Leipzig

Yesterday was a holiday, Repentance Day, which in Germany means no celebrations or feasting, but rather just closing all of the stores and giving you nothing to do.  My DaF (Deutsch als Fremdsprache) teachers planned a class trip to Leipzig, so I went along on that.  I still haven't been there, and there's a lot of famous things there to see.

Thomas Kirche

The train ride over was interesting because we were all trying to communicate but we all have German as a second language.  There was a big group of Italians, some Mexicans, a guy and a girl from Czech Republic, a girl from South Korea, a group of French guys, and then me, the American girl.  The French guys were late for everything, and one of them kept being all touchy-feely with us girls (even the teachers.)  The Italians were really nice and friendly, so I think I'm starting to switch my "creepy guy" stereotype over to French guys.

I ended up talking to the girl from South Korea quite a bit, since she was interested in what I thought about Korea and what I learned while I was there.  I said a few things in Korean, but my language skills have gotten pretty rusty since coming here, so we talked in German.  I mostly just remembered the names of foods. :-)  She's living with her family here, so she said we should all go out to the one Korean restaurant in Dresden together.  Yummy Bibimbap!

by the Leipzig Art Museum

We started with a walking tour, which would have been perfect if not for the rainy, cold weather.  Our guide was really nice though, and she even spoke a little slower for us.  Everything is pretty central, so we were able to see a lot in a short amount of time.  It's a good walking city.  We saw a lot of old baroque architecture (rebuilt after the war of course), the art museum, the Thomas Church (where Bach played and composed and is now buried), the bar where Goethe got the inspiration to write "Faust," and the DDR Museum in the old StaSi headquarters.


I liked the StaSi museum best.  Since it was all pretty recent, they have all of the old documents, candid pictures, and machines out for display.  I don't know how they had enough time to create folders with information on every citizen in East Germany, but the amount of paper they went through was incredible.  They also had at least five different machines for opening and resealing envelopes without it being noticeable.  It reminded me a lot of Orwell's "1984."  You think there's no way that one group of people could watch everyone else around them, but then after the fact you realize that they knew a lot more than you thought.  It also kind of reminds me of my old high school Conserve.  Big Brother is Watching You!