On vacation, day 3 (May 21st)
Room 1, not 222.
The hotel flyer
Breakfast was good. I was apparently the only hotel guest they and they had set up plenty of breakfast for me so I ate as much of it as I could because otherwise I would've inevitably felt sorry for them having put so much effort into everything and me then just having a glass of juice and a half bread. After breakfast it was time for a quick nap and then Tino kindly picked me up and took me to the railway station and I was off to Leipzig.
Jüterbog market square. A perfect location for a Mittelalter-Markt!!
Enough is enough. Also when it comes to sausages and bread.
What I saw from the train window was a lot of fields, and buildings of varying types and conditions (see previous entry so you know what I mean) and also windmills that were used for electricity production. Knowing that Germans are very price-conscious, I was surpised that not every house has solar panels in order to cut the electricity bill but there were some houses with the whole roof decorated with panels :-).
'
Ready to leave Jüterbog behind.
It's pretty easy to see which buildings and constructions are from the DDR-era and which are not...
Note a cool detail - fence poles made of concrete :-D
On German railway stations they seem to have designated areas for smoking.
Layover in Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
Contrasts between the buildings. Again.
Windmills weren't that uncommon at all.
In Leipzig, this photo doesn't give you a realistic picture of how huge the hall where the platforms are located in, really is. But I tried atleast..
The hall at the railway station is so tall that you almost start feeling dizzy.
There were some changes in the train schedules, but I got to Leipzig in less than two hours for just 18 euros which was a really nice price as I was prepared to pay up to 40 euros based on the prices I got from Deutsche Bahn's website last week.
The hotel I'm staying in in Leipzig is very chic, but it wasn't too expensive maybe because I happened to get some really good offer or then just simply because everything is really cheap in Germany :-D. The hotel is tall as hell, 27 floors in total. Again I have to complain about the German hotels not offering free of charge WiFi connection, it's 2010 after all! Other than that, nothing to complain about the hotel, they even play real elevator music in the elevators - something I didn't know really existed :-D.
Hotel Westin Leipzig.
For some reason I was dead tired once I finally got to the hotel, so it was time for around 1,5 hours of sleep. After that I went to search for festival tickets for the WGT which costed 14 euros more at the door (the door price wasn't announced anywhere I think). A note to self: order tickets in advance in the future if you know that you're going. This time I just had forgotten to order a ticket in advance until it was too late in order for the ticket to make it on time to Finland by post. When strolling in downtown Leipzig looking for food and tickets, I met charlottes and later also Juha and Pipsa who are apparently staying at the same hotel as I. Going to be interesting to see if the whole Helsinki alternative scene is in Leipzig this weekend.
A quick observation is that a stereotypical German goth wears goggles with spikes and an Agonoize t-shirt with some stupid obscenities written on the back side (for example "Du Fotze!" ("You cunt!") or "Fick mich!" (Fuck me)). Let's see what kind of other cool things I observe during the next four days the festival lasts...