Erfurt

So I spent the last four days away from Dresden.
Here's how the action unfolded:

Thursday
We had the day off work, and didn't want to waste a morning spent in Dresden when we could be somewhere else. But we didn't want to get to Erfurt early because we'd have plenty of time there later. Camilla and I chose to spend the morning in Leipzig. We arrived by train in the morning and looked at a museum housed in the old headquarters of the Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, and did the walking tour recommended by Lonely Planet. It took us through a couple of amazing churches, one of which was once the workplace of J. S. Bach, some market places, and the "Street of the Stars" - kind of like a walk of fame - it's got these cubes on either side you can see into and they have plaster casts of the hands of various celebrities, including Michael Schuhmacher, John Bon Jovi and Mariah Carey. After lunch we went up a really tall building to a viewing platform and saw cool views of the city, then got the train.

We arrived in Erfurt and dropped our bags at our youth hostel then met with some others in the city - I should explain the reason we're in Erfurt is that all the Lattitude (GAP) volunteers from Australia, New Zealand and the UK that are in Germany right now had to come to this four day meet-up in Erfurt to be able to meet each other and talk about our experiences with two representatives from Lattitude, Seonaid and Borghild. We met them back at the hostel with the rest of us and ate dinner that night at a restaurant on a hill. Es hat gut geschmeckt.

In total there were 12 gappers - four boys and eight girls. Five of them, including Erin, came from Melbourne. Hobart and Sydney had two people each - Elliot Steele was there with me of course. Then there was one girl from Adelaide, Camilla from New Zealand and a girl from Scotland.

We went out to a club Thursday night and a funny thing happened - because of the size of the place, I wasn't able to spot any of the others when I looked for them all at one stage and was convinced some people had left without me. I walked back to the youth hostel - which was quite a distance, to find the front door locked, and once I had woken someone up to let me in, the door to the boys' room was locked too. Turned out nobody had left, and the key to my room was in the club with one of the others still. I had to wait for the next two hours in the foyer of the hostel - not at all fun. I slept for about half an hour of that, on the floor. When they came back I couldn't be annoyed at anyone but myself. Oh well. We got about 3 hours sleep that night.

Friday
We did a walking tour of Erfurt with two of Borghild's local friends leading the way. Erfurt is the capital city of the central state of Thuringia and has about the same population as Hobart! We saw some cool sights including the only bridge in Europe with people living in houses on it, Martin Luther's statue and a massive fortress with high walls and great views. In the afternoon, Elliot and I had a jam on two guitars in a music store and rode the tram back to the hostel... not exactly legally... then we played a bit of poker, and for dinner we ordered some massive pizzas to be delivered to the place. Only a few of us felt like going out - I didn't, and got nearly a full night's sleep.

Saturday
Our last compulsory thing was to have a bit of a conference in the morning and talk generally about our experiences or problems we'd had with placements so far. After that we said goodbye to Borghild and Seonaid and had the rest of the day for free time. Most of us decided to do a day trip to Weimar, a town just east of Erfurt which is quite nice, historically important and such. We looked around the streets a bit and then sat in the famous "Park an der Ilm" beside the river and finished by having a drink outside in a cafe. In the evening we all went to the same club, after drinking many pre-drinks that were bought at supermarkets to save money. I talked to a few new people as well as dancing with the others, and didn't get home til about 5 and wasn't able to sleep until more like 6 because we had girls in our room being annoying. Oh well.

Sunday
After a full two hours of sleep, some breakfast and finishing packing our stuff, we checked out of the hostel and made our way to the city. At various stages, members of the group would leave us to get their various trains back to their placements. We sat in the square outside the station, had hot chocolates, went shopping for a bit then the last people apart from Camilla and I left. We had time at an internet cafe, got food and went to the city park near the station, before heading to the end of a tram line to meet someone I'd found on mitfahrgelegenheit.de - that's a German website for organised hitch-hiking - people register on there and say they're driving their car someplace and for a share of the petrol cost you can go with them - cheaper than a train, and it turned out to be an hour less travel time as well. Before we knew it, we were back in Dresden after my longest trip out of the city so far - it's always a let-down coming back to work on Monday but I'll manage the next four days before Easter and a trip away to Poland.

Until then,
Patrick Neasey the first