Berlin (Leipzig). July 18

We decided to do another day trip because we were loving the freedom of travelling to towns without our luggage in tow. Today we went to the formerly East German town of Leipzig. It played a big role in East Germany, being one of the major towns used by the Stasi as headquarters for their organisation.

We started by wandering through the town, which was really beautiful, with many old buildings throughout the small town. After exploring a bit, we went in search of lunch, and stopped at a Vietnamese restaurant, getting our fave pal for lunch, Mr Pho. It was delissshhhhhh, accompanied by a Vietnamese iced coffee, we were living the dream. So German, we know. After lunch we headed towards a museum Ash had read about, the Runde Ecke. The museum is named so because it's in a building that is essentially a round corner, and was the former offices for the Stasi in Leipzig. The information in the museum is mostly German but we had English audio guides to accompany us. There were some really interesting things that were used by the Stasi to enable their surveillance of the East German citizens. Things like disguise kits, with the classic fake moustache, wigs and makeup to disguise themselves many times. We also saw bug and wire tapping devices, along with secret cameras they hid in button holes and ties. Another interesting exhibit were the smell jars, were they'd get people they were suspicious of to sit on a chair covered in removable fabric, often for hours, sweating and transferring their odour to the cloth. Then, they'd removed the cloth and put it in a sealable jar, trapping their smell, so they could later use dogs to identify if the suspect was in certain locations. The museum was definitely a highlight for Ash, who was really glad she got to see it after reading about it and study the Stasi and their methods so much.

Runde Ecke

After leaving the Runde Ecke it began to look very stormy, so we wandered back towards the station via St Nicholas Church in the centre of Leipzig. This church became well known as the location of the Monday demonstrations against the East German regime, a peaceful demonstration in attempt to liberate the country and to elect a democratic government. In October 1989 at the Monday demonstration a crowd of a few hundred increased to 70,000 who all united to oppose the regime and chanted the famous chant "Wir sind Das Volk!" (We are the people). In the subsequent weeks the number of protestors increased, which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November that year.

We finally got onto the train and headed back to Berlin, the train was pretty delayed and we only got back at 8.30pm, which by then most supermarkets had closed, so we had to divert to one at a station on our train line, getting the ingredients for chicken tacos. At home Ash cooked the taco feast and we watched some Netflix before heading to bed.

Love A&E