Alone Again

Day 154
I woke up early in order to say goodbye to Markus, he once again had that work thing to do. It was sad packing up, I had had such a good time catching up with Markus. I guess that this does get a little lonely sometimes.

It was still early when I made my way to the train station. I was now headed to Berlin! After a touch of confusion at the HBF, I managed to find the bus for my hostel. It was really quite easy to get there. I was glad to see that there were only three other people in the room. I was going to be here for 8 nights and this just meant a better shot a good nights sleep.

The day was overcast and a bit rainy. I decided that I could spend one more day not doing a whole lot. I headed to Potsdamer Platz to see a movie. The Mummy had just come out. It was pretty good, I still have a crush on Brendan Friazer. I think that another one might be coming out too.

After the movie I did some grocery shopping. At the hostel I made myself some dinner. In the hostel bar I met a couple of people and chatted with them for a while before going to sleep.

I Meant To

Day 153
I meant to wake up early enough to visit Wiemar. This didn´t quite happen. I got distracted in the park. It was quite nice and the ducks were fun.

Once I was in the city center I spent some time window shopping. By the time I made it to the train station it was past lunch time and the next train wasn´t for over an hour. I didn´t want to end up there late so I decided to just skip it. I´m sure that I will be back and have another chance to visit.

I was pretty hungry at this point and found a bagel place. They had the Olympics on. At this point I decided that I would really like to be watching it.

On the way back to Markus´s place I got a bit distracted. I wandered into the Thomaskirche where Johan Sebastian Bach once attended. Someone was playing the organ and I sat there for some time just enjoying it.

When I did make It back I couldn´t figure out how to turn on the tv. I ended up watching movies on my ipod for a bit. After Markus got home (and made fun of me for not being able to figure it out) he showed me how to work the tv. We watched the Olympics for a bit before putting on some sort of odd space movie. I can´t remember the name, but it was good.

Very Lazy and Rainy

Day 152
After saying goodbye to Daniela in the morning (Christain had left for work early) I packed up my things. I wasn´t leaving Leipzig, but rather moving to the other Markus´s guest room.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon pretending to work on blog, but really screwing around on You Tube.

Around 4 Markus came to get me. Once again it was fabulous not to have to navigate unfamiliar territory on my own. Markus had a really cute apartment. After cooking dinner, well Markus cooked, I tried not to cut myself while cutting a pepper, we went for a walk around the area.

Nearby there was a canal and an area of revamped factories. We tried to check out some exhibit space, but they were closed. Eventually we ended up in the park at a beer garden drinking radlers.

Back at Markus´s we watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I didn´t really get it. As Markus does this thing during the week, I think it might be called work, but I don´know, we both went to sleep at a normal hour.

Movie and a Museum

Day 151
It was fabulous to be in a quiet place and get a good nights sleep. After breakfast with Daniela, Markus and his godfather. Afterwards we watched Scary Movie 3 and I spent some time with blog.

During the afternoon I headed out to explore the town. Leipzig isn´t a huge place and I had little problems navigating without a map. There was a nice pedestrian area and a whole lot of shopping. Leipzig is a pretty cute place.

After a falafel and pursuing H&M I headed to the Stasi Museum. The Stasi were the secret police of the GDR.

In 1980 there were 2,401 stasi operating in Leipzig. These were all undercover jobs, so they were given false titles and professions as covers. People were often recruited secretly, sometimes recruiting even began when people were still children.

The stasi monitored everything for any activity that could be adverse to the GDR. All packages were inspected, any money from the west was confiscated for the government. Letters were read sporadically. Cassette tapes were also often confiscated. They would then be reused to record phone conversations on tapped lines. Polaroids were taken before apartments were searched for adverse materials. Cameras were made smaller and hidden in all sorts of things. Even children´s school work was monitored. Right before Germany was unified a 14 year old boy wrote a paper complaining about the government. If the wall had not come down when it did he might have never be able to have a career.

If the stasi felt that someone might possibly be planning some sort of adverse activity agents would create some type of personal crisis. This would be meant to distract them from what they might have been planning. Often it wasn´t until after the wall had come down and the stasi files were made public that people would actually know what had happened to them.

When someone was put into a stasi jail they were often not told how long they would be there. Trials were held without them even being present. One woman didn´t find out that her husband had been executed until 3 years after his death.

The stasi produced in innumerable amount of files. Most of these were destroyed right before the GDR fell. Around 10,000 meters of file cabinets were saved and the destroyed bits are currently being pieced back together.

This museum had an absolutely huge amount of information. It was just all in German. I rented an audio guide for what I did find out. I don´t think this had more than 10% of what I could have learned if I spoke German.

When I had finished with the museum I headed back. I had dinner with Markus and Daniela and spent the evening chatting with them. Markus had to leave in the morning and I said goodbye to him before going to sleep. I hope that I will be able to see him again on this trip. If not, Markus is considering college in the US so I am sure I will see him again no matter what.

Back at Work

Day 150

When I was in Dresden I worked at the Deutsches Hyegine museum. I helped to work on the new permanent exhibit. Well, it was new about 4 years ago any way. Six years ago the museum was free on Fridays, my hope was that it would be the same today. It wasn´t, but no big deal.

The new exhibit is about 5 times the size of the old one. I recognized some of the objects from the old exhibit. The transparent woman was there. One of the sections that I had worked on was about how different cultures dealt with death. I had written a few letters to try and get one of the containers that ashes are sent into space in. The museum had one of these. I have no idea of this was because of me or not, but I like to think that it was.

In the room on food there was a cornucopia with animals and all sorts of food coming out of it. When you touched the different objects a screen popped up and told you about which cultures eat and don´t eat the different types of food.

The next room was about sex, these were followed by the room about kids. I wonder if it was on purpose. There were also a few rooms on health and fitness, but these were all in German and I couldn´t really figure out what was going on. The last rooms were on beauty. The whole thing was really very well done and I really enjoyed going back to work.

Across the street from the museum on Fridays was a market. You could get all sorts of things here. What I used to go for, and was looking for today was some sort of yummy Turkish sandwich. I was really surprised that the stand was not only still there, but in the same place. The sandwich was just as good as I remembered to.

After wandering around the Grosse Garten for some time I headed back to the hostel to pick up my stuff. At the train station I made a quick phone call.

Way back in Belfast I met Markus and his dad Christian from Leipzig. We had kept in touch over the last several months and they had invited me to stay with them. Markus picked me up at the train station. This doesn´t happen very often, well, only twice now. It is really nice to not have to navigate a new city on my own with my pack. Back at Markus´s house I caught up with his dad and met his mom Daniela. They had a lot of friends and family over to see Markus off for his year of civil service and they had a barbecue going on.

When I had lived in Dresden I met another Leipziger named Markus. He came over around eight and we headed out on the town. Markus had planned a pub crawl of some of the best places in the city. It was really fabulous to catch up after almost three years of not seeing each other.

After several months on my own now it was really wonderful to be around friends.