May 12 - Leipzig

That Monday was our 13th wedding anniversary. Gorgeous day in Leipzig, and the first day of my husband's conference there. The plan was that he would attend the conference, I would spend the day walking and shopping around the town, and then we would meet for dinner.

The hotel we stayed at offered a daily breakfast buffet, for 24 Euros per person, which is a ridiculous amount of money for sliced cheese and meat, fruit, bread and soft-boiled eggs. We opted every day for breakfast in the little cafe around the marketplace, and that's what I did that morning.

My plan was also to buy a hair dryer with a European plug..... I had packed my own travel-sized dryer, but the old converter that I had didn't match up with the outlets in the hotel. Easiest thing to do was to just buy a small hair dryer and then I'd have it for further trips across the Atlantic.

When I left the hotel and walked into the center of town, the little cafes were opening, but all the stores and small shops were closed. That day was a religious holiday, and retail businesses were shut tight. But the village was still crowded with people--- they were window-shopping, just like I remember everyone doing along Jamaica Avenue (in Queens) years and years ago, when everything would be closed on Sundays.

So after having tea and apple cake in one of the cafes, and sitting there like a local and watching the world go by, I joined the window-shopping people and saw what each shop had to offer. By the time I was done, I knew which shops I would need to go into the following day to buy both my European hair dryer and a comfortable pair of walking shoes.

Because of the religious holiday, there were some outdoor church services in front of St. Thomas Church, and I sat in the little park near the church and listened to the singing and watched part of the service. There was also one very small shop that was open, and I was able to buy some postcards, so I sat there in the sun near the park and wrote them out.

Dinner that night was with the conference group, at a restaurant/wine celler built in 1497. The Auerbachs Keller presented a delicious dinner buffet, very artfully arranged with meats, fish, vegetables, fruits, cheeses, and the most elegant little desserts I've even seen. Asparagus is one of the main crops in Germany--- thick white asparagus, rather than thin and green, and there were a few spargel dishes on the buffet. I don't care what color it is, I'm not a fan of spargel, but I did have a taste of the white asparagus-- two bites and I'm still convinced that no matter what you call it, and no matter what fancy sauce you put over it, asparagus is still asparagus, even if the Germans do call it spargel.

After dinner, the wine steward of the restaurant gave us a long and dramatic history of the wine celler, beginning in the room where we all had dinner, and ending up in the underground wine celler that was damp and cramped and smelled of ages-old wine.

The Auerbachs Keller was an amazing restaurant, with rich woods on the floors, walls and moldings, painted frescoes on the ceilings, massive decorative wood carvings in every room, sumptuous restrooms, ceiling fixtures carved from tree trunks. It was an amazing experience, and a nice way for all the conference members to get together.