Advent Advent
Somewhere between then and now I got sick. As in, I-never-knew-my-body-could-produce-so-much-mucus kinda sick. It’s the dangdest thing too — I mean, aside from the seven hours I spent outside in the cold rain on Saturday, the 6 a.m. bedtime Saturday “evening”, the 9 a.m. wake-up call on Sunday to be back out in the cold for another eight hours, all topped off with a train ride that should have only lasted 3 hours, but instead dragged out into a 12 hour, 70€ all-night-odyssee after I fell asleep on the short stretch between Dresden and Leipzig and woke up 3 hours out of the way just outside of Weimar, I’ve been taking really good care of my body.
The swan song carried me through Sachsen this past weekend — What is it about Sachsen that’s so comforting to me? Absurd, I know, considering Sachsen is the German equivalent to West Virginia. Something about it, the accent, the people — I learned alot about myself there and will always take it with me.
A Mitfahrgelegenheit took me to Chemnitz. I finally got to see the Nischel, the giant 7 meter statue of Karl Marx’s head. Not alot else going on in the town other than that (though I hear there are some great abandoned factories to explore) so I moved along back to Dresden.
We, the group from Poland, were in town for the famous Christmas market, what with its Glühwein and pastries and meat on a bone and other delicacies that make life that much the richer. For one of the few times in my life I tried to not do too much (it’s all relative) and simply enjoy the ride. We wandered through the town, battled the rain, enjoyed the scene and danced the night away in a disco.
The next morning we followed a train rumbling through the old ore trails in the mountains of Sachsen. The tiny town of Annenburg-Buchholz greeted our arrival with Glühwein and whispers of St. Nikolas.
And then I found myself alone again in Dresden. The others went back to Berlin but I needed one last walk through the city. The bells rang — through a small alley I could here a small group playing Ave Maria — I found myself at the foot of the Frauenkirche with a Radeberger in my hands. I looked up at the majestic white bell of the church, it seemed to burst out into the moonlight, and let a tear slip. Back over the bridge to the other side of the river, I turned around and said “tschüß” and “danke”.
Ararat was still open. Döner/Dürüm. The waitstaff still remembered me after all this time. They said they were going to come visit me in New York. In this life, I wouldn’t doubt it.