This story happened to me this summer. Warning! As I mentioned, no pizza in this story. But it can become a little cheesy in the end. Haha.
I thought it would be nice to write about this journey in a form of a little story, with our simple dialogues and feelings. It's nothing mindblowing or extraordinary, just the story of a boy and a girl. And in this one, I was a little bit carried away...
So, let’s get it started.
It's always great to see the new places, especially with your significant one.
I was sitting in the bus, excited to finally see, what Dresden was all about.
My boyfriend, Denis, was also excited, because we could finally buy and eat some food. Priorities, right.
“And now, we are heading to the biggest market in Dresden! Altmarkt consists of more than 500 shops! Don’t take too long, just be in time for the bus, alright? Two hours and then, we leave!” that was the words of our tour guide. The countdown started.
11:00
We finally left the bus and I was immediately blown away by architecture.
“I need to take a photo of this! Den, quickly!”
“Can it just wait?” he sighed. “We just got here, and we still have two hours, you know”.
“And we should take THE BEST of these two hours!”
“Alright, I did that. Now we should really go. We should buy food. Or we will be hungry on the way back home.”
He took me by the hand, but then I quickly returned to my camera again: “Wait! Look at this! Ugh, I should really capture that”.
He sighed again, but waited patiently, when I tried to search for the right angle.
As we moved forward, I continued to speak: “When you take a photo, you should really watch how exactly you do it. For example, in many of your photos you cropped the significant part of the building. Or horizon was tilted. Or…”
“Alright, I get it”, he interrupted. “I’m not an expert in taking the photos. And I don’t think I will ever learn to do that properly”.
“Just try it once more! There are some mistakes, but you shouldn’t be that bad.”
And Den took this photo.
“What is this?”, I looked at the result and laughed, “Did you do that on purpose?”
“No! It’s just an accident!”, he burst out in laughter too.
“Okay, let’s pretend that this blur was actually meant for artistic purpose”.
11:15
When we approached the market, the quest “To spend the remaining 20 Euro properly” started.
Our basket became quickly full. Although, some of the Den’s choices bothered me. Do we really needed so much snickers? And chocolate donuts?
“Look, its only 60 cents! We should get it!”, he was really passionate about these donuts and I couldn’t refuse these puppy eyes. Even if I knew that we may regret it.
I was right, because in the end, we spended 15 Euro. That would be okay, besides one big thing. Souvenirs. We haven’t even bought one!
Though, we ate those delicious chocolate donuts.
“So, right now we have only five…No, even four Euro to spend on souvenirs, huh?”, I concluded, looking at my hands with remaning money.
“Alright then! You stay here with the package and I will quickly find a shop with souvenirs!”
We agreed on these terms, and I started to run from one shop to another. I was in a hurry, and I wanted to end this shopping as soon as possible! There are so many things to see outside, and we have only one hour to do that!
12:00
Finally, I found the proper souvenirs and we exited on the street.
“It’s time to start taking pictures again! Den, could you…?” I gave him the camera with the most charming smile possible.
“Alright, then take it! You look really nice with this baguette.”
I laughed.
We couldn’t go really far from bus, but we standed in the historical heart of Dresden with the most beautiful buildings. And of course, I wanted to capture all of them!
As a typical tourist, I was obsessed with taking pics. And Denis was talking endlessly about currency exchange rate: “If our currency didn’t fall down so much, we could afford so much more! Damn, we could eat pizza everyday!”
“You would like to eat pizza regarldess of how much money do we have”, I noticed.
“You are right, but still!”
12:15
We continued our walk and I was really impatient.
“Come on, we should be faster! We need to see that building over there! By the way, you can take a picture of me running!”
"Is that really necessary? Okay..."
Denis tried to walk faster, to catch up with my speed. And as for me, when the camera got in my hands...
12:20
Click.
12:21
Click.
12:22
Click.
12:23
Click.
Okay, this wasn't that fast. But I did photo after photo.
Eventually, I noticed Den frowning more and more. As I was running from one building to another, he seemed to be not so enthusiastic.
“Are you okay? What is wrong?”, I finally tried to found out what happened with his mood.
He sighed once again: “I just want to walk with you”.
“But we are walking right now!”
“Not exactly…You are just busy taking pictures all the time”.
We were approaching the Elbe river, and he continued: “Let’s just sit down by the river and enjoy our time together”.
“But…The pictures…We still got a little time to investigate some more…”, I tried to protest.
“Just accept it, you can’t explore EVERYTHING in just one hour. You need to relax and stop for a moment”.
12:30. Stop. Countdown froze.
Stop. Yes, I definitely needed that. I was chasing after good pictures and angles and forgot the main meaning of this all. Just take my time and enjoy it with my boyfriend. To feel this exact moment.
This realisation made me sad: “I’m sorry…You are right. Like I said, I wanted to take the best of these two hours…Not to miss everything…”, I was on the verge of tears.
“I know. I know. I just wanted to walk with you and hold your hand. That is all”.
After that, we were sitting on the bench, embracing each other, and looking at the river. It was a calm and relaxing feeling and I felt like I’m finally satisfied. No more rushing and running.
“Do you want to take another picture?”, Den asked.
“I think I should stop doing them for a while”.
“No, it’s fine. I have an idea, actually”.
We stood up and he, still holding my hand, took a picture.
And this is one of the most precious photos I have from this trip.
Thank you, Denis.
The clock struck 13.00, and we were already in the bus, ready for our final trip home.
P.S. This photo I did blur just for artistic purpose.
