Toller Tag [great day]

What a great day in Germany. 

After a peaceful morning of sleeping in, I joined Julia and four of her friends for lunch in the cafeteria of the university here in Leipzig. The food was cheap, but the cordon bleu was a hundred times better than what the Food Zoo could whip up. 

Afterwards, we drove about 25 minutes to the town of Lützen, where Julia grew up and where her grandparents still live. We visited with the charming couple in their garden (which is still common here in the east: you have your apartment, and then you have a small plot of land where you have a little one-room house--same thing as "the dacha" for you Russian speakers). It was during this conversation when, for the first time, I could really feel my German's improvement. I still am not talking as much as I should be, but I understood nearly every word of the conversation, which isn't always easy when speaking with 1) East Germans and 2) elders (I could never understand my own grandpa back in the States). It was also amusing to hear that "old people" say the same things everywhere. Julia's Oma [grandma] went on and on about how kids these days have no respect, can't behave themselves on the bus and how furchtbar [horrible] their slang is (specifically, how kids say "Hey, Alter!" all the time, which is the equivalent to "Hey, Dude!"). Then there were the "back in my day" moments. Except with this couple it was all about the DDR [East Germany]. Example: We were discussing the taste of Coke in the US compared to German Coke, and Julia's Opa said something along the lines of: "Well, you should have tasted the Coke they gave us in the DDR--that stuff wasn't Coke." 

We then headed to a nearby town of Dürrenberg to visit a new phenomenon for me: a Kurbad [literally Cure Bath]. Kurbad Bad Dürrenberg is situated on the edge of town and along a river. The park consists of walking paths, playgrounds, benches; also scattered about about are some restaurants/cafes. Then it gets a little stranger. There's a building filled with tropical plants and caged birds from all over the world. Surrounding the entire area was this wall. What it was comprised of I'm still not sure. As much as I tried to figure out what it was, I never got an answer. All I know is that salt water trickles down the walls, making it smell like the ocean. I've included a picture here (I still don't have my cord to upload pictures, so I stole this from Google Image Search--yeah, it's not that green here yet).

                                  

People come to this place to heal after illness, hence the name "cure bath." There were many sick and elderly people who were enjoying the park when we were there. I'm not sure how helpful the park is for healing, but it was beautiful and relaxing. 

On the way home from Dürrenberg, I drank a "Sparkling" Peach Iced Tea, and Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" came on. Yeah, life's pretty good right now.