Long trips like this are testing. It’s all about memory. Or rather, the lack of it. The days, then weeks, become a sort of fuzzy blur. The eyes go dim. Overloaded. Too many snap-ables. Concentrate too hard on the readables. The ears hear, but without listening. Is all this information really so necessary?
Multiple combinations of museums, look-alike town market places, plus pretty stylised buildings by the thousand, add to the memory’s confusion. Its semi liquid filing system a disaster. It’s filled with images with no names. Place names that can’t be placed, or pronounced. Bring back the Rotadex it moans.
On many occasion, blushes at the wash-up have been in order, when asked, “Where have you travelled so far on this trip?” (thinks . . .), “Yesterday?” . . . “Erm . . . erm . . let me think now . . . erm . . . pass”
We then speed back and revisit the blog, or Mary-Ann’s journal. These help back home too. A go-to, when our memories don’t tally.
Fortunately, helped with the photo below, I can remember quite distinctly, that it was taken in Grimma. A stop off on route to Leipzig. Our two-nighter at Knaus Camping Auensee.
It’s today already. More by luck than judgement, our heads pop up from the below ground train station. Like a couple of meercats checking if its safe. Find ourselves on the corner of Leipzig’s remarkable market place. We’d jumped on the number 80 just as it was about to leave from outside camp. Number 80? Correct! Direction north? Wrong! By some stroke of luck, its route intersected with a train station leading back into the city.
We have a chalk and cheese day planned. Set off in search of Johann Sebastian Bach’s old haunting grounds. Heads down. Follow the arrows. ‘His’ museum there, gives an opportunity to learn something of the great man. The people he kept in favour with and the times he lived in. His talents were sought incessantly. Composing. Singing. Playing. Repairing. For royalty, the rich and the church. As a consequence he became prolific. A cantata a week his norm – and that was just for starters. His compositions, then and now, have enshrined Leipzig into the world’s music hall of fame.
The museum, is an interesting mix of information, artifacts and interaction. The hanging metal pipes below, each play a different piece when held.
At the time of his appointment as Musical Director, it seems the church and school had firm ideas of what was required from their pupils when attending service.
We leave JSB in our tracks. Hunt out a twentieth century source of punishment. Punish ourselves. But ours has good reason. To learn about bad reason. The files in the STASI museum know all about that. The museum is housed in the Leipzig HQ as was. The offices and decor remain untouched. Everything left in tact. The crazy paranoia that fueled the pursuit of personal information on its citizens is mind boggling.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, their power game is over. At one point they have 600,000 ’employees’ monitoring their fellow citizens. Upwards of 250,000 imprisoned. All post intercepted. Steamed open. Read. Cash removed. (Millions filled the coffers) Resealed. Or filed away. Intercepted music cassettes were used to record millions of telephone conversations before a new technology took over.
Times were changing. Just as the Nazis did, they hurried to destroy the evidence, when the wall fell. There was so much of it. Most in paper format. The pulping machines broke down and couldn’t cope. Fire destroyed more. Fortunately not all. A whole block of offices next door now the official archive. Houses tons of the remaining files.
We wander back into town, in search of iced-coffees. Spot this sign. A near miss. Clearly someone has come up with a brilliant USP – unique selling proposition – the best USPs are usually succinct, just like this one.
Further on we wonder some more. What could the USP have been for these very high heeled boots ?. . .
Wherever we pitch up, from our very first trip in France, to now, we get serenaded. We call this bright chorister Monsieur Dix-Huit. Never seen what he looks like. Until today. Back at base, he jumps down onto our mat. Out of the blue, onto the blue. Sings a short verse or two. As if saying, “Yes, recognise the tune? It’s me! Monsieur Dix-Huit!!” Flies off. A few tempting seeds later he’s back. “Merlin” identifies him as a Chaffinch.