Kurz nach Leipzig

I spent last weekend in Leipzig, where all the Americans from my program met for a sort of progress report. It was fun to see everyone, though there were a few missing. As usual, the program went all out on our hotel stay and food. Seriously, we are really spoiled. It's going to be difficult to go back to peanut butter sandwiches and quesadillas when I get home.

We visited a couple museums upon arriving on Saturday, one that covered the history of Germany after World War II and another that was about the Stazzi (the East German secret service at the time). The latter was in the former Stazzi headquarters, which got stormed eventually by protestors. All of this was really fascinating. As Americans, we learn all about the war, but not too much about what happened afterwards in Germany. It was sort of unbelievable the crazy human rights violations that occurred and the atmosphere that people lived in. We got to talk with a couple people who lived through it. It wasn't all that long ago.


We went out to an old restaurant that night and met up with a few alumni of the program. The next day, a woman took us on a tour through the city streets. Leipzig has more of the traditional European city center than Berlin, with the old cathedrals and spires. Some of it, however, was rebuilt into cookie cutter shapes after the war.

Lesson learned: Buy train tickets in advance.