................................................................................................I hit Leipzig for a day to take in some culture and possibly sell my soul to the devil. Turns out my soul ain't worth all that much these days, but I did visit the vast and echo filled Communist designed Museum der Bildenden Kunste, once I found it no thanks to an erroneous map. I have never felt so small as when I reached up to grab the door handle to the monolithic doors of the museum. Let me repeat, I REACHED UP TO OPEN THE DOORS!. The spaces were huge and mostly empty, but I did get a good cross section of art history as I wondered around. The stairs from floor to floor were 52 steps, so I got in a good work out as well. After walking around the town I took in a donor kebab and hit the sack. The next day I stopped by the scene where the American bombers massacred an entire city of civilians. As luck would have it, I showed up just in time for the biggest summer festival I have ever seen. The entire rebuilt old town was filled with stages, bars, food stalls, and lively Germans drinking and singing. I wondered around and checked out the church with its recovered melted cross, and had a few beers myself. It was then that I realized something about Germans. No matter how diverse a people this culture has, they have one thing in common, they love to smash glass. To purchase a beer, you have to pay a deposit for the glass of about 50 cents. This does little to deter the drunk Deutchlander of doing what he loves best. Down that Pils and smash the vessel into tiny bits and laugh. It looked like it might be a cathartic exercise, but I just couldn't bring myself to join in. I loved Dresden, it was a beautiful smallish city with a lot of character and cool neighborhoods.
