"Völkerschlachtdenkmal" written by Joe on estrip.org

08/14/16 11:55 - ID#60580

Völkerschlachtdenkmal

We rode our bikes through some of the eastern park over to the Voelkerschlactdenkmal, or Monument to the Battle of the Nations. The monument commemorates the defeat of Napolean which happened near Leipzig and was built between 1898-1913.

It's a 300 ft concrete and granite monument, that you can climb up to the very top in. I've never seen anything more impressive, especially built before 1900. The views from the top are incredible. When I was climbing the twisted narrow staircase to the lookout platform, I was almost dizzy.

It's obviously from a terrible time of nationalism, especially leading up to WWI but you have to give the construction props.

A nearby Russian church gaudily covered in gold.

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08/14/16 10:40 - ID#60579

Night out in Leipzig

After our day out riding around Leipzig, we decided to go out. We tried some of the gay bars - once again suprisingly small and empty. One was a sports bar cafe called Cafe Apart, but the second one, Havana was a lot better. We met two guys named Marcus and Mathias (I now believe every man in Germany has one of these two names). They were two music students who lived in Leipzig, and were playing in Bachfest.

We hung out at the one bar for a while, and I really got to practice my German. It's easier when you've had a couple beers.

Later we took our bikes over to another bar called Flower Power. I don't think any bars there have a closing time, but this one was most popular from 4am-12pm. It seemed kind of like the Pink, if people at the pink were crazy enough to stay 8 hours.

When we left it was pouring outside. We said bye to our friends and tried to race an S-Bahn station. I was so tired I couldn't even figure out the right tickets to buy while the trains kept coming. At this point we were just soaked so we kept riding through the rain.

When we got back to the hotel it was something like 7am.

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08/12/16 02:34 - ID#60577

Bernd das Brot

The first night in Leipzig we were relaxing and watching TV. I discovered my new favorite German celebrity after Ladykracher.

His name is Bernd and he is a curmudgenly loaf of bread. Every night on the children's channel Kika, he has a clip that loops from 9pm - 6 am. They almost always involve a disembodied voice with a robot arm, making him do something he hates, in an empty white room. i love Bernd.

The first episode I saw was "Social Media", where he's forced to join a social media site.

My favorite line is when the robot asks him to post something and he says "Wenn ich posten will, werd ich Breiftraeger" (If I wanted to post something, I'd be a postman".

And they say Gemans are humorless.

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08/09/16 12:04 - ID#60572

Tschuss Hamburg, Hallo Leipzig

The next day we left Hamburg. Once again we didn't know where we were going or staying but we decided we'd figure it out on the train east.

Other random things about Hamburg:

Everywhere is very smoky
Every gay bar has a maze inside
It's impossible to find public recycling bins
It's the most diverse city I've seen besides Toronto

We took the ICE between Hamburg and Berlin. 300km/h and the train nerd in me pretty much died. It was amazing. I can't remember exactly but I think we were in an ICE 3.

We considered stopping in Berlin on the way there, but it looked too big when we were coming in. I'm sure it's awesome but maybe another time. When we got out of the train in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, we had 60 seconds to decide, and got in the InterCity train to Leipzig. I'm glad we did.

The country side is covered in windmills and solar panels.

We got into the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in the afternoon. It's huge. It turns out it's the biggest train station in Europe.

Leipzig was an East German city only 26 years ago but it's full tilt capitalism in the train station now. There is a three story mall, and in the front is a KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and a Burger King. You can never escape fast food, depressing.

We didn't have a place to stay so we walked around the altstadt for a while, right across from the train station. Most of the streets are bikes and pedestrians only, and the buildings are awesome. It's a weird mix
of 300+ year old buildings and a few modern DDR buildings.

We walked around forever trying to figure out where to stay. We ended up staying 2.5km away from the center in the Nordic hotel which was really cheap. Not before overeating pierogies at a restaurant called Wodkeria.

