grilled chicken with Brötchen before going back to the hostel to get my stuffs.

Back in the hostel, we met an American who did her exchange in France and a middle aged Mexican looking for female singers willing to work for nothing for three years. Yesterday, the Mexican was trying to convince another woman into joining him. He was really persistent about it.

But isn’t it a bit too extreme? No money for 3 years? We learn here that Was nichts kostet, wert nichts. So much for people following their dreams. Maybe they have better ideas about how to do it though. It’s not good to be too practical.

Nan accompanied me to Dresden Flughafen for the flight. I must say he’s quite a good companion for travel.

By the time I reached Stuttgart, it was already nearing 2200. I decided to wait for the 2338 S-Bahn for a more direct connection so I will not have to umsteigen 4 times.

By the time I reached back in Karlsruhe, it was already 0136. I took a scary S-Bahn back to Marktplatz. Scary because it doesn’t stop at every station. There was an old man who wanted to get off but couldn’t. Once I got off, I decided to walk back to hostel as it was safer that way. I don’t want to be transported to some place 5 kilometers away and have to walk back all the same.

I reached the hostel at 0230 and started to do some packing. Jason came over and passed me some books as his luggage was already 28 kilograms. I seemed to have quite a lot to bring back too.

So, will I be able to wake up tomorrow morning at 0700?