Expectations are funny things. I feel like this trip is an exercise in coming to terms with expectations. Almost nothing is ever what I think it will be. Dresden for all of my anticipation and for all that it has to offer will be left in my head associated with oppressive heat and seas of tourists. I tried to go with the heat and swim with all the other good little tourists but I have revisted what I already knew. I am not a very good tourist. I dont think I wear the right hats. But if there is really a distinction to be made between tourist and traveller then Im happy to call myself the latter. The day I rolled into Dresden was the day that the heat came. The day I left it fianlly rained and cooled off. I took the morning in the Karl May museum. On my way there I prepared myself to not be critical of his or the museums treatment of Native People. I was surprised at what I found. The museum was in two parts- the house and a "camp." The house was really a testament to late 19th century European manhood. It occurred to me that he was a predecessor to Hemingway. He was not just interested in American Natives but also with the region gernerally termed the Orient. He had swords from Turkey, rugs from Persia, innumerable furniture peices from the Middle East or South Asia. He had bear skin, lion skin, and other skin rugs. He had guns from the US. He had a double-barrleed bear rifle that must have weighed 400 pounds and a Henry rifle that classic of the American west. His rooms look like thay came out of "Out of Africa." Libraries, pipes, horns on walls- man-stuff. It was great for looking in on that world of masculinity at the turn of the century. The camp was only viewable through squinted eyes and the assuredness that these people who ran the museum were trying to do the right thing. It was after all really a learning center for kids. There was a wooden Indian, a fake totem pole or two, stone wolves perpetually howling at a full moon and replica tee-pees. There were renactors- one Indian complete with leather breeches, moccaisins, a black wig with braids, a loin cloth, a leather vest and a feather in his hair. He was explaining to families how Indians used bows and arrows. There was case after case of Native clothing, tools, etc. They tried to seperate the Indians but were only able to create about 10 or so categories. The Haida and Tlingit stood in for NW coast. The Commanche, Apache, Sioux, and few others for the plains. And even though May himself had visited the Tuscaroras, the eastern Indians were kinda left out. All the Indians were of course, as they are in many Americans memories left frozen in time. The way these people in this case made this basket was the way these people always made this basket. Frozen in time, ever unchanging until the whites thawed them out and refroze the old ways in museums, memories, and myth. It was all up in the air for me as I entered the last rooms when the whole thing took an unfortunate turn. The last two rooms were filled with Battle of Little Bighorn maps, quotes, and other ephemera. That famous event, dramatic though it is, is less about Native People and about one battle that looked more like Mays romantic books and less like an educational exhibit. I left Dresden by train and the way was long and hot. But as I stepped off the train in the little town of Weissenfels the air was cooler and rain started to fall lightly. I was back on the Saale. It was the trail that had done me wrong before but I wanted to give it another shot here further south. I was to ride the Saale to Weimar. But first to Naumburg which my book reprted had one of he most important buildings in all of Germany. It is a grand and sprawling curch that has elements of many architectural styles. There was a welcome lack of toursits and I sat in the shadow of the church wishing that everybody that I knew could be there to see this place. It has two pairs of towers- one of the pairs I have never seen anything like them. The book called them "Oriental" which I couldnt see at all but whatever- they were beautiful. By the way pictures are coming in the next few days. The next day I got on the Saale again I rode south. It was indeed better here than it had been around Halle, In fact it quickly became some of my favorite parts of trail thus far. Cool woods and an undulatiung soft trail that gently sloped to heights and then droppped me again into the valleys. The town of Bad Kösen was also lovely and I remembered that I was on the Romantic Road. The RR is a stretch through Germany that takes the visitor through Roman architecture as well as wineries and cute towns. So its Romantic in several ways I guess. Outside of Bad Kösen I picked the "wrong" path at a poorly signed crossroads. I climbed gently at first and then found myself huffing and cussing as I arrived at the bottom of what wasnt a trail anymore but an escarpment of wet rock and loose gravel. I dug in determined to make it up. I feel sometimes like I can do anything on this tour. But I am not in the land of the Elbe where 88 miles is a flat and enjoyable possibility and this steep rise wasnt playing around or entertaining my pointed oaths of conquest. I made it perhaps a sixth of the way when I came around a bend and saw other stranded bikers and the continuance of the trail out of site, into the woods, and to a disappearing point far avbove my head. I gave up. Peddaling that is- I got off the bike and began pushing it. It was maybe two hundred more yards and got tougher as it got higher. I was bathed in heat and sweat. Other people on the trail were looking at me as if I were deranged. At the top I understood the reason for such a trail. I had veiws of the entire river valley north and south. It looked like little towns on a well designed model train layout. River, fields, hay