Back on the road - Train to leipzig

And so it is, after a wild weekend, the Hugo Boss shirts are in the bag ready for another stint of meetings and conferences, only this time they are joined by the trusty kilt for a bit of fun time in between. This time, I'm heading across from Amsterdam to Leipzig. It will be my first time in formerly east Germany, so I get to clock off another country, and hopefully be a little closer to the interesting traveling in Poland and Bulgaria.

As soon as I hit the road again, the iPod is turned on, and on recommendation of the Space Cadet, I choose Mogwai:



Although Mogwai are scottish, I've never actually listened to them. Music for me has always been about escapism. The further away it is from real life, the easier it is to escape to. This makes me a snob to British music, and even more to scottish music, there's very few british bands that really turn me on. There's the obvious exceptions of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Who, but they are in the past, so again it's far away, just not geographically. Scottish music, while wonderful and all the rest, is even worse. Too close to home I think. Maybe I'd feel the same way about Grunge if I grew up in Seattle. Anyway. For this reason, I've never listened to Mogwai. They were always compared to Pink Floyd, which I heard as British modern band which sound a bit like pink floyd, which then in my head becomes the most Pink Floydy that Oasis could sound - not enough to get me to the record shop.

So I'm grooving along to the subtle tones and colours of Mogwai. I'm amazed how much the project the same mood as sigur ros. The ultimate in martian music which can only be escapism. How can some boys from Glasgow seem so far away.

спасибо

Anyway.....

1st class trains let me plugin the laptop and get some work done, watch some movies and update the blog.

This makes the journey fly by, and eventually, I have my stopover in Minden:



I have no idea where this is, but I learn here, that it's an extremely cold day, and that Minden doesn't have much to offer the traveller spending 45 minutes there.

Chug Chug, and I'm back on an efficient German ICE headed for Leipzig It's getting late now, and my wild weekend, coupled with bad german coffee means that I'm getting to the stage that watching movies is the only thing left that my brain can handle.

Eventually, Leipzig arrives to surround the train. I get off and find that the rumours are true, Leipzig has a very large train station; It's not so mcuh that the triain station is large but more that there is a sprawling shopping centre in the middle of it.

In my first German in god knows how long, I manage to negotiate directions from a Taxi driver as to how to walk to my hotel. Luckily it's just round the corner. By now, I'm listening to one of my travelling playlists. It's quite simple. It starts with the first disc of Mellon Collie and the infinite sadness and continues with the second disc. I really reckon this album could get you through just about anything.

I arrive at the hotel, and the staff are pretty friendly. The give me a map and give me directions to the must see areas of Leipzig. After a quick baggage drop off and a freshen up, I head out to discover Leipzig. First impression is that it's cold and dark, but as I move towards the centre, I can see that theres a sprawling shopping centre which makes its way through lots of little arcades. It's about 8pm now, so everything appears to be shut. The only signs of life are the Gluiwein huts which stand about in the streets. These always have a few people standing around warming their hands, mouths and chests on the sweet sickly alcohol:



I decline. The Hotel receptionist has pointed me to the area for nightlife, but drinking alone's never fun, and my liver could do with a few nights off before I go to Prague. It's a good job I wasn't looking for nightlife, cos there seems to be none of it around. Maybe I'm a little early. The Christmas stalls, huts and decorations are still around from what looks like a very busy Christmas shopping area. I get a few photos of the main attractions before heading back:

Bach:



Bach was musical director at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and wrote many of his great works here. Unfortunatley, it's covered in scaffolding which detracts from it a little, but it's very dark and gothic at night:







I also climb some scaffolding to get a picture of a Goethe statue. He studied at Leipzig Uni:



The building works seem to take over everything, you can't get near most of the attractions. I later find out that it's because the money has come through for the German World cup, so they've started doing work links, rechts und centrum.

Maybe it's because I've lived wild over the weekend. I'm rather unimpressed. Dave Navarro recently said that he's lived such a debauched life, that the only sexually deviant things that could turn him on would have to be clearly illegal and immoral, like hiring a prostitute to kick vagrants while he watches. I'm feeling a little the same in Leipzig(Except toned down a few notches....

....and on that note; Gute Nacht!!!