So it's already spring break here and for the first day, Kali (another CBYX exchange student living in Berlin) and I really wanted to visit another German town. So over the weekend we booked some cheap train tickets, and then yesterday we met up early to travel together to Leipzig, a large and historically significant city located about an hour south of Berlin.
We had both researched the city quite a bit, but as neither of us had remembered to print out a map, our first hour there was mostly spent trying to get our bearings straight and find something on our list of things to see. Eventually we found a tourist center, where they kindly gave us a map and showed us the path of a scenic walk we could take through the city.
On the walk we stopped to see the "Museum in der Runden Ecke" (Museum on the Round Corner), a historical museum located in the former headquarters of the Stasi, the security ministry in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I found it especially interesting because we had just completed a unit in History class about the Stasi, so I had a fair amount of background knowledge, and it was also very fascinating to see all of the spy equipment and artifacts, which until then I had only read about in my textbook.
Throughout the rest of our walk we saw the Alt Rathaus (Old Townhall), Neue Rathaus (New Townhall), Augustusplatz, St. Thomas Church (the burial place of Bach), St. Nicholas Church, the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum (a museum about life in the GDR), and also many cute cobblestone shopping streets. We stopped once to get ice cream, and then decided we wanted to go the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Monument to the Battle of the Nations), a huge (literally...300 feet tall) landmark commemorating Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig in the war of the sixth coalition. According to our map it was located "right outside of" the city center, and even though we knew there were trams going directly there, we decided to save ourselves the cost of the transportation by walking. (Six kilometers later, by which time our feet were rather blistery, we realized our train tickets to Leipzig also included free public transportation in the city for the entire day...). But when we finally arrived and were able to climb up the monument and have such a beautiful view of Leipzig and the surrounding areas, the long walk definitely felt worth it.
By the time we were back in the center of the city it was already evening, so we got dinner at an adorable Italian outdoor cafe in the central marketplace and pondered what to do next. We had already crossed off everything on our "To Do / To See" list, every museum in the vicinity had closed at 6pm, and our feet were aching, so we decided just to see if there was a movie we could go to see. Luckily, the newly released German romantic-comedy film "Traumfrauen" was playing not too far away, so we hopped on a tram to the movie theater.
In order to make it onto our train back to Berlin, we sadly had to leave the theater at 9pm, which meant we didn't get to see the ending of "Traumfrauen" (but that also just makes for a good excuse -- we'll have to get it when it comes out on DVD!!). The trip back to Berlin was much quieter than the trip there - we were both exhausted - yet at the same time excited because all of the spring break fun was just beginning!