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08/08/16 11:56 - ID#60571

Red Light Reeperbahn

After the afternoon at the Miniatur Wunderland we started heading back towards Altona. While we were doing that we walked down the Reeperbahn which is the red light district.

Have you ever hear a promoter outside a five story pink building offer you freshly washed escorts? Because we did. We even could all share for the same price!

The street was commercial in the craziest way. Everything was a sex shop, or a bar or a club. The old-time Hamburger the night before told us this is where tourists and British bachelor parties come to throw up.

I think Terry and had some 11% elephant beers that night but thankfully we didn't throw up. (or enter a brothel)

One of the gay streets between the Hauptbahnhof and St. Pauli, where the Reeperbahn is.

We ended up in a couple gay bars again. I can't remember how but we met a Polish guy named Marcus from Leipzig, his German friend and another girl who joined us at a couple bars. It was a pretty crazy night for a Wednesday.

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08/07/16 02:41 - ID#60568

Miniatur Wunderland

I had seen Miniatur Wunderland in a documentary online before. It's close to the most German thing you can image. A old shipping warehouse on the docks with three stories of model trains and landscapes in amazing detail.

There were different scenes in each area (we saw Mittel Deutschland, Italy, US, Switzerland, Hamburg, Flughafen Hamburg, and Scandinavia).

You could probably spend all day looking at one scene and not find everything. Look in the woods and you'd see two model people doing it. Watch the cars drive around the road for a while and you'll see an accident with smoke, that police cars and and ambulance rush over to. The airport was a full model of the Hamburg airport with the actual flight schedules, and planes that took off, landed and taxiied to the terminal. I've never seen anything like it.

The said sexers

x

I nerded out over the model ICE 3 trains

And here is a floof bahn for (e:robert).

Bro-butt

The american scene was mostly trucks on highways in the desert (they modeled Los Vegas)

Hamburg itself

We spent about 5 hours in the whole museum and didn't even see everything.

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08/07/16 01:34 - ID#60567

Volkspark Altona

Olmsted you ain't got shit.

" >(MAP TO:

)

This volkspark was had more manicured parts then Flensburg, it even had a botanical garden.

It still had miles and miles of paths through forests. You could walk for miles in a forest in the middle of a city, right on an S-Bahn line. I wonder if anyone ever camps in it. And if you look on the map only 10 minutes away in one direction were farms.

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08/07/16 01:21 - ID#60566

Landungsbrucke and Hamburg Rathaus

Some pictures from walking around the Hamburg Landungsbrucke and altstadt. The Landungsbrucke is like canalside times a million with more actual shipping traffic.

We also saw the Hamburg city hall, which was ridiculously big. It looks it was built in the same style as the city hall we saw a month before in Philly. I wonder if they were trying to copy the Hamburg one.

A fountain in the middle of the city hall had this statue of a lady stomping on a dragon.

The city is so capitalistic even the churches have stores and restaurants attached.

After walking around we went to some of the gay bars around the Hauptbahnhof. They were mostly terrible and smoky, but at one we ended up chatting with a old-time Hamburger who gave us some recommendations.

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08/07/16 12:44 - ID#60565

Hamburg Altona

After Flensburg it was back to Hamburg. We took the regional express back, through Tarp (Yvonne's town), and Neumuenster.

On the way there I managed to book another AirBnb there (no we don't plan ahead for anything). It was in a neighborhood called Altona on the west side of Hamburg.

We stayed on this street called Gaußstraße, right across from this crusty punk encampment of trailers.

" >(MAP TO:

)
When we got there, there was a girl with a pack of like 9 dogs following her out of the alley it was in.

(e:paul) was having a small-time meltdown when we got there. I think he was stressed out by big city life after being in Flensburg. So we walked around to get some food, and ended up at this amazing Vietnamese place called Green Papaya.

On the same street (e:paul) got pulled into some film project where he sat in a taxi and answered questions about religion, music and politics. I'm glad I didn't get picked because I wouldn't have been able to answer fast enough.