Labor Day Weekend

This one's kind of late, but I've been slacking...

Ben and I took a day trip to Leipzig this past Saturday. It was a long weekend because Monday was a holiday here. (Labor Day) We originally wanted to take a weekend trip to Prague but alas we were a little too late in planning it. Turns out Leipzig was a great choice. It is such a music hub and kind of has a hippie-ish feel~ I was a huge fan. :-D

I am an enthusiastic thrift shopper--thanks to my mother--and I was kind of disappointed when I learned that Germans aren't really into buying second-hand clothing. That's why I was SO EXCITED when I saw this in downtown Leipzig. Ben and I think that it was a clothing exchange (grab clothing and leave clothing). I thought about exchanging my jacket...The only thing that kept me from really looking was the fact that I would have to carry it for the rest of the day. :-/ (plus it was kind of cold and rainy)

I've also been slowly learning more about the German beer drinking culture. Ben rode the train Saturday morning to Leipzig. It's only about an hour by train. The train was pretty full for early Saturday morning. A lot of people must've decided the long weekend was a good time for a trip. Just as we found some empty seats, a train conductor comes by and tells us that we should move to the front of the train because there was going to be about 100 soccer fans boarding soon. I found that amusing (obviously I know nothing about soccer).

Anyway, Ben and I ended up in the first class cabin. It was pretty nice. That is, until five soccer fans made their way into the cabin. There weren't really any seats left and the cabin was pretty small. We were grateful they didn't sit/stand by us, but the gentleman they sat by looked very amused (not). I thought that they were coming back from a game since it was only about 8:30am and they looked like they had already drank quite a bit. Oh no...they were on their way TO the game. Can't say it didn't make me miss being in the U.S. where public drinking is not allowed. We somehow ended up riding with the soccer fans on the train back from Leipzig too. Not sure how that happened. I discovered Saturday that many Germans don't just transport a couple of bottles of beer with them to an event. It's more like this:

This photo is from Google

I'm going to have to work on my beer drinking...