Finding Your Inner Local by Kat Cook

I have survived my first full week in London! And when I say survived I mean barely; my first week has consisted of getting tangled up in maps, lost on the tube, and having to ask for directions countless times. So I assume you are thinking why is she writing a blog about finding your inner local? Within a week of living in London I have started to already become a true Brit and I will help prepare you to become one too!

Don’t be the Loud American

Brits associate Americans as being extremely loud. So my advice is set a tone level for your voice in public. Anyone who knows me knows I have one voice level, LOUD. After day one I learned in a restaurant by the millions of stares that I stood out like a sore thumb. It may seem to you that you are almost whispering while you talk, that is a perfect voice level for an American to make yourself blend in with the locals.

Do ask for directions

It is very easy to get lost in a place you don’t know especially in a foreign country. When you’re lost or unsure about where your going ask a local, it will save you time from wondering around trying to figure it out yourself. Although I do recommend sometimes getting lost, it can take you to some cool places, but if you have a set time of where you need to be or want to go ask for directions. The Brit’s are so friendly and helpful I have yet to meet one that has been bothered by my terrible sense of direction.

Don’t rely on public transportation past midnight

If you will be staying in London longer than a week invest in an oyster card, the London underground is so easy to get around and offers good prices for week passes. Keep in mind the underground network transportation does close at midnight so arrange for a cab back to where you are staying. I recommend pre- booking a cab if you know you will be out late it is cheaper than hailing a cab.

Always order a beer

No matter what time of day in London it is always acceptable to order a beer with your meal. So many restaurants have good deals on beer and meal combinations, especially around lunchtime. While in London I recommend taking advantage of the fact that having a beer no matter what time of day is acceptable.

Do attend the free attractions in London

Take advantage of London’s many wonderful free attractions such as the British Museum and Hyde Park. That is just to name a few, London has multiple parks spread around town some bigger than others but all still offer a nice relaxing break from the tourist events.

Don’t throw any garbage on the ground

Garbage here is referred to as “rubbish” and if caught littering in London is can be up to an 80-pound fine, 25 dollars in the U.S. London is a very clean city but there are limited trashcans around. Just keep all garbage in a purse of pocket until you find the nearest trashcan can to avoid a possible fine.

The Dos and Don’ts of Weekend Travel: How to Make the Most of Every Trip By Lindsey Zimmerman

My decision to go to Italy for my first weekend trip in Europe was made rather spontaneously. On a Thursday afternoon, the four of us who planned on going spent three hours at Starbucks after class reserving hostels and booking flights to Pisa – for the next day. That’s right: we planned a whole weekend getaway to Pisa, Florence and Rome less than 24 hours before we embarked on said getaway.

Sound crazy? Maybe it was. Several occurrences over the course of our weekend in Italy taught us that spontaneity isn’t always the best option. We had a fantastic time and I’ll remember that trip forever, but our journey certainly wasn’t without its rough spots.

Weekend trips can be some of the best moments of your study abroad trip, but it’s important to make the most of them. Here are several things I learned (or that I wish I’d known before I left) that weekend that will definitely come in handy no matter where your travels take you.

1. School comes first. DO read your class schedule and know what’s going on with your group so that you DON’T have to run around like crazy at the last second.

We thought we had everything about our departure from Leipzig down to a science. We would have just enough time after our class on Friday to get to the airport from the university and make our flight. Well…that didn’t exactly work out as we’d planned. When booking our flight, we misread our class schedule and failed to realize that our class wasn’t going to take place in its usual lecture room that morning – instead, we were scheduled to be on a field trip at a site all the way on the other side of the city. To make a long story short, we ended up having only 45 minutes before our plane left to get across town to the airport, get through security and get on the plane.

Our hectic journey started with a cab ride (during which we were going 200 km/hour on the Autobahn at one point) and ended with us literally sprinting through Leipzig-Halle International Airport a la The Amazing Race. We arrived at our gate just in time and were the last people on the plane. We’d made it! – but just barely. If we’d simply paid a bit more attention to the schedule, we wouldn’t have been in such a stressful rush. The moral of this story: always make sure you know what’s going on with your school group before you make travel plans.

