After a poor night’s sleep in Amsterdam, we had a rough time getting up at early to catch our train. I won’t go into all the boring details about the trains, but it was our first time and we had to get on 3 of them, so there was a substantial amount of confusion. Irina mostly slept and I mostly played video games on my 3DS, when we weren’t being kicked out of our seats or scrambling with our luggage to transfer trains. We also saw some of the beautiful Netherlands and German country side as we passed through.
After 7+ hours in transit, we finally made it to Leipzig (about 1 hr west of Berlin) a little after 4pm (train station pic). I’d eaten nothing but some snack bars all day (I think Irina had a sandwich from the dining car) and I was starting to get cranky. We got our luggage outside, then realized we were on the wrong side for taxis. When we found the taxi stand, we were a little surprised that our taxi driver spoke no English (we just showed address). Clearly, this was not Amsterdam. It was about a 20 minute ride to our hotel, which we later discovered was < 2 miles, so our driver definitely took us for a ride. Anyways, we got in, checked in and got into our absolutely gorgeous room at the Radisson Blu and I was admiring the magnificent view down on the square, when Irina started complaining about the shower, which had glass walls and pouted -I hate this place-. I had to turn away, breathing fire into the trash bin. Obviously, we were both a bit run down from all the travelling and adventuring.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t relax for long as we had to go exchange our Wave Gotik Treffen tickets for the official wristbands at the main festival grounds a few miles south (Agra Messe Park). Rather than try to navigate the S-Bahn without any German, we took a taxi south and this driver spoke a few words of English, but we still couldn’t communicate much (we had no German). We got to the festival grounds and were greeted with an astounding array of gothic outfits. We’d seen some in the square near our hotel and on the trains we’d passed, but this was amazing – thousands of theatrical and vampiric looks, from capes to parasols, vinyl to velvet, victorian to cybergoth, fangs, white irises and more. It’s impossible to do it justice in words – just look at search results (note: some feature partial nudity) for Wave Gotik Treffen 2012 pictures on Google or Wave Gotik Treffen 2012 on Flickr. There were a dozen photographers at the entrance taking pictures of the festival-goers.
We got our wristbands without a problem and made our way into the treffenpark (like a fairgrounds). I hadn’t brought my camera because of strict rules about no cameras allowed inside and they did search our bags on entry, but it was disappointing not to have. It really was a feast for the eyes. Famished as I was, I wasn’t distracted for long and was relieved to find they had a Vegetarian Berlin booth which had plenty of vegan options, so I was able to eat a meal for the first time that day. Irina also got some food and a lovely drink. We went inside the warehouse there and saw the amazing vendor village filled with gothic themed booths in one area and another area with bands, but we were exhausted so headed back to the hotel after a brief look.
We’d tried texting my friend Steffi on her borrowed cellphone, but were unable to make a connection, so we just relaxed at the hotel for a bit and then got ready for clubbing. First, we went to Kohlrabizircus (which means turnip-radish circle) to see a couple bands: Frozen Plasma and Mesh. We missed the first one and the second was disappointing live – the singer was hoarse and the sound was more like crappy fratboy rock than the electro I was expecting. Then we went back to our hotel area around midnight and walked over to 4rooms for a Depeche Mode alternative 80s dance party, which was good fun, but very hot and crowded. We befriended a nice Swiss guy there, our first English conversation since we’d left Amsterdam. We stayed there until around 2am and headed over to Moritzbastei, where we were hoping to run into Steffi, who had texted that she’d be arriving between 2-3pm. Moritzbastei was huge, with so many rooms and people, we couldn’t imagine how we would find her, so we tried texting and walking through the maze of rooms, but did not have any luck, although Irina was able to get some food at the venue whose kitchen was still open (!). We ended up leaving around 2:30, tired, and later found out she’d arrived close to 5am.
Feeling somewhat better the second day, after sleeping in and relaxing a bit, we headed in around 3pm to Agra Messe Park to get our fill of the vendor village – such clothes are not easily found in Boston. Niether of us is big into all black, so we quickly bored of the wall-to-wall racks of all black clothes, but found some other cool booths, including a stuffed dragon shop, a hat shop, corset shops and Chapati with many nice dresses and skirts (in jewel tone colors!), which is Irina’s new favorite shop. I found a really wonderful umbrella with 4 sharp points like a giant flower, but large umbrellas are impossible to travel with (as I learned in Hawaii). Irina found some fancy flame boots, which you can see here. We wanted to get dinner at Zest, which we’d heard was really great, but couldn’t get through on the phone. Since it was on the way back, we decided to try it without a reservation and were lucky to get a table. The food was really great, though of course I avoided the spargel options.
For the evening, we’d planned to see a couple bands again, but ended up getting there just in time for Rummelsnuff, which was a great show, very German in feel and music (and of course language). It was this barrel-chested muscle guy who had a series of different hats for his very energetic songs, many of which featured video projections. He had a gruff low voice and sang a couple duets with a high tenor who had a more classical sound which was very nice. Also, it was at Moritzbastei, which is mostly beige bricks and concrete interiors below ground, like a medieval dungeon. After the Rummelsnuff show, we headed over to Steffi’s apartment where she’d just gotten up recently (I think around 10pm) – I wanted to make sure I’d see her in Leipzig as she was the main reason we’d gone there. We chatted with her for a while and met some of her friends from England (e.g., Erika) who were staying with her, then finally got out the door around 2am.
When we got to the club, Steffi and Irina wanted to get food so we did that first, then I got some fantastic drink at the bar, something like “vampire’s orchid” which came with a starfruit and ground cherry. We met up with more of Steffi’s friends and then we went “hunting” for Steffi (to find a pretty boy), wandering room-to-room and dancing a little here and there. Irina left before 4, too tired to stay (luckily our hotel was only a few blocks away) and I stayed until 4:30 and saw dawn coming as I hustled back to the hotel. We had to be up in time to check out at noon, so we were a little groggy in the morning, too tired for the shenanigans as dozens of goths tried to check out at once and we had to make a 12:45 train, but luckily we made it on time, albeit with excessive crowding on the train – so many WGTers going to Berlin. Since Leipzig felt like one long mad rush (we were there less than 48 hours and did a lot!), we were looking forward to some relaxation in our luxury hotel in Berlin.
More pictures from Europe on flickr (Leipzig starts here).
