Back to my Family Roots: Leipzig 7/15/08

Wallet: Day 9
Shorts and T-shirt: Day 2!

We woke up this morning slightly exhausted from the partying the night before. But we managed to head to breakfast before it was over. On our way there the guy working the reception desk asked us if we were checking out today. I told him tomorrow (the 16th) was when we planned to check out. Apparently, when I first booked this hostel I messed up the dates and I was told there were no rooms at the Hostel for us to stay in. The amazing thing was, the guy sprang into action, asking me where we wanted to go next so I told him Leipzig. He immediately pulled out a book and started searching online. He told us to go have breakfast and pack up and by the time we were done he would have something for us. Sure enough, after chowing down on some delicious waffles and nutela, he found us a hostel very close to the train station in Leipzig, called the Sleepy Lion Hostel. We saw that it has received great reviews and the price was great for the two of us so we went with it.

Our original intent was to do Leipzig as a day trip but why not just go for the night? We hopped one of the hourly trains from Berlin to Leipzig and we were off. It was an amazing high speed train, 1st class all the way! There were LCD screens that said the speed the train was travelling and at one point we hit 200KM an hour or 120 MPH. It was an amazingly smooth ride as well. Once we arrived at the station we headed to our hostel using the handy directions the guy at our hostel in Berlin printed out for us. The walk was no more than ten minutes. Once we got to our hostel and walked in the door, we were greated by a total African theme, from the music to the stuffed animals that were all over the place. Sounds tacky but they actually pulled it off pretty well.

We got to our room and dropped our stuff off, we had a total of 8 beds in the room with our own shower and toilet. This place turned out to be a steal! The hostel also rented bikes, so clearly - after our amazing tour in Berlin - we had to rent them. The bikes we got were slightly different from the ones we had ridden the day before. These bikes were from 1940, with hard leather seats and no suspension to speak of. There was only one gear as well. The receptionist explained to us that the bikes were left by the Swiss Army at some point and now they are collectors items. Didn't matter much to us, we had our bikes and we were going to do some touring!

We took a map from the front desk and headed out. We circled the college area and the city square. We stopped in Johanna Park (my grandmother´s name, who was from Leipzig). We sat on a park bench for a while and I talked about the amazing woman my Omi was. I pictured her and my grandfather as kids sitting in the grass laughing. It was a really special moment on this trip.

After riding around for a few more hours we headed back and caught a little sleep before we went out for the night. We met some of roommates when we woke up, there was a girl from California, an Australian lady and a guy from Italy who was visiting Leipzig because he was competing in the Organ competition at St. Thomas Church, we Bach is buried. We wished him luck as he left for his audition at 11PM. Craziness.

We strolled around the area near our hostel and found a cool strip of relaxed bars with seats on the sidewalks. We sat down at few of them and relaxed the night away. Leipzig had a relaxed feel to it from the beginning. It was a relatively early night for us since we were still recovering from the previous night in Berlin, so were back in our room by 1. I am sorry I didn't get a chance to spend more time in Leipzig because we are leaving for Prague in the morning, but I know I will be back here in my lifetime, hopefully with my whole family in tow.

So its off to the Czech Republic tomorrow!