2. DO take some time to relax and appreciate where you are.

After landing in Pisa we bought train tickets to Florence, where we’d found a decent-sounding hostel that we’d booked for a couple nights. It had been a long day rushing to the airport, and we had to get up at 4:45 a.m. the next day to catch our 6:40 train to Rome, so all we wanted to do was check into our hostel and get to sleep. That all sounded like a perfect plan…until we were on the bus in Florence en route to our hostel, when we passed an absolutely beautiful plaza overlooking the city. That plaza was Piazzale Michelangelo, and we’d discovered it at the perfect moment – right as the sun was starting to go down. Our bus happened to have a stop right there so we made the snap decision to get off and check out the view – we’d catch another bus the rest of the way to the hostel later.

As we expected, the lookout was relatively crowded with people taking pictures of the gorgeous view, but that wasn’t such a bad thing after all – we ended up chatting with several other Americans, including a woman who’d been on our bus and who was an OU alumna (it really is a small world!). We bought some ice cream and a bottle of wine from a vending truck and stayed out there for about an hour and a half just relaxing and taking it all in. That was exactly what we needed after our stressful afternoon, and suddenly our hectic journey was totally worth it.

Traveling can be stressful, but it’s so important to take some time and drink everything in. Those calm, peaceful moments are what you’ll remember forever.

I’m glad we stopped to check this out – view of Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo

3. DON’T forget weather-appropriate clothing – pajamas included.

We’d checked the weekend forecast for Italy before packing up – it was going to be sunny and in the 70s every day with a little bit of rain, but nothing that seemed like it would ruin our trip. I thought I’d packed well, until I was getting ready for bed our first night at the hostel in Florence and realized I’d forgotten one very crucial thing: warm pajamas. We were at a camping-style hostel (we slept in tents, but there were beds so it’s not like we were sleeping on the ground) and I’d somehow overlooked the fact that we would essentially be sleeping outside. My sleepwear consisted of a camisole and shorts. Throw in the fact that it was colder than we’d expected at night…needless to say, I was freezing. I slept in my jacket both nights we spent at the campsite hostel. When preparing for your trip, be sure to consider where you’ll be staying and pack appropriately.

4. DO try to pack light, but DON’T forget a decent pair of shoes if you know you’ll be doing a lot of walking.

I had every intention of packing light for the three days we’d be spending in Italy and managed to fit everything into a carry-on size suitcase. I even thought, “Hey, to save space, I’ll only take one pair of shoes,” and that one pair of shoes was the same pair that was on my feet when we left Germany on Friday. I didn’t shoes to take up precious space in my suitcase, after all (packing light, remember?!).

This goes more for girls than for guys, but if you’re going to pick only one pair of shoes for a short weekend trip, make sure they’re comfy. I thought the cutesy little strappy sandals I wore would be appropriate for the relatively warm weather, but after walking around Rome for 12 hours in them that Saturday, I felt like my feet were about to fall off. Choose your shoes wisely, ladies.

5. DO try and stay calm in stressful situations

A misprint on the train schedule in Rome meant that our train back to Florence had actually left at 7:35 p.m. (instead of 8:35, which is what we’d thought – imagine how confused we were upon showing up to the station at 7:45 and being told that our train had already left). Not only did we have to wait around until the next train back to Florence at 10 p.m., but the train station employees were the opposite of helpful – one even tried telling us that we would have to pay 50€ for a ticket on said 10 p.m. train. (That ended up being untrue, and we were never able to figure out why she’d said that, but I digress.)

Needless to say, the four of us were a pretty grumpy bunch when we finally got on the train (and knowing that Florence was 3 and a half hours away didn’t help either – we weren’t going to make it back until 1:30 a.m.). But fate works in funny ways…somehow we ended up in a compartment with a bunch of other confused Americans who had ended up in similar situations. We started chatting with them and trying to make light of the situation, which set our minds at ease a little bit. It wasn’t the best situation to be in, but we tried to stay as calm as possible once we’d done everything that we could do.

6. DON’T be afraid to take the typical touristy pictures and do the typical touristy things.

There’s a certain stigma that comes with being a tourist, and some travelers can’t stand the idea of being associated with that. They’ll try to avoid the big tourist traps and do their best to do things as the locals do (“When in Rome…” and all that). But certain sites and landmarks are famous for a reason, and chances are that seeing them is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. On the day we spent in Rome, we hit up almost all the big attractions – the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Vatican, and the Coliseum just to name a few.  And even though every single one of those aforementioned places was bursting at the seams with tourists, I couldn’t be happier that I got to see each of them.

