The first few days of our stay in Jena, Germany have been busier then one might think.  Logan, Papa and I have all had the opportunity to play soccer while we are here.  We have shopped in the Goethe Galleria, which is just down the hill, almost every day, and carried 40 million tons of stuff back up the hill.  We have also shopped in the Müller (a really cool store that carries every thing but food!) for school supplies, as Logan and I will attend the Ernst Abbe Gymnasium starting on Monday.  Although we did not have a list of things we needed to purchase, at least now we have things to write with, and on!

Right now the exhibit in the Goethe Galleria is props and costumes from the Star Trek series.

On Friday we took a train up to Dresden to sight see.  Here is a cool fountain across from the train station.

Proof that Papa has a radar that can detect a Starbucks from a mile off.

Since we had a little time before our tour of the Historic Green Vault, we checked out the Frauen Kirche(an extremely cool Protestant church).  At one point Martin Luther preached in this church.  It was destroyed during fire bombing of World War 2, but then built back up, costing 100 million Euros, 90% of which was donated from around the world.
Unfortunately, the rule, which we obeyed, unlike most of the people, was no picture taking on the inside.  Consequently, I have no pictures of the inside to post, but nonetheless it was magnificent.

On our way to the Historic Green Vault we stopped at the Parade of Nobles, which is a mural painted on porcelain that depicts 7 decades of Saxon royalty.  The wall it is painted on is longer than a football field and, surprisingly, survived the World War 2 bombing.

The back of the wall was also quite impressive.

Underneath the wall, every few yards were people dressed in costumes, sort of like mimes.  There were angels, people walking stuffed dogs, gods and goddesses, etc.

I have been to the Historic Green Vault once before, but do not remember it.  It was amazing.  Inside are eight rooms: the amber room, ivory room, white silver room, silver gilt room, hall of precious objects, coat of arms room, jewel room, bronze room, all of which were filled with dozens, sometimes hundreds of treasures.  From the wealth of the objects, it was obvious that unless a king, or some other rich noble commissioned you, their was no way you could afford to buy the precious stones that were needed.  One of the more prolific craftsman was Dingelinger (I have no idea how to spell this guy's name, but that's how it's pronounced.  Seriously.)!  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed here either.

After the Historic Green Vault, we ate lunch at a typical German restaurant, right next to a McDonalds.  After lunch we still had a few hours before our train left, so we went to the Gallery of Old Masters, which has quite a few cool paintings. The outside as well as the inside was quite impressive.

 After that we stopped for ice cream on our way to the Volkswagen Transparent Factory.  It was awesome.  When you enter the building on your left is a little walled in restaurant.  Straight ahead is a gigantic cloth sphere, reaching almost to the roof.  Behind that are restrooms, and right above the restrooms is the second floor.  On top of a podium was a truly awesome volkswagen that I took a picture of right before a lady told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

Creating a big circle around the building was a wall of glass, and on the other side were the workers and cars.  A big strip of the floor in the middle of the circle moved around, and the circle each car was resting on was a circle of wood that spun.  On the ceiling was a conveyor that lifted up the cars and carried them to different stops.  It was truly amazing.  http://www.youtube.com/embed/nd5WGLWNllA?rel=0

On the way back to the train station the boys headed off to get dinner for on the way home, while we stopped for souveneirs.  Getting sushi took forever.  Unfortunately our train was on time, and we almost missed it.  Once we were on the train we realized that the sushi maker hadn't had time to cut up our sushi.

Sadly, it wasn't even very good.  But overall, our trip to Dresden was a success.