One constant between Berlin and Leipzig that made an everyday impact on our lives were the overwhelming amounts of bakeries throughout both cities. Every morning begins with a trip to the bakery for almost everyone in our group. This brought up the question for us: why are German bakeries so popular?

According to CNN Travel, “Germany doesn’t have the same amount of sunshine as southern France or Italy, and many areas are not conducive to wheat production, so grains such as rye and spelt tended to thrive better here and produced breads still consumed today. The wheat-based breads remained in the southern cities like Munich and Stuttgart.” Along with this, bread is a very substantial food item. Throughout history, German citizens from farmers to dukes relied on sourdough bread for sustenance. The practicality of bread as food mixed with Germany’s exact location make for a country with an intense love of bread.

            In Germany, bread is seen as an everyday staple. Bakeries are staffed with skilled bakers so that they are able to meet the high standards that are expected of them. Chains, like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, are not what most Germans visit everyday for their baked goods. Instead, they visit local bakeries that tend to be right down the street from their home or place of work. In these bakeries, one can find up to 3200 officially recognized types of bread-although this probably isn’t physically possible as bakeries tend to be small- and a Konditorei that serves cakes and pastries. The Konditorei is important for something known as “Kaffee and Kuchen.” In the afternoon, many Germans will take a break from their day and have a cup of coffee and a slice of cake to relax. It’s similar to British Tea, but better. Bread is an important part of everyday life in Germany and it is taken very seriously.  Because of this, we wake up every day excited to have breakfast because we know that it will always be a great experience to visit our local bakery.

Katy Troha and Elizabeth Messenger

On our day trip to Dresden, a couple of us went to the Semperoper in the square. The opera house was originally built in 1841, but was reconstructed twice after it was destroyed by a fire in 1869, then again after the second World War. After it was bombed in 1945, the reconstruction took 40 years to complete. The building is best known for hosting premieres of works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.

We chose to do a guided tour of the opera house, as that was the only way for us to see the inside. When we were on our tour, I was surprised by how artificial everything was. The marble on the inside of the lobby wasn’t marble at all, but plaster painted and polished to look like marble. It wasn’t just the marble that was artificial. The wooden siding just outside of the house was fake, as well. Like the marble, it was just plaster painted with grain lines in order to look like wood.

Once we were inside the house, the most unique thing to me was the clock situated at the top of the proscenium. According to the tour, the clock was originally installed to keep people from letting their pocket watches ring. The clock is especially interesting, because the minutes only change every five minutes. This is because there are only twelve faces on each side of the clock. Another interesting thing about it is how the hours are written in Roman numerals, but the minutes are written in Arabic numerals.

Overall, I found the Semperoper to be very beautiful and interesting. Theatre is my favorite art form, and I wish the tour included more aspects of the theatre’s history than just the front of house and house architecture. While the building was very pretty, I would have liked to have had more information on the theatrical aspects. I also wish the tour had gone to the backstage areas of the theatre, as those parts of theaters tend to have more interesting aspects.

Katy Troha

On Friday, we visited the St. Alexis Memorial Church of the Russian Honor, located in central Leipzig, just a train stop away from Augustusplatz. The church’s golden tent roof caught our attention a few days earlier, and we knew we had to visit.

Designed by Vladimir Pokrovski, The Russian Memorial Church was opened in 1913, just before the start of the First World War. This church was built as a memorial to the fallen Russian soldiers in the Battle of Nations. The authorities of the city of Leipzig designated 2.5 hectares (25,000 square meters) at the edge of the battlefield for the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and his committee to build the church/memorial. After ten months of building, it was consecrated just one day before the Volkershlachtdenkmal on October 17, 1913. The church is a replica of a church in Moscow, the Kolomenskoye. The architectural style was based on the style prominent in the Novgorod Republic. During World War 1, when Russia fought on the opposite side of Germany, the entrance of the church was walled and then the building was rented out to inhabitants of Leipzig; the building was also vandalized.

The church was very beautiful, albeit difficult to appreciate. There was a lot of writing commemorating the Battle of Nations, but it was all in Russian so it was impossible for us to understand. When we entered the church, we were struck by how small it was. The walls were very ornate, with a lot of icons of apostles and saints, gold, silver, the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, and adult Jesus. There were no pews, only an altar. It was also completely roped off, except for a small viewing area and a merchandise counter. No photos were allowed, and a recording of a boys’ choir played in the background. The church is clearly not meant to be functional, which was very disappointing.

Overall, we found the church to be quite beautiful to look at, but I didn’t see much point in it existing. It didn’t seem to be a church at all, but rather a memorial parading as a church. It doesn’t seem that the church holds services, but only exists for the people’s gaze.

Katy Troha and Madeline Knight

On our last day in Berlin, a small group of us took a trip to the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of the city. Completed in 1791, the Brandenburg Gate was commissioned by Frederick William II after the (temporarily) successful restoration of order during the early Batavian Revolution. It was one of the 18 gates within the Berlin Customs Wall, which was a ring wall around Berlin between 1737 and 1860 that was used for levying of taxes on imports and exports. It is the only one of the previous 18 Berlin gates that has survived until today. On top of the gate, there is a quadriga (a chariot drawn by four horses) with Victoria, the goddess of victory, riding in the chariot. Though today thousands of people walk through it daily, it wasn’t until 1918 when the Kaiser resigned after World War I that just anyone could pass through the middle. Until 1918, only the members of the royal or imperial family, the “Hohenzollern” were allowed to use the middle passageway.

The monument has a very rich political history, having been used to celebrate battles as well as be a symbol for many different things throughout its years. After defeating the Prussians at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, Napoleon was the first to use the Gate for a triumphal procession. Since then there have been events ranging from when the Nazis celebrated the Machtergreifung (the seizure of power) with a torchlight procession of the SA (a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP) through the Gate on January 30, 1933, to the reunification of Germany ceremony which took place at the Gate on October 3, 1990, to Barack Obama speaking at the Gate about nuclear arms reduction in 2013. As a symbol, it was originally meant to be a show of power by Frederick William II. Since then, during the Cold War, it stood at the border between East and West Berlin, and therefore stood as a symbol of division and tension. Today, it stands as a symbol of a reunified Germany, as well as for European unity and peace.

On the day we saw the Gate, a political protest was taking place just behind it. There was a large demonstration from the Fridays For Future organization, which is an organization made up mostly of students, fighting for climate change and demanding action to ensure a better environmental future. They chose the location of the Brandenburg Gate likely due to the amount of foot traffic there is by it. I think it would also not be too much of a reach to reasonably infer that the location by the Gate is also due in some part to the fact that the US Embassy sits right next to the Gate, and the US has been one of the only countries that has been unwilling to take part in worldwide climate agreements (such as The Paris Climate Agreement).

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Katy Troha and Kyle Hatten