Tuesday, December 30 we started in Nuremberg and finished in Dresden. We spent the morning at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. It is a wide ranging museum with the general theme of German history. I really liked it. They have English descriptions on all the exhibits and it’s not just paintings; they have statues, musical instruments, watches, weapons, furniture and lots of other stuff so you don’t get bored looking at the same kind of thing right away.

We had German sausages for lunch, at a very old looking restaurant. The dining room was small and we once again had to sit at a table with strangers, the kitchen was just one huge stove by the entrance cooking hundreds of sausages.

We then boarded a train toward Dresden at 2:30. The route we chose to Dresden required us to make a transfer in the town of Hof with only 4 minutes transfer time. Unfortunately it was the day with the heaviest snow of our trip so far and we ended up getting to Hof approximately 10 minutes later than scheduled. We missed our transfer and had to wait 50 minutes for the next train to Dresden, it was a little annoying but we were able to wait in the warm station and we didn’t lose any money because we were traveling on a rail pass.

The ride to Dresden flew by because we sat next to a talkative 70 year old German who wanted to practice his English.  He thought it was funny that Melissa would work and I wouldn’t have a job.  He was the first person in my life I’ve ever met that was a huge opera fan, but he still thought digital music sounds better than vinyl.  He advised us that the best thing to do in Europe is to go to the Bayreuth Festival, in Bayreuth Germany. It’s the annual Wagner opera festival held at the opera hall Wagner himself designed just for his music.  It may be a once in a lifetime experience because according to him it takes on average 10 years to get tickets through their ticket lottery system. At 8:10 we finally arrived in Dresden, then checked into the hotel and had some pizza for a late dinner.