Silly Little Country

The Occasional Joys of Business Travel

Some trips are better than others. A failed connection for me on Sunday meant that I missed a planned visit to the Dresden Frauenkirche later that day, but it also meant that I meant Suresh and Brad over a couple of beers waiting in Frankfurt airport for my next flight. Suresh is a Bay Area small venture capital fund manager on his way to Bangalore to check on some of the fund's investments and seek others - and utterly fascinating discussion. Brad was a freshly minted engineering graduate heading for Egypt for a couple of months with no knowledge whatever of the country. But even more, Brad is an engineering graduate from Virgina Tech, who says he thanks his clock radio's snooze button many times a day. On the morning of the shootings he used it a few times, and as a result delayed his planned arrival at Norris Hall long enough to avoid being in the middle of the action. He had close friends who leapt from windows, and one that was slightly wounded.
As for missing the Frauenkirche, I got to tonight's Orgelvespern, and followed it with a lovely walk around the Altstadt, including a stretch along the Terrace above the Elbe, from which I caught this glimpse of the Frauenkirche's dome.

The top of the dome features a cross donated by England for the reconstruction of the church (I think the guy said by the congregation at Coventry, which was fitting). It is sadly telling that the church lay in ruins until German reunification, and that almost immediately thereafter, the rebuilding project started.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 4:47 PM