The trip out of Halle again was easy. We hitchhiked together from a gas station close to her place, Kristin to Berlin, me to Leipzig. We both found a car after a short while, and I arrived in Leipzig around 8pm, where my host Uta picked me up at the tram stop.

Uta, Sonja and Marvin are living together in their vegan/vegetarian shared flat in an old building in Leipzig Lindenau, next to Plagwitz. I met all of them, including Mara, Marvin's girlfriend, the evening I arrived, immediately being served some wonderful dinner with "Grünkohl", something we don't eat, not even know, in Austria.

The next day, I joined them going to "Gieszer 16", kind of a cultural & house project in Plagwitz, where we picked up boxes full of clothe donations. Being activists of the Calais Migrant Solidarity, Marvin and Mara are about to go down to Calais in order to document the refugees' situation, and taking those clothes with them.

For more info, check this out:
Calais Migrant Solidarity


Well, this was only the beginning of a wonderful week in Leipzig, the "New Berlin".

More quarter have been checked out then, like popular Südvorstadt and Connewitz. Those are the most lively, student-inhabitated parts of Leipzig. You can find there a lot of restaurants, bars and pubs (which I didn't check out), but also cultural centres and some squats. Most of the lefties' scene is concentrated there, in the South part of Leipzig, and it is considered to be Nazi-free, as right activists do not dare to cross the river to this part of the city...

Those squats and cultural centres also provide the so called VoKü (Volksküche, something like community kitchen). They offer - mostly vegan - food for very low prices. You can find a VoKü somewhere in Leipzig every day. Imagine, a huge plate full of rice, topped with some creamy veggie-coconut sauce, accompanied by a wonderful plate of fresh salad and a cold beer for € 2,70. Or that amazing peanut sauce that came with mixed vegetables and potatoes (€ 1,50). Not to speak of the selve service lasagna & salad place for a free donation. I just loved it!


One of the random things you can find on the streets of Leipzig

Apart from that, Leipzig has a lot of advantages, that make it not only the "New" but also the "Better" Berlin for me. Amongst them the following:

- It's not really touristy
- Its size, which makes it easy to commute by bike only - no need for public transport
- A lot of green areas within the city
- It's cheaper

Did I already mention that I love Leipzig?

It already started on the way, when I got picked up by a driver with a mentally traumatised dog that was going through a Bach flowers therapy.

In Halle/Saale, the biggest highlight was of course meeting Kristin, a girl I've met a few times before at festivals and hitchhiker meetings when travelling the Balcans last summer, as well as back in Berlin last November. So we met at her place for the fourth time, and I even though not going to any far away country, I faced huge cultural differences by being introduced to the so called "Jesus freaks".... divine service in a rock pub, and dinner followed by a Lord's Prayer might not even give you a slight hint of this completely new world I experienced there....

Apart from that, I had a great time with Kristin talking about future travel plans - she wants to go to Mali and Kazakhstan - explore the streets and dumpsters of Halle, cook some awesome food, and visit the only Beatles Museum outside of the UK.


What's wrong?

Sebastian, a.k.a. Wesi, turned out to be that bike lover I expected. Having about seven of them, there was also one for me, and so I went for a looooong bikeride around Dresdner Heide, a forest reserve within the city.

It was wonderful! The path went along a small river, where you couldn't hear anything than the silent noise of the water flowing and some hesitant chirping of the first birds. The light breeze and already kind of warm sunbeams, drawing a nice pattern of shadow onto the old leaves from last fall, were the first signs that spring is on its way.



While there were still like -13 degrees when I left Poland, it even smelled springy when opening the window on my first morning in Dresden, and out there in the forest, only a little bit of snow glittering at the riverbanks reminded you of the winter.



And unreal sceneries sometimes make you feel in some science fiction world....