A Meeting of the United Nations

Dear globalized world,

I became globalized in one weekend. I went to Dresden with the other international students that go to my university, and had a marvelous time seeing Dresden and hanging out with cool people from all over the world that happen to be involved in the arts in some way. But in some respects in kind of felt like a G20 summit, because of how diverse a group it was. So I am going to try and assemble some sort of list, of the nationalities represented. First and foremost their was the United States, represented solely by me(this is a scary thought). But there were people from Canada, Brazil, England, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Greece, Romania, Estonia, Israel, China, and Australia. I believe I am probably forgetting some countries, but this seems like the majority. But, it was helpful for me because they all spoke english pretty well, and thus I could continue to tell dirty jokes. But it was good all in all. I am not sure if this was the weekend to pick up learning any new German, but I sure as hell can swear in 15 different languages now. And I learned that partying is an international language(spoke most fluently by the Spanish), and that no matter what country you are from, a porcelain museum is not interesting. So maybe extreme boredom is also an international language. But either way Dresden was a lot of fun, and it was made that way by all the people that came along. I have posted a few pictures of my experience and some of the people I spent time with. 

But I want to focus on several subjects. First I must finish telling about the height of German Bureaucracy which I thought I saw when I wrote my last blog. But I was so wrong. Getting my visa proved to be the worst experience of all. I arrived to the visa place with all my paper work in hand at 1 o'clock, with a friend of mine who had the exactly same paper work. The short version of the story is that after 4 hours of waiting in 5 different lines, one of us came out with their visa and the other didn't. I was the one who did not acquire my visa. The gist of it all is that I will be spending another full day waiting in line with the exact same paper work I had previously. But its all right because they say that familiarity is a comforting thing. And I am starting to get used to angry German woman scream at me in a language I don't understand. But all is good, if anything it gives me topics to write blogs on. 

The other topic I want to focus on, is museums, and museum education. One of my favorite places in the whole entire world is museums. There is nothing better than browsing through a great art museum or a cool natural history museum. Generally I think they are pretty peaceful places that surround the viewer with objects that beg to be looked at. BUT... I hate guided tours. And maybe its that the guide is bad, but I dont like learning the history of gold tea cup sets and silver plated doll houses. But the tour guide thinks I do, and so somehow the guide can stand in front of a one tea cup for 3 hours, and talk to me, like I'm a brick wall, about every moment of this precious little tea cups life. And while this goes on my body goes from an alert ready position, to slightly slumped where I shift the weight on each foot every two minutes, to looking for the closest place to sit down and still look interested, to looking out the window and wondering what's for dinner. But things like a porcelain vases, and baroque furniture is just something you look at and kind of admire, and stroll through leisurely, and if you are still interested you buy a book at the very end. But don't make a bunch bad ass young artists, listen to the complete history of a three hundred year old plate, because they will all be looking out the window, planning their escape. So if you are ever in Dresden or in Meissen, and you plan on checking out some of the museums, I would recommend not taking the guided tours, or at least not the guided tours of 17th century dishes. You wont learn anything, or at least you wont retain any of the information. The only thing I retained was something about King Augustus the Strong, and how much stuff he owned. Mostly because I looked at all of it. 

And I dont know maybe I am just bitter right now, but these kind of museums are similar to taking everything I own and putting it in really nice display cases with fancy lighting, and being able to talk about the history of it. Boring!!! Except for the Nutella jar that now permanently sits next to my computer, that is worth putting in the Louvre. 

But let me know, what you think of museums like this and, if you think maybe museum education needs to happen in a different sort of way.

Check out the link to my pictures on the right hand side for images of Dresden