After finally getting my first vaccine shot, the future started to look much brighter. So bright that I was able to finally take my first post-covid trip over the borders to a country besides my home Slovakia. It wasn’t as epic a destination as one may expect. But the feeling of getting out of Czechia with the sole purpose of just having fun and exploring more was so blissful.
Once again I traveled to Dresden Germany, just like about 5 times before.
Dresden is my usual shopping and leisure destination.
When I was living in Hradec Kralove during my unsuccessful university years, I and my friends visited Dresden every Christmas for its spectacular markets and atmosphere every single year. Dresden itself was the destination of my first ever solo trip. Not much I know. But I believe that as a single young woman I got to start with small solo trips. You can read about it HERE.
This time it was me and my friend on a quest of buying a dress for my mum’s 50th birthday party.
Spoilers alert: It was successful.
Germany recently opened its borders for most European countries with only tests or vaccination needed. Plus they allow 24-hour visits without any registration or testing or quarantine or whatever- which was exactly our case.
The original plan was to go by train but as it was twice as long as a bus ride, our means of travel was crystal clear.
We got our bus tickets to a mostly empty bus and in like an hour and a half we were out of Prague strolling the Dresden’s streets.
To my surprise, the streets were so full of people. I’m no longer used to such large crowds of people blocking the way, walking slowly, Being noisy, and taking pictures everywhere. Taking full advantage of the post-covid trips.
I felt so pleased to witness it again thought. On the other hand, the rage only a person living in a big touristy city can experience was slowly returning. I got irritated by the crowds, despite being one of the crowd.
Face masks are mandatory inside the building but I guess not so much outside as no one had it properly on. No one warned us to put it on and no one asked us to somehow prove we’re in Germany just for 24 hours. It was all very confusing like all of the restrictions everywhere.
Nevertheless, we did have a mask on when needed, get tested regularly, my friend is fully vaccinated, I’m just first dosage in but I still have antibodies from the time I overcome Covid-19 myself. So it was a safe travel trip as it should be.
It’s so funny how you can visit a place again and again and still be surprised by what you find.
For example, we took a different turn than usual and we found ourselves in a cute town square we never saw before. And this was the theme of the whole trip. Taking unusual turns and seeing what we find.
It’s not that big of a city but it has a lot to offer and we tried to experience it all.
From its beautiful historic sights to shopping centers to delicious food.
We had quite an interesting lunch as we went to a Russian restaurant. Nothing odd about that but it was quite ridiculous as the menu was bilingual, but the languages were Russian and German and we don’t speak either of them.
It was quite fun to order something with a help of a google translator and it took forever to type out all of those long-ass german words. Two Slovak girls from Czechia in a Russian restaurant in Germany were also a sight to see.
It was a small family-owned Russian restaurant called Aljonuschka, and the staff doesn’t speak much English but they were super nice and you should definitely check them out if you’re ever in Dresden.
We ordered typical Russian “dumplings” or varenyky and they were delicious.
The only difference in a shopping center from pre-covid times was that shops were keeping track of the number of people inside each shop. And the queue to the toilets was just as long as the queue for antigen test in the middle of the shopping center.
Besides that business as usual.
I got a beautiful summer dress for my mum’s 50th birthday. It’s a long, airy white color dress with a pink flower pattern and they are super dreamy. I’m not a big fan of real-life shopping anymore but this one was quite ok.
In the evening we took a bus back to Prague, fully satisfied with a lovely trip with really great weather. There was one moment when it started to rain a bit but we used that time for inside shopping.