bales, churches, train, and to the south and old ruined castle no more han a quarter of a mile away. I went to castle- Rudelsburg it was called. It was lovely ruin with towers and paths to walk around. A restuarant was inside tastefully laid out to use and complement the setting. Below the river was running with canoeists and rafters. It was picture perfect. Moreover I always in those moments have the added pleasure of seeing peoples faces when the get out of their cars and walk past me mopping my brow. They see that that Ive climbed all that way with all that stuff up a big hill. I cant help but it. Its a moment filled with pride. Weimar is a town with a mixed legacy. It has a roll call of famous names not to be rivalled. Goethe, Schiller, Liszt, Nietzche, Bach, Strauss, and others. But it also is where the Hitler Youth movement began and outside about 8 km is Buchenwald- my first concentration camp to visit. I rode there this morning. Its ona forrested hill and as I rode out there I tried to understand my expectations. All I expected was to be stunned but I couldnt decide why or what it was specifically that I thought would stun me. The ressonance of all those deaths (53,000+) and all that suffering? But what if I dont resonate? Did that mean that there was something wrong with me? As I moved along the "Blood Road" - the road built by the inmates, I wondered about them laboring in 1938 under a hot summer sun. Or maybe in the wicked cold. But I feel so far from them that I cant possibly imagine it. That is as real as I can get Im afraid. The distance in time and circumstance is too great. I would have to read survivors books. Then there was the camp. It was barely encumbered at all with tourists. But there was a group of young Americans behaving like circus clowns who would no doubt put on their sad faces when they were pulled from their parking-lot hacky sacking and told to enter the camp. A car pulled up as I was taking off my bike shoes to put on walking shoes. It wasfull German tourists. The door opened and some standard, bad German generic hip-hop blasted throughout the whople parking lot. They were not shy about it and left it on while they piled from the car stretching and primping for the camp. It was so odd and then I knew where my expectations had gone wrong. I expected solemnity, crying Jews maybe, but not hacky sack and techno crap music. As usual I moved off into my own world distanced from those people and I tried not to judge them or think them sha llow or disrespectful. I walked into the camp through the original gate which bears the words Jedes Dem Seine- To Each His Own. I was confounded. Im still not sure I get it. Dachau and Auschwitz and others have the famous signs Arbeit Macht Frei - Work Makes You Free which makes sense in a sick and ironic way. To Each His Own is confusing. I wouldnt have even understood if the brochure didnt clarify the translation. Anyway it was somehow more appropriate to my situation and the varying attitude of the tourists than to the prisoners and the SS. Or so that is how it affected me at that moment. Most of the camp is gone. There are outlines where the buildings that housed the prisoners were. There are memorials to Bulgarians, Russians, Jews, Jehovas Witnesses and women. The crematorium is one of the few surviving buildings. I walked into the courtyard of the cremetorium and read a plack that asked to respect the crematorium as a place where many people had died, been murdered, been disected. In other words a place of great loss of life, suffering, death all expressed in one specific place. I dont photograph cemetaries generally and I put my camera away. The plack (sp?) asked to treat the crematorium with silence. I walked in to the first room which was yellow cermaic tile and had a tiled table with accompanying sinks. There was also a glass case full of medical instruments. A yound German couple was looking in it and talking. It annoyed me instantly. They moved into the next room and I tried to calm myself down and not let them bother me. But as I peered into the case wondering about the authenticity of these instruments (perhaps also of questionable taste) he turned on his palm-sized camcorder. I knew because it made that unnecessary start-up music that makes me want to throw it in front of a speeding train. He came back into the room I was in and photographed the insruments. The camera took stills too apparently and made that stupid "picture-taking " sound so that users know they have succussefully operated their technology. I stared into his eyes I think as much searching for an answer to my questions about people, myself and expectations as much as a tacit animalistic threat. I waited for them to leave before I moved on. In the next room was a photo measuring perhaps 4 feet by 6 feet. It was taken by the liberating American Army and it was of stacks of human bodies in the courtyard of the crematorium. It was of course arresting. The next room was full of unused urns and specific memorials to prisoners who died there. I walked outside and tried to imagine scenes in the camp but I couldnt really. It was again all too far away. I walked around a little more, saw where the SS officers had a zoological garden. There was a picture of two bears wrestling in the enclosure. They had bears. I repeated that several times to myself. They had bears. For some reason, in that moment, the bears accentuated the polarity, the heinousness of it all. I had of course known about the torture, the experiments, the murder, and much else. I hadnt expected the possibility of a zoo. I walked a bit more and then left. Theres a great build-up when going to a place like that. I think Id have to be transported back in time to fulfill what I expected to happen to me there. What actually ocurred will take some time to understand.