Faust and freedom

I visited another nice church today called St Nicholas which has a beautiful pink and green neo-classical interior filled with columns like the one pictured on the outside of the Church. It played an important role in the collapse of the GDR, the former east Germany. People had been coming to pray for democracy and change for some time but thousands came and prayed for peace in October 1989 despite the church being filled with secret police and party faithful. Tens of thousands of people were also outside the church holding candles despite the presence of troops. The non-violent movement contributed to the fall of the GDR and a member of the GDR said before his death "we had planned for everything but not for candles and prayer". I think that this is rather wonderful.

Leipzig is a nice, flat city which has a long history from about the 10th century and was an important trading and book printing town as well as having a famous university. I visited the old town hall pictured with its weekly market in the square and the new town hall which is built on the site of the original castle. Goethe lived here for a few years and we had dinner last night in the very cellar that is mentioned in Faust. I have to confess that I have not read Faust and this is something that obviously I must remedy. But I was pleased to be eating some kohlrabi, a weird looking root vegetable that I had seen in the market and to my knowledge had never eaten before. It was delicious - I am a fan of root vegetables- and so was the riesling that accompanied it. I am glad to be in the land of the riesling - my favourite sort of white wine.

My German is coming back,albeit in a fairly basic way, and it is good to be able to understand a bit of what is going on. I must look a little bit German as I kept on being stopped to answer surveys yesterday. I think it must be because I am wearing socks and sandals (because it is cold)! Bye for now.