Westminster Trip Days 6 & 7

June 19, 2008 – 21:48 Local Time

Sorry for not posting yesterday! We have been in Leipzig since Tuesday evening, and the internet here is very expensive, so I wanted to limit my time as much as possible. Tuesday morning, however, started with a long bus ride to Naumburg, and passing about 3 million windmills along the way.



Upon arrival in the quaint little village, we made our way down the main commerce street and into St. Wenzels-Kirche (Saint Wenzel’s Church). We were scheduled to perform an “impromptu” (and yet, very planned) concert there at noon. Considering the bad traffic we experienced getting out of Dresden, our warm-up time was cut quite short. However, the concert went fairly well, though it was the weakest of our performances thus far. (Considering that, by the time I’m writing this, the Bach is the only concert remaining, I hope that Naumburg stays the weakest!) At two different points along the concert, the organist for the church played the Bach-tested organ in the sanctuary. She was truly a talented artist, but did not seem like the kind of person with whom you could have a friendly conversation – very stereotypical German, haha.





After the concert, we broke off onto our own for something like two hours for lunch, shopping and the like. Nathan, Thomas,Daniel and I wandered around looking for an ATM (smaller villages in Germany do NOT take plastic, by the way – anywhere) We finally found one which accepted my check card, but not Nathan’s. Since he and I have been loaning back and forth on the trip, this proved no issue. We spent a rather long amount of time finding somewhere to eat, finally deciding on a pizza parlor running a special on 30cm pizzas for 4,-€ (That’s basically a 13” pizza for $7.00, roughly) which we thought was a pretty good deal. It turns out that the proprietors basically spoke no English, so it was Andy to the rescue (aided by his German-learning side-kick Nathan). No worries – we were fed! Let me tell you, 30cm of pizza is way more than anyone needs in the middle of a hot afternoon. Except Daniel – he was able to down his, and eat the slice of Thomas’ that was left. Wow…



Following all of this was boarding the buses, travelling to Leipzig, and hustling into the Peterskirche (St. Peter’s Church) for a pre-concert warm-up/rehearsal. This church was in a really bad state of repair. It was, along with a great deal of Leipzig, destroyed in WWII, and it has taken 60 years (most of which was under the DDR) to rebuild it. You can see in one of the pictures that the stained glass is just panes of grey glass where is it not yet finished. Plus, there are no pews, just folding chairs. The church is nowhere near its old stature and beauty, but there is something elegant, something perseverant, about it. With a few minor exceptions, the concert here went well. The biggest complication was the spatial organization. Instead of having our normal four rows, we had to adapt to five, the fifth of which being a row of basses (and one tenor) up on a bench. Also, due to the rest of us being on a flat floor, we had to rearrange a lot of people, so the hearing aspect was completely different than usual. All those factors aside, we still sang pretty well.









The evening was ours to do with what we pleased. Nathan and I decided to check out the big mall across the road from our hotel. It is a fascinating place with the mall proper being on the bottom two floors and the main train station of Leipzig on the upper level, with several fast food/snack places up there as well. While there, I found a watch that I absolutely fell in-love with. It has a binary system readout!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes! I let it go for a while, but finally decided (with financial assistance from my mom and grandfather – MANY THANKS!!!) that I couldn’t live without it, so I went back and purchased it. It’s everything I had hoped for, and more! (Ok, so it’s the nerdiest thing I own, but I really like it!) We also bought a bottle of Bach wine while we were there, because we liked the fact that the best composer ever was on a bottle!





We finally tired out and went back to the hotel lobby. We sat with some of the youth for a while, and then moved over to talk with Shreyas. I mentioned the wine, and he decided that we should all go upstairs and drink it. The bottle was gone rather quickly, and Nathan and I decided that we should probably eat something, so we walked back over to the train station for the ever-popular McDonalds. Before we left, we thought that Omen knew we wanted to go to the dance club with him and the others, but apparently not. When we returned, they were already gone. Oh well, Nathan, Shreyas and I had a great time just hanging out, talking and drinking in the hotel. We probably drank more than we should have, but didn’t worry about it too much knowing that there were two days without concerts to follow. About 3am, we all decided that we were once again hungry, so the three of us made our way back to the to the train station for some more McDs, haha! We all finally decided to call it quits around 4am, and went to bed.



7:30am never seemed so hideous! Hungover and exhausted, we dragged ourselves out of bed, showered, and made it downstairs in time to grab a soda (yet again, at the train station), and get on the bus for the morning’s tour. Our tour guide was a lovely woman who didn’t bore in the least! She and the driver took us all around Leipzig, showing us the good and the bad. The Communist times were very hard on all of Saxony, specifically on Leipzig, a town founded on the principles of free trade. Even nineteen years later, they still haven’t been able to recover the glory of pre-war days. During the tour, we were given maps, but the streets here are a veritable labyrinth, so I couldn’t keep track of where we were.









The main three points of the tour were the monument memorializing the Battle of Nations (the largest monument in Europe), the Nicolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church) and the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church). The monument appeared to me as if it were from a Mayan city. I was impressed by it, but haven’t figured out how one is to avoid thinking of sacrificing virgins at the top of it. A shocking and horrifying quote stands on a pillar there, and I find it worthy of including,

,Die Stimme des Blutes deines Bruders schreit zu mir von der Erde.’
“The voice of the blood of your brothers calls to me from the earth.”

Striking, eh?





The tour of the Nicolaikirche was exciting, but I was already gnawing at the bit to get to the Thomaskirche so badly that I wasn’t able to pay much attention. However, I did get a few good pictures! We also heard a brief portion of the rehearsal for this evening’s Leipzig Bach Festival concert, which was a lot of fun. The final stop on the tour, however, was essentially Mecca for me. This was the Thomaskirche – Bach’s home church. I’ve wanted to come here for so long, and finally stepping up to this beautiful building, seeing the statue of Bach outside, and going in and seeing the organ that he played was an unforgettable experience. However, there was an even bigger surprise – one for which I was in no way prepared. I didn’t know that his body had been exhumed at some point and brought to the church. His remains now lie in the middle of the choir stalls!! (Of course, this was probably done years ago, and I have just been clueless, but it was still a nice surprise!) I didn’t think we would get to see his grave while here, but I was wrong!











After touring “Mecca” we were on our own until dinner time – 6.5 hours later. This is what we’ve all been longing for – an extended period of time during the day to explore Germany on our own! Five of us (Nicole, Becky, Omen, Nathan and I) walked around the city for about five of those hours. We would stop here to have a Bratwurst, or there for gelato, but mostly we just walked and shopped. It was fantastic, and having this experience with such a great group of people will definitely afford it a spot as one of my favorite moments of the trip. Just before coming back to the hotel, Nathan decided that he did, in fact, want the watch he had seen while I was purchasing the day before, so we went back and he bought it. It’s not a binary, haha, but it’s a truly lovely Skagen watch. Next was a 6pm dinner, followed by a bit more shopping. Afterward, we just came back to the hotel room and crashed. We didn’t sleep much last night, and walked a huge amount today, so we’re both exhausted. As a matter of fact, Nathan is snoring right now! I think I’m going to call it quits for tonight myself, purchase 30 minutes of internet, post this, check email, and go to bed!









Tomorrow, we travel to Wittenberg (Martin Luther’s home), and then on to Magdeburg. All sight-seeing and driving the whole day, and hopefully some workable internet in the new hotel! Thanks for reading! ~AJR