We spent our last night in Italy hanging out in Pisa. The lawn that surrounds the leaning tower is overrun with people “grabbing” it or “kicking” it or “pushing” it or otherwise pretending they’re somehow touching it. So what did we do? We found a great angle and took pictures like that of our own. And they turned out hilarious.

Culture Shock By Megan Gallagher

I always wondered what it would be like to leave the country. I would daydream of the moment I could take off and start my own adventure. When I signed up for the Simonyi program, I anticipated that feeling of experiencing another country, away from what is familiar. Our group had meetings prior to departure, but the reality that I was given this opportunity still hadn’t hit me. I was waiting for it to feel real, but my mind simply couldn’t accept that I would soon be plucked from my little bubble of Ohio University and move abroad for 9 weeks. Being an over-organized planner, I started packing a week early. I hoped that this would help the idea sink in, but still nothing hit me. It wasn’t until the morning of my departure that my stomach started getting butterflies. My dad drove me to the airport and I was at a loss of words. The trip to the airport happened so fast and before I knew it I was waving goodbye and entering security. My 24-hour flight experience was intriguing and exciting. After the first layover I could no longer understand half of the languages being spoken around me and with each take off I felt more and more amazed that I was actually doing this. Arriving in Pecs, it was dark and very late. We explored the apartments and anxiously unpacked our things into what would be our new home for 9 weeks. As I laid down to sleep that night, I forced my eyes closed looking forward to exploring around. Little did I know the culture shock that was soon to come….

8 things no one told me before I went abroad:

#1 – Body Clock

You would think that after 24 hours of travel I would have slept like a baby, but that wasn’t the case. Every hour I found myself checking the time in a confused daze. How was it only 3AM? I felt like I could run a marathon. This sudden understanding that my exhaustion was not going away anytime soon took me over. It was least a week for my body decided to reset and give in to this time change.

#2 – What are you looking at?

Walking around Pecs for the first time I probably looked like an excited child. I was floured by the antique colorful buildings, the cobblestone streets, the city center…. I expected this. I had been waiting for this moment. What I didn’t expect was to be stared at. Everywhere we went, I felt like I was on show. People would break their necks to turn and look at us, point and whisper. I’ve learned to speak more softly and travel less in groups in attempt to fit in.

#3 – That will be 5000 Ft. please!

Hungary is on Forints. Switching my American dollars over to forints at the exchange counter, I felt as if I were being handed monopoly money. I’ve seen Euro’s before, but not forints. These numbers are so big! Walking around in the store, the prices made my jaw drop. 5000 Forints = 22 US dollars. Now that takes some getting used to… But for now, I have my currency calculator! Thank goodness.

#4 – Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

Nothing quenches my thirst like water. Water and ice is the perfect combination. I drink at least 9 glasses of water everyday at home. In America, water is free and convenient. Here, this is not the case. Water costs money everywhere you go. And to top it all off, water is commonly fizzy. To my surprise, bubbles appeared in the water I was drinking and ice is rarely an option. I now know to ask for “still water”, something I completely took for granted.

#5 – Take advantage of set menus

I am always last to decide what I would like to order at a restaurant. In most American restaurants, choices are endless. In Europe, restaurants have “set menus” for lunch. Meaning, you will order one of two choices (a choice of pizza or lasagna) instead of a long menu of options.  Most restaurants have chalkboards or signs outside stating what their set menu is so you can walk down the streets and pick the restaurant based on the set menu.

#6 – Energy conservers

I never realized how much energy I waste at home in America until I came abroad. It is very common at home for people to leave lights and fans on as well as their straightener or blow dryer plugged in when they leave the house. Here, they make it near to impossible to waste energy. Many apartments and hotels have a slot you put your key in by the door when you enter, which powers on all of the electricity in the room. So, when you leave, you must take the key out and leave the room powerless. This means no charging any devices while your gone, considering the plugs are shut off. As different as this is, it is a very smart way to conserve energy!

#7 – The waiter is the king

Back at home, waiters and waitresses are typically starter jobs. Here, being a waiter is a profession. These people take their job very seriously and expect you to show respect to them. They take pride in what they do and to be honest, I’ve never been waited on like this is my life! They definitely deserve the high opinion they are longing for.

#8 – Are we there yet?

