Guided By A Local - Leipzig, Sep. 18

I slept much better last night. The snoring person had left, and I closed all the windows to keep out the street noise. Definitely way more quiet than the previous night! I hadn't realized it before, but there's a bar on the opposite side of the hostel that only seemed to open up at night. That probably explains why people were making so much noise last night!

Yesterday, I was planning on taking the train that left around 11am, but I instead decided to take the train that left at noon just in case I wanted to sleep in a bit longer. This hostel allowed guests to checkout by noon, so which helped me make that decision. I didn't end up really needing the extra time, but it's nice not having to rush in the morning.

I got to the station almost an hour early, but right after the 11am train left. So that left me with an hour to kill. I hadn't had breakfast, so I decided to grab food at the station. The only choices were either a sandwich place or a Burger King. I wasn't really in the mood for a sandwich, and I was curious whether the fast food chains I'm familiar with are any different here. So I popped into the Burger King.

Fortunately for my food anxiety, there were screens to order from that even allowed changing the language to English. And there were very few people around, so I didn't feel like I was holding up anyone. That made me way more confident about actually getting what I wanted! I decided on the bacon cheeseburger meal, since that's usually a favorite of mine.

When the food came, it looked pretty typical: drink, burger, and fries. Interestingly, the drink came with a paper straw, which is much better than single-use plastic straws found all over the US! The fries tasted pretty much like I remember, nothing too different there. However, the burger itself was a bit different. The meat didn't quite taste the same. I'm not sure what it was, it's a pretty subtle difference, but the flavor didn't seem to pop like I'm used to with US burgers. Just felt a bit bland.

The bacon is what really threw me off. I'm used to getting a few long and thin strips that usually have a bit of crunch to them. But this bacon was something else. Each piece was much shorter and wider, and had no crunch whatsoever. In fact they were actually a bit on the chewy side, certainly not what I was expecting. And there was a lot more than just 4 pieces, there were probably a dozen or so. At one point, several pieces got dragged out of the burger when I took a bit, after which the burger became pretty messy with all the sauces.

It definitely wasn't a bad meal by any means, it tasted very close to normal Burger King food. I think it shows that chains like this make the effort to ensure their foods are very similar regardless of where they're located. The biggest difference was definitely the bacon, and it makes me wonder if Germans prefer their bacon done differently.

Anyways, I hopped on the train to Leipzig after finishing my food. The route I selected had a transfer at one station, where the first train ride was about 30 minutes, and the other was about an hour.

This first train was absolutely packed with people. I got in a coach at one end, and people were sitting in the entrance area because it was so full. I walked through a couple coaches, and every seat was taken. I decided to join the people sitting at one of the entrances, because there was no way I'd find a seat anywhere else. It also happened to be a double-decker train, so there were some stairs I could sit on at least.

I hopped off at the transfer station, and quickly realized I was out in the middle of nowhere. This wasn't a big station with stores and everything, this place was dead. I counted a total of about 3 other people waiting for their trains, that was it. There was a road running by that some cars were using, but the station itself was practically empty. I got a pretty spooky vibe from this station.

I looked to see when my next train was coming. 1 hour and 8 minutes. I have to spend an hour at this spooky place out in the boonies with nothing to do!? Agh!

It was a bit cold and lightly raining, and there was no indoor seating from what I could tell. Once I'd figured out which platform my train was coming to, I found a seat that was at least sheltered so I wasn't getting wet. And it was a pretty boring hour of waiting around. I just listened to music on my headphones, not much else I could do really. A couple trains came through, which were the most exciting things that happened during the whole hour. I should have nabbed a picture, but didn't think about it, sorry!

My second train eventually did come on time, and it was nowhere near as packed as the last one, so I found a seat easily. Once I got to the main Leipzig station, I found a tram that had a stop fairly close to my hostel. I tried buying a ticket from the machine on the tram, but it wasn't accepting my card. And I didn't have any coins on me, so I just gave up on buying a ticket. No one tried to check me, so I didn't have any problems. Don't tell anyone!

I got checked into my hostel, which appears a lot like the first hostel I stayed at in Berlin. And I wasn't a huge fan of that one, so I may not enjoy my stay here too much. Unfortunately it was pretty much the only one available, so I'm stuck with it until I leave. The bedroom again feels a bit like a decorated jail cell; there's 3 bunk beds and some lockers, and that's basically it. The bathrooms are shared rather than private, which is another downside for me.

One nice thing about this hostel is there's a back garden area that looks interesting. I've not gone in person yet, but I've photos from the website. And this evening, there was actually a concert going on in the garden. I'm not really one for concerts, especially during a pandemic, but fortunately it ended by 10pm so noise hasn't been an issue.

After I'd stowed my stuff away, I took the tram back to the train station to meet up with Josh. He's a family friend who moved to Leipzig a few years ago, and he offered to show me around a few areas in Leipzig. That also gave me an opportunity to ask him questions that I've accumulated since I've arrived in Germany. It's also valuable to me that he moved from the states, so we've got similar perspectives having come from the same place.

Once we'd met each other, we started heading towards the city center. And we immediately came across a political demonstration group that was marching through the city. We didn't want to get involved, so we managed to make our way around them.

The center of Leipzig is another big pedestrian area like in Dresden, which I really like. There were a lot more people around here than the one in Dresden, which is probably a result of having a larger population, and it's a weekend. Regardless, it definitely felt a bit more lively than Dresden.

More of my attention was focused on talking with Josh than looking around at the city, so I'm going to save my commentary about that for the next post. But in short, I like it more here, the architecture is more of a modern style that appeals to me.

We walked through the Leipzig University campus on our way. It's physically much smaller than the other campuses I've visited, only 2 or 3 buildings from what I can tell. But even without students around, I liked the feel of this campus much more than the previous campuses I've visited.

And I've finally found out why there's no students on the campuses! Schools in Germany don't start until late September or even October! That makes way more sense now, I'm used to schools starting in late August, so that's why I've been so confused.

We took a tram down south of the city and walked back north until we got to the station again. And guess what demonstration group happened to be walking on the same road in the opposite direction. We decided to hop into a supermarket to grab a couple things while the group went by. I didn't think to take a picture until after they'd passed by, so here's one I found online.

That was actually my first time in a supermarket in Germany. It's pretty similar to those in the US, but a lot smaller. Rather than 30 aisles of stuff on shelves, it was less than 10. Another difference I spotted was the lack of self-checkout machines. Most supermarkets in the US have almost completely switched to self-checkout machines, but apparently they're pretty uncommon in Germany. Even more interesting, you do have to pack your own bags after the worker scans your items. You also have to pay for the bags if you don't bring your own, which I think is a great way to incentivize reusing bags!

One we got back to the center of the city, it started raining again, so we hid under a building while we waited for it to die down. We happened to stop right next to a guy selling bratwursts, which I haven't had since I came to Germany. Josh convinced me to get one, since they're a bit different from the US. They've got almost a crunchiness to them on the outside that I've not experienced before, interesting! It also comes in a little bun that only covers the middle of the sausage, which I find a bit strange since you don't get the bread until the end. And it wasn't even good bread, it almost seemed a bit stale. Oh well, the sausage itself was great!

After that, we got some smoothies at the train station, then split ways for the evening. Definitely an interesting day! Josh and I will be exploring a bit more outside the city tomorrow, which I've not had a chance to do in Berlin and Dresden, so that'll be nice to see.