Last weekend we went down to Leipzig, which we had never been to before. It was only an hour train ride and was really quick to get to. Raymond took off Friday so we went down Friday morning-Sunday afternoon.
The city was really beautiful. All of these ornate old buildings, but also lots of really run down beautiful old buildings. It was a strange mixture of really nice and really run down.
And Bach is buried in St Thomas' church.
We did our wandering around town then had lunch at this place that I loved! The food was delicious, the waiter was super friendly, the inside was so cozy...I would go back often if I lived there.
The water comes out the horses nostrils...
After lunch we wandered some more, then went to the Stasi Museum which was really interesting. They had all kinds of machines and gadgets that they used to spy on the people. The most interesting were the mail machines - the machine that is just a steam machine to open letters without people knowing, the UV machine to check for secret messages, etc. Also lots of tiny cameras and voice recorders and it was really interesting.
Then I had read there was a "wobbly tower" in the one big park close to where we were so we went in search of it. Only we didn't find it. Really we couldn't find much information about where it was located exactly, just that it was in this giant park.
We also were testing out our new camera and all the fancy shooting modes which was fun. It is way nicer than our old camera that stopped working
We finally gave up on trying to find the tower and went to get some food, which was an adventure. Places here just close when they feel like it for a vacation or a break or whatever. The first place we were going to go did just that so we were so hungry by the time we got to the next closest place - this burger place -that I ordered way too much food. We did good though and ate most if it. It helped that we walked so much all day.
When we were walking on Friday we saw the Naturkundemuseum (Natural History Museum) so of course we had to check it out on Sat. It was only a Euro entrance fee which was good as it is teeny tiny. They had a few interesting things, it was worth a Euro, so it was good.
Then since we had gotten a day pass for the street cars we decided to take the one to the closest point in the park to the wobbly tower and try to find it again. We had a map that showed where it should be if we followed the trails
And success! Really we NEVER would have found it if not for the map I had. It is hidden by the trees so you cannot see it at all until you are almost to it.
And the tower is quite wobbly. It was really windy that day which I am sure didn't help. We spent a little bit of time up there before I had to go back down as it was making me motion sick.
No horse and wagon through the forest paths
Another quick walk through town then out to the vegan summer day! I saw that was going on last weekend so I was exicted to see what they had. Really we went to the Vegan festival at Alexanderplatz the weekend before which was good, but so many people you had to wait forever to get anything and it was kind of pricey. This one was small, but there were lots of different options and even though there was a good amount of people there you didn't have to wait in long lines. It was also cheaper than the Berlin one so we tried all the foods!
Crazy sushi - one was gyro and one was beet marsala. Delicious!
Across the street a little ways was the Monument to the Battle of the Nations
You could go inside, but it was 8 Euro and by that time we were already a bit tired and I didn't want to go in 8 Euro worth. I only wanted to go in 4 Euros worth so we had a break outside and I tried out some of the other picture modes - those two above were my favorites.
It is really giant and you could climb up the stairs to the top
After a long break and back to our room to get warmer clothes (it got cold suddenly!) we went to check out the park near where we were staying. Lots of abandoned buildings and pipes sticking up from the ground. I liked it.
After dinner at the same place we ate lunch the day before we went back downtown to try taking some photos at night.
There are apparently a lot of night tours of the city as there weren't that many people just walking around, but a ton of tour groups. Also something was going on across from St Thomas church as there were cops blocking off the streets, fancy cars and tons of security and people dressed up. Not sure what was happening, but someone important must have been there.
The next day, Sunday, was pretty rainy when we woke up. We got some breakfast, had an early lunch, then it had stopped raining so we walked down to the train station and got there with just a little bit of time to spare before our train.
It was a good weekend, but Leipzig is a bit of a strange city. I was telling my friend about it and she was like so it is bipolar? I said yes, it is one extreme or another. It is golden ornate buildings, or run down, no windows, graffitied buildings. It was super nice people, or people evil glaring at me. It was a bit strange. Like we talked with some really nice people at the vegan day thing, and elsewhere, and we also had people give us the dirties looks for some reason. Like we were walking towards them, they glared, glared as we were walking by, and their head would turn to follow us glaring the whole time and continue glaring after we passed them. It was still strange as I have never encountered that amount of hostility focused on me for no good reason. The city also felt really empty to me most of the time. The few blocks downtown where it is pedestrian only got crowded, but outside of that it felt really empty. There were people around, just not a lot of people. Still I would go back and spend another weekend there. The food was so good and I loved the extremes. The buildings were beautiful and it was just a nice trip.
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