After speaking with some of the foreign students, I have recognized they perceive Americans as extremely lazy. I found myself wanting to defend our name, but I cautioned myself looking back on the time we have been abroad. With no cars, we have been walking everywhere. Or, we wait for buses/trains for several minutes. This is second nature to these people. But, not once did we go somewhere without an American complaining “Wait, its 20 minutes away!?” or “Ugh are we there yet?” I realize that the truth is we are lazy and we don’t appreciate our quick transportation. So, next time you get in the car, picture yourself walking there and realize you are blessed!

Pancakes, not panqueques

One of the most important things I took away from my study abroad in Santiago, Chile was an improved set of cooking skills! My host mother was an amazing cook, and I couldn’t help but linger in the kitchen every time she prepared my meals in hopes she’d need an impromptu taste tester.

Most of the food in Chile was pretty similar to that of the U.S., but I definitely would have benefited from doing some research beforehand. For example, bread is an extremely important part of Chilean cuisine. Most Chileans eat bread with breakfast, dinner, and once (tea time) in large portions. Another important staple of Chilean diet is chorizo sausage. It is extremely popular in barbeques for “choripan” which is essentially a sausage on bread.

Before studying abroad, I had vowed against eating pork and didn’t eat much bread. You can imagine my surprise when one or both were present in nearly every meal!

Though I missed food from home sometimes, I tried to remember that part of experiencing a new place includes participating in local customs. You can find out quite a lot about a place through their food.

That being said, it’s important to remember that there are some foods that you simply cannot go without that sometimes are not sold abroad. That food, for me, was Aunt Jemima pancakes. After 3 weeks abroad, I caved and asked my mom to send me some pancake mix and syrup via mail.

The first time I made pancakes in my host mother’s kitchen (yes, her kitchen, not ours or mine) she was very watchful of me to say the least. I think she may have thought I was going to burn the house down! However, after her silent resignation that signaled my first batch looked safe, I offered her some.

She said she didn’t like it. Chileans eat a version of a crepe called panqueques, which, as you may know are much less fluffy and pancake-like than American pancakes.

Not-so-coincidentally, the following week when I made pancakes, my host mother asked me how I made them. I knew I’d gotten her hooked.  That night we made a batch of pancakes together and were able to bond over a documentary on Pope Francis.

After my experience in Mama Angela’s kitchen I’ve learned a few things I think valuable enough to share that may help you savor your eating experience abroad just a little bit more:

1. Don’t be afraid to ask what’s in the dish you’re about to eat: Some people advise against this, but as long as you’re polite, you shouldn’t run into any issues. The only caveat is that you may not want to eat the dish after you know what’s in it. That, on the other hand, could be rude.

2. KNOW HOW TO WORK THE APPLIANCES: You will save yourself and your host family so much grief if you know what you’re doing when you step into the kitchen.

3. Be sure of yourself: If you know what you’re doing, do it. Sometimes I’d hesitate and my host mother would try to rescue me in the kitchen, which can come off as frustrating or overbearing.

4. Lastly, add some of your favorite ingredients to your host mother’s meals to make them more to your liking. For example, my host mother did not like rice and beans together in the same dish. She cooked a rice dish and a bean dish but never together. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE RICE AND BEANS. So, I decided to save some of the rice from a rice dish or beans from a beans dish and combine the two for lunch. As you learn about the dishes from abroad, use it as an opportunity to teach your host family more about American culture. I guarantee you it will be a more fulfilling experience for you and they alike.

The History of an Old Friendship: Mephisto 96.7’s 18th Birthday and its Intersection with German History

An 18th birthday is usually something we want to celebrate among friends, and Mephisto 96.7 is no exception.  Mephisto’s birthday was also a celebration of a cross-national friendship that precedes its own birth. Mephisto 96.7 is a student led radio station at the Univeristy of Leipzig, founded in 1995 with the help of faculty from the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University.  Prior to the founding of this station, Ohio University and Uni-Leipzig had begun building a relationship in 1993, only four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Reunification of East and West Germany. In honor of that, 14 visiting students from Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication, including myself, were invited to celebrate the stations 18^th birthday at the Moritzbastei. The Moritzbastei, by the way, is another historical staple in Uni-Leipzig, it was part of a destroyed city defense wall and it was transformed in the 1970s by several Uni-Leipzig students, including current German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Back to Mephisto 96.7, Ohio University is not only an old friend of this radio station, it is actually one of its founding God-parents. Prior to reunification, the Journalism program at Uni-Leipzig was famous for being a training ground for journalist and media producers in serving the interest of the GDR (East Germany’s socialist regime). After the fall of the Berlin wall, and the reintegration of East Germany into Western Europe, the Journalism and Media program and facilities were dismantled and rebuilt from the ground.  Ohio University’s school of Journalism was one of the main partners in this process. With the assistance from Scripps College faculty like current Scripps School of Journalism Director,  Dr. Robert Stewart, Uni-Leipzig begun thinking about not only rebuilding their academic programs, but in creating a student medium that reflected the new direction they wanted these programs to take.  Mephisto 96.7 was modeled after Ohio University’s own student led radio and television station, WOUB.

