A Weekend in Leipzig

I meant to write this post on Sunday, but I was too tired and said I'd do it on Monday. On Monday I was also very tired and not too well so I said I'd do it on Tuesday, when I'd stopped making my way through the flat's massive selection of herbal teas. And yesterday I met a friend for coffee and my flatmate invited me to the pub, so that was that. Now it's Wednesday and tomorrow I'm off to Berlin so this needs done. Two awesome cities would make for one excellent but ridiculously long post.

SO. Leipzig. It's half an hour away and full of excellent people who also happen to be working as language assistants. And in the spirit of German Unity that meant a four day weekend, we decided to embark on a mini pub crawl on Leipzig's Kneipemeile, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse. Strangely, we found the street pretty empty, but marched on regardless - this turned into stumbling later on. Two pubs and an unsuccessful attempt to fit seven of us in a photobooth later, we ended up in Flower Power. Thinking it was a club, we were surprised to find it was pretty small and had no dancefloor in sight. But this could not ruin our high spirits and we just continued to drink to music from ye olden days of the 1950s and 60s. We even met another group of Brits which led to free Jager bombs (or at least the German attempt at them) from a very generous lieutenant. Thanks Archie!

 

 Smiley Brits abroad! Jack, me, Sophie, Ruth and Paul. (Jack, here's your photo credit. Doesn't make you a professional but whatever keeps you smiling, pal.)

Friday morning saw headaches all round. When I woke up in Jack's spare room I wasn't entirely sure what was going on at first, just aware that the view from the window didn't belong to Halle. Neither of us had our best moments that morning and I think it would have been easy for me to go home and crawl into bed. But we decided to soldier on, seeking hangover food, and did a little tour of the sights, including the beautiful Nikolaikirche and the MDR Tower with panorama views over the city. Leipzig is lovely, I'm already a big fan. The little shopping passages were especially pretty - I wasn't expecting much, since the Neustadt Passage here in Halle is like something from a dystopia novel, but they were thankfully more like Glasgow's Argyle Arcade. 

Hi Leipzig!

After a lovely but tiring day I headed home for my second plate of pasta of the weekend (student life...) and got an early night because Saturday meant a visit to Leipzig Zoo! I hadn't been to a zoo since a disappointing trip to Edinburgh a good few years ago so I was especially excited for this part of the weekend, and even more so when it turned out to be a gorgeous day for wandering around outdoors! The zoo is massive, but worth every penny of the 14 euro entry fee. Seeing the big cats was my favourite part: I've never seen anything as beautiful in real life as a tiger or a snow leopard, and the big male lion playing with a pizza box like any domestic cat was brilliant. The chimps were also amazing and unbelievably close to us in their behaviour. One orangutan was sitting at the glass at the front of the enclosure, watching the two little girls who were watching him with a somewhat similar expression on his face. 

Beaaauuuutiful!

After a lovely Italian dinner at Vapiano I headed for my train, exhausted from the weekend. Needless to say, Sunday really was a day of rest for me. I feel so lucky to have this awesome group living so near me and I can't wait for more fun with them all!

Tonight I'm heading back to Leipzig for a quick trip to the Lichterfest, an annual event commemorating the Peaceful Revolution, then tomorrow after work I'm catching a train to Berlin for the weekend!!! I'm so excited to visit my favourite city in the world and see two of my favourite girls. Expect a lengthy blog post on my return!