Tuesday Night - April 14

We walked and walked and walked some more after arriving at our hotel and unloading. A woman named Ena handed us our key, and it unlocked a door through a stone hallway,into a courtyard and four stories up. There are three bedrooms and one bathroom and large windows all about. Nicole and I are in a room together, as you might have guessed. And my bed is big enough for about three of me. I am going to make a very purposeful effort to roll around obnoxiously and take advantage of it.

After some coffee and realizing that we must look very obviously American, we decided to get to know Leipzig a bit. We walked to an old church that Bach and Mendolsson conducted in for several years. It was huge! Stone gothic looking structure with dungeon-type doors and gargoyles all around. We played our tourist cards and took pictures everywhere. By this point, it was nearly 6pm and we were starved. We settled on outdoor seating in a cafe near our rooms that very suddenly became packed as a futbol (or soccer) game kicked off. Through this time I learned a lot about Leipsig culture:

1) I am probably, currently, the only black person here. Everyone is staring at us in general, but I think my melanin heavy nature might have something to do with it. I haven't seen another person that wasn't white the whole time we've been here. Which, i suppose in the big scheme of things, hasn't been a long time and we haven't walked through a large area, but still! Also, my hair is crazy. I think I would stare at my hair if I weren't me as well. I'm not uncomfortable really, though this is Germany after all, but it's just something I think about. You can't drive through this country and escape from the history. It's all around. In castles, in stone buildings, in the mere existence of highways. While walking down cobble stone streets, we incessantly remembered that the 40s were not so long ago...

2) Wveryone rides bikes. All over! And they have these contraptions that seem to channel power from their peddling to illuminate rear reflector lights. way cool.

3) Dinner moves much slower. Granted, the cafe seemed to be understaffed and over-crowded perhaps due to the football game, but goodness, it took forever for us to just get the water we ordered. And it's probably a good thing I didn't have a watch between the times our drinks arrived and when our food actually came. It felt like forever. But i think it's good. I've always had this idea about European dinners, in that they moved slower. I assumed that people actually intentionally took the time to just sit and be with each other. To live life together, enjoy each other's company and connect with what's going on in the lives of the people around them. We completely take this opportunity for advantage in the US, and are slaves to our bussied lives, while we pencil our friends in to our schedule. I dont like that at all. So, the slowness was fine for me. If we can't learn to pass the time now, we're gonna be in trouble down the road when we've seen each others faces and heard each other's voices for 25 days plus. I really do feel lucky to travel with such great people. I'm not sure i'd want to tour in many other ways.

Despues dinner (yeah, I know that's not German, but I feel more intelligent around such multi-langual people if I can speak some other language), Nicole and Travis tried out the instruments they rented. Everything seems great so far, besides the fact that Travis' end pin won't come out. We'll work on that tomorrow. We went downstairs for a drink at the bar just below us, and hung out with the woman who greeted us today. She's cool, an artist it seems. She sat with us and soldiered through our questions about europe and the german language. Very nice. Never before have I felt so satisfied and relaxed from just one drink. I think I was a little on edge before, but this was good. Anyway, it's 12:49am and time for bed. Free breakfast in the morn!

-aisha