Thursday, 12.July

Today was our second day in Leipzig! We began the day with an informative bus tour of Leipzig. It was a great way to see the city and bond with the Germans as well as the other Academy students. We saw some great sites on the way to downtown, such as a huge monument commemorating Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig. The bus then took us to downtown Leipzig and gave us a nice overview of the history and the main attractions. We were then able to get off the bus and tour downtown Leipzig on our own. Many students visited the Stasi Museum as well as the Nikolaikirche (Leipzig's biggest church), St.Thomas Church and Bach Museum, Mädlerpassage (a sort of upscale indoor/outdoor shopping mall) and the Panorama Tower. The Panorama Tower was one of my favorites because we were able to go to the top of a high rise building and see breathtaking views of Leipzig. Other than sightseeing and shopping, students began to conduct some research in the city for the research projects. After a fun but tiring day downtown, we will spend the rest of the evening with our host families and get some rest! Tomorrow we will go to Dresden and I'm sure everyone is looking forward to this! - Nicole




Hallo! Today was a fun filled day in the city of Leipzig. We started off at around 8:30 at the school in Markkleeberg and then we head off on a nice, roughly two hour, bus tour of Leipzig.  The tour was very interesting and it took us to all sorts of places in Leipzig such as the zoo, some historic churches, and the city hall, to name a few.  We stepped off the bus at a monument to take some pictures.  The monument was in memory of the battle that took place against Napoleon and Leipzig was one of the first cities to defeat Napoleon.  After the bus tour we went to the Stazi museum where we had a museum employee give us a tour of the back parts.  She showed us many of the files that the Stazi had of the people in Leipzig and it was very interesting to see thousands of file of people who used to live in Leipzig.  After the Stazi museum we went our separate ways, but a big group went to get lunch at Vapiano which is a nice Italian restaurant that served pizza, salad, and pasta.  It was a cafeteria-esk style where we were given a card upon entrance and then we we ordered our food our card was swiped and when we left the restaurant we gave the card to the cashier.  After our fulfilling lunch we split up with our research partners and walked around Leipzig handing out surveys and talking to random German people which was very entertaining.  We did this quite a while, walking through streets, going into malls, and even talking to people eating at little cafes.  After this we met back up with our German partners and walked around for a little and then went home and had some delicious dinner.  Others may have had dinner in Leipzig.  Then after dinner we went back out to Leipzig and walked around during the night life which was equally interesting and entertaining as during the day.  Today was an awesome day where we learned about Leipzig and got to hands on see what life really is like.  I can't wait for tomorrow!

-Ryan