Germany - Lovely Leipzig

After settling in with Mila, her two roommates and their two cats, we were already feeling re-energized and relaxed. They were all very welcoming and cheerful to be around. On our first evening, Mila took us on a little guided tour of the city centre, pointing out the major places and buildings and introduced us to the city trams which could take us from her house to the centre. As Mila still had classes throughout the week, Ross and I planned to do some sleeping in in the mornings before getting ourselves to the downtown to meet up with Mila. On our first full day, Mila met up with us around noon and took us to one of Leipzig's main sights the Battle of the Nations Monument which commemorates one of the most significant defeats of Napoleon in 1813. It is the tallest monument in Europe standing at 91 metres tall, and to reach the top we had to climb over 300 stairs. But it was worth it! The full 360 degree views of the city were well worth the climb. After the monument we walked for a bit through a nearby cemetery before heading back to have dinner with Mila's roommates.
Mila had one longer day of classes during the week, so on this day, Ross and I went to the Leipzig Zoo to spend a sunny day with the animals. We both agree that it is the nicest zoo we have ever visited. Wanting to take in more of the history, the next day we opted to visit first the Stasi Museum (which we returned to later in the day with Mila as our translator for a few things - it was free so no worries) and then visited two of the city's famous churches St. Nicholas which is where peaceful protesting began which eventually led to the collapse of the DDR, and the Thomas church which was actually the church where Bach led a choir and performed until his death.
We very much enjoyed visiting Leipzig, it is a very charming city; a good mix of the old and the new. As a side note, on our last night there, we joined Mila and some friends to watch a football match (soccer) in a local pub. Mila's team - from near her home city in the northwest- sadly was defeated by a team from Ukraine, but nevertheless we decided celebrating was in order (we were after all in Germany for the first time) and so we headed to another bar - an interesting gothic one, in which we did not quite fit in - so that Ross could taste his first Absinthe. I abstained from this taste testing, but Ross reports that it tastes something like liquid Vicks cold syrup (a licoricey flavor - yuk!) only with better presentation.