Dresden is about a 2.5 hour drive southeast of Berlin; it's half way between Berlin and Prague. The city itself is known for being heavily bombed at the end of WWII by the Allies. The Americans, British, and French chose to bomb Dresden precisely because it was a city of absolutely no strategic value; the purpose of the bombing was just a show of force to the Germans. So, they essentially leveled the entire city of Dresden. The amount of bombs dropped on the city was so great that what and who was not bombed directly was/were incinerated in fires as hot as what was experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, the first day we took a tour of the city where I learned about these bombings. We saw many buildings, museums, and landmarks that have been reconstructed since the fall of the wall. As I've mentioned before, cities in the East (GDR) that were severely effected by the bombings didn't really get much re-building attention until the wall fell in 1989. Similarly, our guide (a native Dresdener) told us that she grew up in a "city of ruins" in the 1970s. There was either still rubble, or just empty spaces lingering, until the 1990s.
Most of the buildings in Dresden are made of Sandstone. I didn't know this, but with sandstone, when water gets into it it gets trapped in the stone, expands, and eventually (after 100+ years) turns the stone darker. Now during the reconstruction process, they tried to use as many original pieces of the buildings as possible. It's really cool to look around the city and see many really dark stones/pieces, in contrast to the many lighter ones (there are also some medium colored ones from the '30s or so) . This shows which pieces were preserved from the late 1800's/early 1900's, in contrast to how much needed to be rebuilt.
Example: Dresden Frauenkirche. After 13 years of reconstruction, the outside of the church was finished being rebuilt in 2004, and the inside in 2005. Before that, it looked like this:
And when I visited, it looked like this:
 |
| it's beautiful. you can even see the dark pieces of sandstone, which were preserved from before the bombing. You'll also notice the whole left side is dark, which you can also see pictured on the left side of the first photo. The statue of Martin Luther still stands in the square, I just took this photo from in front of it. |
There's also a Catholic church in Dresden which I didn't get any good shots of. It's a really huge church because in Dresden the Catholics were really persecuted, since Protestantism was the way of the North. Thus, instead of having processions through the town on holidays, as not to be victims of any violence, they would hold all of their processions inside the church. So if you go inside, there is a really large aisle through the middle and around the outside of the pew areas that was used for these occasions.
On Sunday we went to a museum called the "German Hygiene Museum". I'm not the biggest fan of museums and this one sounded particularly boring. But it was actually - despite the name - quite interesting. I learned about everything from diseases to psychology to my hearing range. There was one interesting exhibit where you place an electrode headband on, and compete with another person to see who can have the most relaxed mind. Based on how relaxed you are, a little ball on the table will move towards either your side or the other. The goal is to relax your mind more than the other person's, to get the ball over to their end and win. It was fascinating!
 |
| my psychology-major classmates playing the game (and not relaxing!) |
This plant was created specifically to build Phaetons: the Phaeton is one of the most high-end VW cars and starts at about $80,000-90,000.
It's most popular in Germany and the surrounding countries, and isn't sold in the US anymore. At this factory I learned lots of interesting things (pertaining to this specific plant). Here are some of them.
- 96% of the car is hand-made!!
- the factory is really new and state of the art, and all aspects of it are designed to make the workers comfortable and ensure that they're working in ways that are ergonomic. It's their #1 concern, and that was really evident.
- the production floor is very quiet, even during production. all of the machinery is really quiet and the building has great acoustics.
- about 56 cars are completed daily at this plant
- it takes appx 24 hours to complete 1 car. About half the time is the assembly, and a little less than half is for testing. They test it in all situations, including driving on the local autobahn.
- the plant's exterior is almost all glass. to prevent birds from flying into the windows, they've had a recording of bird noises designed that send the signal to birds "this place is already occupied, don't come here" and it plays out of speakers on the building's exterior at all times. how cool?!
Everyone who orders a Phaeton or CC can pick the car up personally at the plant in Dresden. I think she said about 80% of people in Germany & the nearby countries who order the car do come to pick it up. It's a whole production, in which they get a tour as we did -but an individualized one, then get champagne etc, and their car is presented to them on a stage with lights and a curtain.
While they're waiting for the proud owners to arrive for the pickup ceremony, the cars are stored in this nifty, high-tech, 14-story, cylindrical contraption that holds around 300 cars. Don't ask me how it works!
After the tour we got to sit in a Phaeton and test it out... it was so awesome, and I'm anything BUT a car person! The one we sat in had all the cool accoutraments and cost €140,000 (that's $181,000 USD). My favorite feature was that to close the car door, you just gently push it so that it looks like it's ajar, and then it automatically closes silently. No slamming car doors! What a world that would be.
Sorry for the long post, but that was Dresden!
No comments:
Post a Comment