Pictures

I just wanted to show you guys a couple of the pictures of buildings typical to the area. These are not the newer renovated buildings (those are in fact gorgeous). I'll work on getting better pictures of the pre-WWII buildings. There is this kind of dinge on these buildings that I honestly can't describe. It honestly looks like some of them had been burned by Hell itself and are still standing to tell the story. (Dramatic, I know, but its tough to explain).

State Communism (Lost time Part III)

Captain's Blog 26102007
Okay so as promised here I am and I really wanted to give State Communism a go for this post. Leipzig, previous to current period was a town built on trade (earlier in furs and durable goods, and later books). During World War two the city was bombarded because of its concentration of printeries (a good way to interrupt the supply of information). After the War this area was a formal part of the Communist GDR. With this background the state took on the massive task of providing housing for everyone, work for everyone, and necessary items for all.

The result was an area where the people worked, but often their place of employment didn't actually need them working there. AFter the GDR fell this caused massive unemployment levels. Also, because the state owned virtually all of the buildings it couldn't realistically maintain all of the buildings (over the course of 40 years). This means that many of the buildings here in 1990 were (and some still are) in complete disrepair. There are still some areas where it is apparent that something was bombed years ago. Compounding this very interesting situation the state was very invasive and aggressive in monitoring and rooting out dissenters. The Stasi was the policing agency that was very involved with "monitoring" those who threatened this system.

Tommorrow I will have pictures of the buildings (right now I don't have the chord that goes from my camera to my computer)

Tell me what you guys think of the subject

Holy Crap: Lost Time (Part II)

Captains Blog 25102007
Okay the Title above is completely correct (HOLY CRAP). After almost a full month of reduced internet connection I'm back and ready to kick some blogosphere ass. So now I'm in Leipzig (pronouned: LIE-p-sig) and since I've been here I've seen some pretty entertaining things and met some quite entertaining people. So that this blog remains readable I'm going to do multiple postings over the next few days. First let me tell you about Leipzig: This city is one of stark contridicitons it is wide and home to about 500,000 and everywhere you look you can see them. This city was part of the GDR (German Democratic Republic or the former Communist East Germany). Because of that you can see evidence from the past everywhere you look. The downtown area of the city is very modern and attractive but just outside there are buildings that are being renewed sitting next to ones that are crumbling to the ground. I live in a very grand old building that was brought to Leipzig as a gift from Stalin my apartment is spacious and I live with a man who has hosted PPPlers (people from my program) for quite a number of years. Well I'm going to conclude this blog and come back tomorrow with some thoughts on state communism tomorrow.

Well the picture that I am choosing to show is of the Volkerschlact Denkmal, which is a memorial of a very large, tragic, and bloody battle of the napoleonic wars in the 19th Century.