Leipzig was a very nice city. The train station was enormous, but it's really nice because it has a ton of shops in it that are open on late on Saturday (this is rare in Germany, and can only happen in train stations). We walked around and saw a lot of older buildings: the Opera house, some of the University, an old merchant family's house that was also huge, and the Kaffeebaum. The Kaffee Baum is the oldest coffee shop in the world, with four floors and a small museum. The majority of the group, including me, went back there to get something to drink and it was nice--though the waitress was a bit short with us. Lunch was fantastic, and then we went to the DDR museum (not sure of the actual name, but it deal with the formation of the DDR and the history of the DDR).

Overall the museum was really nice. It seemed sort of small, but they had all sorts of sources and artifacts. I'm pretty sure our tour guide (who did fairly well with English, bless him) said they had over 3,500 pieces in the museum. Naturally, the captions to the sources were in German so I couldn't understand all of it but the tour guide's explanation of the different parts of the exhibit helped a lot. I feel like I learned a lot more about post-WWII East German history than I knew before, for sure.

What stood out most to me was how the exhibit focused on small rebellion/dissent within the DDR from the 1950s all the way up until the Berlin Wall fell. If I could have read the captions, I would have liked to have spent more time looking at that part of the exhibit. The Peace Movement was especially fascinating, and we visited St. Nikolai Church earlier in the day which was the site of large peace protests in Leipzig.

We finished out the planned part of our day with a Motet from the Thomanerchor, the famous boy's choir at St. Thomas Church. Johann Sebastian Bach was a cantor for the Thomanerchor, and many other renowned composers have been cantors there as well (it's a very prestigious job).

Free time was nice, though four hours seemed like a really long time. I had proper ramen for the first time though, and it was very good. All in all, I had a nice time in Leipzig and I look forward to going back there later on for a second visit.

First Day of Classes

Our first day of classes was today, as was part one of applying for our residence permits. My instructor, Anke, is very nice and doesn't seem to mind when we give her blank stares when she speaks to us in German. Funnily enough, she has a piggy bank and we get tallies for the week. 0,10 Euro for being late to class, forgetting homework, and speaking too much English! We get it back at the end of the class, though, but I just thought it was funny.

Also, everyone wears scarves here. They're very popular, it seems. Apparently to mix in, all you need is a scarf--or so Mrs. Bennett says. All the people at the Colleg and Leucorea are very nice, and very helpful. Matt, Casey and I had some problems finding our seminar room this morning, but were able to get some help so that was good.

Everything is very clean here, and the architecture is amazing! I'm sure Leipzig is going to be even better, and we're going to a museum that's all about post-WWII Germany, so that's going to be interesting. I'll put up the Leipzig pictures after we go so you all can see them.

(P.S.: Mom, I'm sure you're reading this. The food is excellent, and no, I've yet to meet any Hostetlers.)

So, it's currently 7:36pm on German time. I'm pretty sure I've been up for longer than 24 hours, probably more like 30, but it was worth it. Wittenberg is a lovely city, and I'll have plenty of pictures for you all soon!

Excellent German Adventures require sleep?

Okay, so, it's officially Wednesday, January 25th. I'm pretty sure I'm so excited I won't be able to sleep tonight--I've already been hyper/jittery for hours. Way to go, self, for not having a normal sleep cycle! I'm sort of nervous about airport security, not so much about actual flying on the plane itself, which seems sort of silly.

So basically this means I'm pretty sure my night will be spent either:
a) laying in bed awake, or
b) laying in bed all ಠ_ಠ self, y u no sleep?

Probably going to be both, to be honest. Great.