According to Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Steinmetz, a Uni-Leipzig faculty member and significant part of the founding of the station, the creation of this station was an initial marker of this long-term friendship, he says “it [Mephisto 96.7] reflected a very early and very fruitful collaboration between OU (the US) and East Germany/Leipzig University. With help from the Foundation “Freedom Forum” (Washington D.C.), OU (in person of Professor Stewart) cooperated very early.” Mephisto 96.7 is unique in the context of German Universities, since most Journalism schools in the country focus on the theory and students get their “hands on” experience by doing a practicum at a media company during their final year in college.  In addition, the continued relationship and ongoing collaboration with Ohio University, allows bobcats visiting the University of Leipzig, to experience cross-cultural collaboration. As Prof. Dr. Steinmetz would put it“… this cooperation was very, very fruitful. And it opened Leipzig teachers and students the eyes for international aspects. And they started traveling and studying abroad, and OU/Athens was first!”

As I enjoyed the music, drinks and atmosphere, I kept thinking about how Mephisto 96.7 emerged from the collaboration between OU and Uni-Leipzig, and the US and a reunified Germany in the broader context. I also thought about being in a club that Angela Merkel, once a student like myself, help create. Pondering on these two historical fun facts, I was reminded on how the past and present, history and our everyday lives, public figures and averages Joes and Janes, are all intertwined with one another and how this connection becomes evident in different and interesting ways at certain points in our experiences.

Fußball Fever: how European soccer and American sports culture are more alike than different by Lindsey Zimmerman

Despite having grown up fifteen minutes away from the Columbus Crew soccer stadium, I’ve never once been to a game. A few of my friends at OU are big soccer fans, but the few minutes here and there of games they stream online that I’ve managed to catch are the extent of my experience with this particular sport. So yesterday evening, when our whole study abroad group hopped on a tram to the Leipzig stadium to go and watch the local fußball (as they call it here) team play, I had no idea what to expect.

One thing that immediately struck me upon entering the stadium was an almost complete lack of corporate sponsorship. Advertisements for only three companies were prominently displayed: Adidas, Audi, and Red Bull (which owns the team and the stadium). Not only were there only a few companies that had purchased ad space in the stadium, but the ads were relegated to the area below the seats that surrounded the field. This stood out to me especially when I thought about sporting events I’ve attended back in the US, where advertisements and sponsorship bombard spectators from every corner.

The game itself ended up being a ton of fun – not only did RB Leipzig defeat visiting Sportfreunde Lotte with a total score of 2-0, but the energy in that stadium was something else. There’s something completely thrilling about being surrounded by 30,000 soccer fans, all dressed up and waving flags and chanting things in German that you can’t understand. It was so easy to feed off of their energy, even for someone like me who has never been to a soccer game before. And unlike many American sporting events I’ve observed, the stadium stayed packed the whole time – there was no mass exodus during halftime or in the last few minutes of the game. The RB Leipzig fans stayed there until the victory was secure, chanting and cheering and waving their flags with a never-ending supply of energy until the very last second of the game.

Sports culture in this part of the world has a lot in common with what I’ve observed back in the States, but there are still a wide variety of differences – the biggest being the fact that other than soccer, there doesn’t seem to be any other professional sports leagues anywhere around here. But that doesn’t mean the Germans don’t put their hearts and souls into rooting for their favorite teams – the fan bases for European soccer teams could possibly rival those of the NFL in the United States. Just this past weekend, when Bayern Munich defeated Dortmund in the Champions League game, the mood here in Germany almost felt like Super Bowl Sunday back home. Bars were packed, stores were virtually empty. And by the end of the evening, I wouldn’t doubt that there wasn’t a soul here who didn’t know the final result of the game.

