Ich bin Leipziger

It is amazing how fast time can travel. It feels like a day, rather than a full week since we returned from Berlin. This past week has been, more than anything else, a time to integrate ourselves fully with our new home city.

This week we really got into the routine of what our weekly schedule would be like. Classes in the morning, with time for homework and exploring in the afternoon. Taking the trams is becoming second nature now, and going to the store so we can actually have food to eat is as fun as it is necessary. 

We were also doing plenty of visits to volunteer locations this week. A portion of our grade in the German culture class is going to be our volunteer hours during the semester. The possibilities from volunteer range from a youth center, to a science museum, to the salvation army, to a community garden, with plenty more. These opportunities give us the opportunity to become more connected with the city, than if we were just students.

Bubble Experiment in Science Museum

On Tuesday, my friend Reuben and I took a trip to Leipzig's city hall, the Neues Rathaus. The Neues Rathaus was constructed between 1899 and 1905 under the motto "A New Castle Arises". It fits this motto perfectly, as it feels like we stepped back in time to a real castle. The exterior structure, inner decorations, and the labyrinth-like design makes the whole building feel ancient and mysterious. After our time in city hall, we went to join our friends at the university library where some of us were able to get library cards. This gave us access to the entire city's library system which includes roughly 15 libraries and more than 5 million books.

Neues Rathaus

Interior or Neues Rathaus

Grand Staircase

A sea of bikes outside of the university library

On Friday we took a group trip to the symphony. We heard Leipzig's orchestra which is the first publicly funded orchestra in the world. There was a guest percussionist that played with the orchestra. He was without a doubt the most impressive percussionist I have ever heard, and he left my ears filled with the sounds of his rhythm after he was done. The applause for him went on for a literal 5 minutes after he finished playing. The auditorium was filled to the brim, as out of the roughly 2,000 seats, I found 8 that were empty.

Orchestra house

On Saturday morning, Reuben and I took the number 1 tram to the end nearest to us outside of the city. Riding at first, we got to see much of the beautiful architecture we are used to seeing inside of the town; however, the further we left the city, the more classic "communist architecture"  we found. Seeing these two styles compete for dominance was an interesting example of the recent past of Germany that seems so incredibly old to us.

This past week was a fantastic one filled with new and old pieces of Leipzig that were all good to see. This upcoming weekend will be our first weekend trip that we will take, and we are all excited for that. Hopefully we will get to see what will impact us the most on this next weekend, to give us a greater understanding of Germany.

German countryside