Meat For Breakfast – A Lanky Man’s Adventures in Deutschland

I participated in a conference in Leipzig Germany this past week, and prior to going I thought the whole thing was a complete boondoggle, but what did I care, I got to go to Germany for a week! In the end the conference was actually quite worthwhile and I absolutely fell in love with Leipzig. I was working with 15 individuals from around the world (Europe was well covered and China and India as well).

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon from an overnight flight, and my conference began on Wednesday evening. So while I had a day plus free, I was very jetlagged. I didn’t sleep on the plan, so I had to stay up for 36 hours to get my internal clock set straight. There is nothing like being exhausted, in an unknown place, and unable to communicate with anyone!

So I checked into my hotel, my room was on the 25th floor and very nice. When I opened the window to check out the view I was greeted by the sight of two beautiful cooling towers of a nuclear power plant off in the distance – the third I’d seen (two by plane) since arriving in Germany. Later, on a trip to Dresden I noticed the huge number of wind farms as well. I suppose such radical ideas for clean energy work better when you have no cars over 8 feet in length! So that brings me to another energy related observation – air conditioning is not viewed as a right. No one has window air conditioners (really I did not see a single one) and the AC is running nowhere, even places that clearly have it.

After I settled in I walked the streets of Leipzig for a few hours looking at parks, architecture and the people. I started at the train station near my hotel (which was a stunning building) and ended up, where else, at a beir garten. The city center of Leipzig is very small, but dense (the city has a population of 500,000). The streets seem almost empty until you turn down one of the narrow, almost hidden cobblestone streets and a whole world of people opens up before you. These tiny winding streets have shops and services, but mostly cafes and pubs. I sat out on the sidewalk Tuesday night and enjoyed some good German wheat beer and eventually some Weiner schnitzel . In both cases I relied on the recommendation of my waitress, who spoke no English so I don’t really know what I ordered or what she brought me, but I’m pretty sure I heard Weiner schnitzel – but maybe she was just calling me a name.

My plan the next day was to get up early and take the train to Berlin. Sadly I ended up sleeping off my jet lag to the tune of a 12 hour crash! I still had the entire afternoon and early evening. So I hit the streets again, this time taking pictures. Here is a brief breakdown of my pictorial oddities:

- A boy playing in a public fountain naked
- A man sitting on a toilet in the middle of the street

Besides the trivial, I found the beautiful and the friendly. The city was once the home of the supreme court of Germany and the home of J.S. Bach for 30 years. During the reign of the DDR a majority of the buildings were not well taken care of and all new construction was exactly what you would expect from the Eastern Bloc. Howeve, over the last 15 years they have done an amazing job of rebuilding the city and its architecture. This year Germany hosted the FIFA World Cup and Leipzig hosted 4 games (drawing 250,000 people!) so many improvements were put in place in time for the World Cup. I have also included a picture of the church where the Peaceful Revolution began. The revolution ultimately brought the wave of change of East Germany the brought down the wall. Students, in particular would come to the church every day at 2pm to pray and show solidarity for change. Eventually the movement grew to a demonstration of 80,000 people filling the city’s ring route.



Some closing observations on Leipzig:

- The city is amazingly clean (no litter, no cigarette butts, no gum stuck to the sidewalks) but there is graffiti on nearly every building.
- All they eat is pork and beef yet I did not see one cow in all of my travels. Where is it coming from? The also eat veal like its tic tacs.
- Meat, meat, meat. I ordered breakfast delivered one morning and I swear to you it was a veal topped steak. OK, not that bad, but it was all meat and cheese.
- There are lots of punk rock looking kids and people dress in a very unique fashion – by appearances a strong sense of individualism. However no one jaywalks. No one. I was walking home very late one night, the streets are empty and these punk looking kids are standing waiting for the walk signal.

That’s all for now. The next posts will include me drinking a potion in a cellar where Faust was written and then magically levitating on top of an 8 foot wine cask. I’ll also visit the castle of a Nazi sympathizer and see a genuine socialist Eden – and get the t-shirt to prove it! No kidding on all counts, you’ll really want to tune in…..