Pop goes the 4th...but not really in the Deutschland.

(This is THE picture of Carl Maria von Weber, and a few people at cake-time)!

I highly enjoyed spending our Independence Day in another land; although, it was kind of weird to be without barbeque/grills and fireworks! I slept in yesterday for the first time since I've been here (from 1:00 to 10:30), and it was amazing! The sun commences beaming through our gigantic picture window at about 4:00 a.m., so it's usually hard to stay fully asleep for more than about five hours without waking. Four of us had a really fun lunch and unsuccessful grocery trip near the Hauptbahnhof and Studentwerken area; it's amazing how people who have never met can know so many acquaintances and like so many things in common (well, for the most part) :). Then we traveled to the Weber museum on a series of streetcars and (what must have been) deoxygenated buses, but the country out there is beautiful, and well worth the stuffy air! Weber's house/museum was pretty neat, but smaller than I'd imagined. Also, he had a death mask on display, which was pretty startling. After that four hour venture, we set out to find an American hang-out to celebrate with others...no luck there. We ended up being the (slightly) loud Americans at a very quaint, but nice Italian biergarden. Most of us just ate dessert; a lot of us had eaten Turkish earlier...I LOVE durums! They're better than any wrap I've ever eaten, and they scrape the meat off of this huge cylinder spinning on a spit. Anyway, we had a good time just being American amongst Germans (and probably being bothersome, but hey...it's our Independence Day)!

We made a much more successful venture to the grocery store today, in which I bought about 6 liters of water (I'm known among the trip members as the girl who always has 'wasser,' but I'm just taking Cora's "Dehydrated" song seriously!) so my backpack on the way back was pretty uncomfy to put it lightly (PUN INTENDED :)). This afternoon, we had a tour through the Staatliche Kunstsammlugen Dresden (the art museum that just reopened two weeks ago), and it was pretty interesting. They have attendants or docents or whatever in every room...occasionally more. They are super-protective of their art, I suppose...which is pretty appropriate. We saw a Van Gogh, and two very commonly used paintings in text books amongst a bunch of super-old sculptures, beautiful German paintings, and other super-noteworthy things I wouldn't have forgotten had I been able to photograph. We took time today for 'cake-time,' the German break, kind of like England's tea hour. I split a Pear and chocolate ice cream dish with Katie, and it was really amazing. The way the Germans incorporate fruit into desserts is very tasteful, and the presentation looks so much more colorful! Now we're back at the dorms taking a brief siesta before supper and a night out in Dresden! Gutentag!