We – Americans and Germans – certainly seem to go crazy over different sports. To an American, the word “football” is associated with a very specific sport, while to a German, that same word is their English term for the game we know as soccer. American football means hardly anything to them, while soccer to us Americans definitely isn’t as big of a deal as it is here. Still, the culture of sports fandemonium is universal, and people of all different nations root for their team in much the same way. It’s things like this that have made me realize that maybe we aren’t so different after all.

A Strange Threesome: The Convergence of Pfingsten (Pentecost), A classical music festival, and Goth Fest… in one holiday weekend. By Liliana Acevedo Callejas

Leipzig, Germany, is referred to “the crossroads of Europe” because of its historical role as key trade route.  Beyond geography and commerce, Leipzig is also a crossroads of ideas and lifestyles. Throughout its history of almost a thousand years, Leipzig has been not only a commercial but a cultural hob connecting East and West of Europe.  For centuries, Leipzig has housed important figures in the European art scene; Bach directed Leipzig’s own Saint Thomas’ Boys’ Choir, nowadays still renowned in Germany and Internationally, enough for people to pay a significant amount of money to see them perform (Though in Leipzig they perform for free on Fridays and Saturdays at Saint Thomas Church).   Goethe found inspiration drinking at the Auerbachs Keller, a pub he immortalized in his master novel Faust.

When we talk about Leipzig’s staple artists, we cannot forget Leipzig born composer Richard Wagner, whose 200 year anniversary was celebrated this past week (May 17^th- May 24^th). “Wagner Fest” consisted of a series of operas and concerts showcasing Wagner’s array of compositions, most of them performed at the Leipzig Oper Haus (Opera House). The festival brought up a lot of mixed feelings, since “Leipzig’s relationship to Wagner has always been a conflicted, given some of his writings” said Steffi Gretschel from the Leipzig Office of Tourism and Marketing. When it comes to Wagner, Leipzig has always had difficulties reconciling the pride inspired by his artistic legacy with the controversy of his ideas, since he was believed to be highly anti-Semitic.

Speaking of controversy, mixed feelings about Richard Wagner were not the only thing that seemed to clash with “Wagner Fest”.  The other big festival held last weekend was a great example of the diversity of Leipzig’s artistic scene, putting together tradition with subversion in a wonderful collage of costumes and music. From Friday May 17^th until Monday the 20^th,  a black wave of people from all corners of Europe and the world congregated in Leipzig to celebrate “Wave Gothic Treffen” (or “Goth Fest”).  For the entire weekend “Schwartz Leipzig” (Black Leipzig) was a sight full of extravagant costumes, folklore music, and, of course, plenty of black attire. “The black people” (as Leipzig youth calls Goths) could be seen anywhere in town, even at the Opera House, where some of them enjoyed a performance of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.

The main theme of this holiday weekend was religious, and technically its main celebration was Pfingsten (Pentecost), the day when, according to the story from the Bible, the Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s church for the first time. Hence, I was expecting some religious ceremonies to take place in the streets. However, the church, both protestant and catholic, did not seem to be having a lot of activities going on thorough the weekend. Saint Nicholas, one of the main churches in town, even held a retreat outside of Leipzig. I wondered what the reason behind this might have been; coming from a Catholic country, I am used to a lot flash and ceremonial fanfare during religious festivities. A few of the students offered a possible explanation, attributing a lower level of religiosity to East Germany’s period within the communist system. One of the students explained “Here, we are trained to believe that Atheism is the only right thing. Religion is not very important to us or, more like… Atheism is our religion. We believe Atheism is the truth, and religion is, maybe, frowned upon, a little, but more like, it is not important and nobody pays attention to it”. This explanation is an interesting way of looking at the impact that being connected to Eastern Europe, most of it part of the former USSR, has had on Leipzig’s cultural life.

However, even during the communist period, the church had a significant role in Leipzig’s daily life. In fact, the Peaceful Revolution (October to November 1989), which would lead to the end of the communist regime in East Germany, started with people who congregated for Monday night vigils. So I still wondered where were the church and its member during Pfingsten?  This calls for further investigation, it could be a cultural difference issue, after all, flash and fanfare are very common in Latin American and Southern European countries, but not so much in the North and East. Or perhaps the church and its followers were just scared of “the black people”, I must admit some Goth costumes freaked me out as well.