Karl May and Dresden

Every single day we spent in Jena was packed with activities, and Wednesday was no exception. We met at 8am to get on a bus and head to the Karl May Museum in Radebeul. The exterior of the museum seems like just another house in a neighborhood, which is because they truly turned Karl May’s residence into a museum after his death. The tour of Karl May’s house was meant to unveil that truth about Karl May and all the falsehoods he told in his stories. He made many claims about himself that are quite obviously untrue, such as that he could fluently speak forty languages and that his character Shatterhand was based off of his own experience. In the back yard of the Karly May museum there was a rectangular pond, a playground, a gold mining station, a teepee with an obviously dressed up German man as a Native American, a small consession stand for snacks and drinks, and a museum that we went into next. Outside of the museum the first thing that I noticed was that the totem poles were made out of stone, and though I didn’t get a close look, I would bet that the canoe that was sheltered by a wooden canopy was probably also made of stone. This part of the Karl May museum was supposed to give people a more accurate historical background of Native Americans, and the private collection did contain quite a few native American artifacts. The whole thing was quite interesting though because there was a mix of truth and history mixed with falsifications and misrepresentations of Native Americans. But, how is a normal German citizen that doesn’t research Native Americans supposed to know any different? It’s just so weird for me to think that this place is the representation that most Germans have of Native Americans. The whole museum really got me to think about what kind of cultures Americans have false representation of and how our perceptions are most likely inaccurate.

After the Karly May museum we went to lunch at a Western themed restaurant before reaching our second destination of Dresden. Dresden was a beautiful city, and although there were more touristy parts, it was still much less crowded than Berlin and had a more calm feeling to the city. We walked around the churches of Dresden for about two hours with one of the German students from Jena who was happy to show us around. He pointed out that many of the buildings have bricks that are lighter and darker colored, which shows where the building had to be rebuilt after Dresden was firebombed during WWII. The churches in Dresden were magnificent, and we were even able to walk up the bell tower of one of the churches to see the city from the top. After a while we decided to get coffee and cake at a restaurant for dessert, courtesy of the program funds. Once we had finished eating, we attempted to find the Beir Garten that our coordinators said we could meet them at, however we ended up just taking a nice walk on a trail along the Spree because we didn’t have time to make it all the way to the Beir Garten before we would have had to turn back.

After everyone met back up at the bus we traveled back to Jena and were free to do as we chose for the evening. Several of us decided to go to an Asian restaurant and order food to take with us back to the hostel. This made it possible for Mira, Hannah, and I to all sort out what laundry we wanted to do so that after we had finished eating we could go to the laundromat and, for the first time in a month, do laundry in a machine and not by hand in the sink. This laundromat was unique in that it was also in a bar, which is apparently not an uncommon thing in Germany. We thought that it was very strange at first, but after we got there and had started our laundry it was quite enjoyable to also order a beer and read a book while we waited for the laundry to finish. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize we wouldn’t be able to use the drying machines after 11pm, which meant that we had to take back all of our laundry wet and decorate our room with all of our damp clothing to dry. Once we had all of our laundry hung up we all layed in bed and got some sleep before we had to wake up for another long day.