Merry Easter

Normally one thinks of Easter as the time when we are embracing warmer weather and spring flowers.  But here in Dresden it was still winter and COLD.  It snowed 4" on Good Friday and there were further snow flurries all weekend long.  It was continuously cold from December to Arpil with the exception of our week in Munich, the warmest Christmas on record in Germany.  So we had no white Christmas, but instead we experienced a White Easter...thus the "Merry" Easter title.  Finally, two weeks into April spring arrived and we all thawed out.  Right now it's beautiful - most everything is still blooming and it's warm. 

However, back to our Easter celebrations.  Unfortunately we were all sick with bad colds, but that didn't stop us from carrying out our grand plan to see the Osterreitern (Easter Riders) in the neighbouring town of Bautzen.  This town is actually Sorbian, a Slavic group with its own language and customs, although everyone speaks German as well, presumably.  They have a lot of traditions surrounding Easter, such as amazingly decorated Easter eggs, and a procession of riders that ride from one town to the next proclaiming the Easter good news of Jesus' resurrection through Sorbian songs.  We couldn't understand the singing, but it sure was beautiful. 

The riders were all dressed in their best, of course.

But it's the horses that have the most sorts of special decorations for the day.

It couldn't have been easy to read the song off the paper, keep the horse under control, and manage to keep on course.

We waited over an hour in the cold, biting wind in order to see the procession of horses.  The things my family does for me!!! After it was over, we opted to skip watching the Easter egg shove as it was just too cold and no one felt good.  Had we watched it, we could have told everyone what it is, but now we'll probably never know precisely what an Easter egg shove is.  Oh well.  At this point, any sensible family would have just gone home, warmed up, rested, and drunk lots of hot tea.  But no, we were only 45 minutes away from Poland....who could resist?  Unfortunately we misread the timetable and spent another cold hour and a bit in the unheated train station waiting.

Proof that we  made it!!!!!!

We walked from the train station on the German side to the river that's the border.  We crossed over the pictured bridge, walked along the river for 1/2 an hour and then decided to call it a day.  Unfortunately more waiting was in store as we missed a train by 7 minutes and the next one wasn't for another hour.  At least this train station wasn't quite as cold as the other one.  As it was, we spent most of Easter Sunday either on a train or in a train station.  By the time we got home, all of our colds were worse and we felt approximately like death warmed over.  But the Osterreitern were worth it and I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be able to walk across the border into Poland.  Now we'll always be able to say, "Remember that time when we were all sick and felt miserable and we spent all day in train stations so that we could see horses and go to Poland?"  Family memories, that's what we're creating!

Aside from Easter Sunday itself, Pablo & I went to an Easter Saturday vesper service with the Dresden Kreuzkirche Boys' Choir performing.  It was absolutely beautiful, but we let our boys stay home, assuming that they wouldn't appreciate it quite as much.  We all did go to a German church on Easter Monday (there were church services around the clock all weekend long it seemed!) since we hadn't done so on Sunday itself.  There was special trumpet and organ music, and although none of it was familiar, it was lovely.