Leipzig is a little town south of Berlin that is full of hidden treasures like my favorite beer, the only reason I ended up here (I’ll get to the beer traveling posts eventually). I started the day with a Polish family and a German friend by using BlaBlaCar from Berlin to Leipzig, met a friend as soon as I got into the city that I was supposed to couchsurf with, then was faced with A LOT of alone time being lost. So much time, that I started being upset with myself for having the bright idea of backpacking Europe by myself for 2 months.
Although I’ve been traveling alone for nearly a month now, I’ve had friends in all the places I’ve been up until this point. Sure, they were people I met for the first time, but with that one friend came a whole group of friends. There were two occasions during Roskilde festival that a teenage boy asked me, “Why are you alone?” that made me actually think about being alone, but then I knew my friends were around just not with me that very second. Here in Leipzig, I am alone.
On the car ride there, I brought up Into the Wild when discussing hitchhiking. I told him that when that movie ended I was upset that as a woman, I could never do that. He asked if that’s what I took from the movie because he saw that the whole point of it was what Chris McCandless wrote at the very end- Happiness only real when shared.
I agreed. It’s a thought that runs through my head very often. It’s the very reason I was arguing with myself for deciding to backpack Europe for the summer, alone. By the end of the night I felt so desperate for friends that I almost asked strangers on the street on my way to the brewery, if they wanted to join me for dinner and beer. But the truth is, it’s not so bad being alone.
I think yesterday the combo of being lost for hours combined with no wifi and therefore no access to friends got the best of me. I walked for such a long time that I managed to come up with a few song ideas and write and it’s because I have all this time to myself. Things I haven’t been doing much of since I’ve had the company of friends. There’s always pros and cons.
Leipzig itself is a charming old city. In the few hours I did have a friend, I was shown the coolest things: panoramic view of the city, a bar within old city walls that college students dug up, the Spoon family- the last neon sign left in the city from the factory days of East Germany, and what used to be the only train station to get to Bavaria that is now a brewery to my favorite beer style (Gose).
I spent today relaxing after spending the last 3 days walking for hours and hours. The highlight of my day has to be the sweet, juicy, finger-staining strawberries I got for just 1 euro which is about $1.11. I also finally got some currywurst! And I saw a man levitate? Still trying to figure out that sorcery. Just got to Prague. I’ve got to live that rock star life of being in a different city every night since I extended my stay in Scandinavia.
jante ziarra 
Gorgeous cathedral! Love your photos.