Anissa in the Park

Today we went on a nice bike ride in the Clara Zetkin park; the first time since our bikes arrived earlier this week. The park has many nice features and will be a theme for our stay without a doubt.

Anissa, the kid that didn't want to come the most, is doing pretty good. Here she is in the park.

Just Around the Corner

These photos are from my morning walk with our hund Hector. Yes, Leipzig has some not-so-attracitve areas, but it is continuing to be renovated because the mass-exodus of the 90's is over and money and people are flowing back into town. A new grocery store is under construction just down the street and this make living even easier for us. Anyway, it's possible to walk for long distances and feel like you've turned a page in fairy-tale book when you turn a corner - like the images show here.

Leipziger More Market

The Leipzig Expo Center, or "More Market"as it is locally known, was host to the Games Convention mentioned in the last post. It is absolutely ginormous with four huge halls connected by a center hall which is a multilevel glass arch. We were dog-tired after walking this all day. Note the cool walkway through the water.

Leipzig Games Convention

Today was "Julian Day." We all made the effort to accompany Julian to the Games Convention at the Messe expo center in the north part of Leipzig. It was huge, loud, crowded and overdone. So much hype for the newest video games. But this is the attraction for technologically placated amongst us. Julian had a good time watching some demos and also getting to play some. The more popular games like Gutiar Hero had hours long waits for poeple to get their chance to have a contest on stage in front of the bulging throng of spectators and maybe win a prize. Julinan didn't do this, but he and Sierra said they easily could have beat the contestants we watched. For the rest of the family, the most interesting thing was watching the German youth; particularly those dressed in costume to emulate their favorite game characters.

The Opera Singer

The picture in this post was taken at dusk with my camera phone and was quite blurry. I post-processed it some more to make it painterly. It has nothing to do with today's post.

A Russian opera singer has taken the flat above ours. His wife, a choir director, and daughter and son are coming to Leipzig as soon as their paperwork clears. He practices at home, so things could get musical around here pretty quickly.

He has a 14 year old daughter and a 10 year old son and his wife. So maybe all the kids will hit it off.

Taking Julian to the massive games convention tomorrow at the "Messe" which is an expo center. So I'm sure there will be adventure in that.

Kulture Park Clara Zetkin

Here are a couple of images taken from one of the walkways in the large park adjacent to our neighborhood. One shows the International School from the back of the building and the other is a nice apartment building with a beer garten adjoining it and the park entrance. Maybe we'll post more about the park later today. I saw a huge beach volleyball tournament going on and large soccer and tennis facilities amongst the bike trails and such.

Settling In

The girls, Anissa and Sierra, have their own apartment next to ours (John, Diana and Julian.) So they are somewhat independent and get to keep their own house, make their own meals and generally live like young adults - but with the possibility of unannounced vists from mom, dad and brother at any time. The photos show them settling in in their very own Leipzig flat.