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23.06.2020 Spontaneous invitation. We did not spend a lot of time in Halle, but will remember it for its very affordable no-frills campsite. We discovered some amusing murals, saw the fault line running below a central square, and emptied a box of Halloren chocolates while listening to the church bells. Our next stop was Leipzig, where we camped in an area called Neuseenland, 'land of new lakes'. It truly is full of big artificial lakes that were created to renaturalise open pits when brown coal mining stopped not too long ago. On our first evening, we got to know a super lovely couple, Suse and Stefan. They are Neuseenland locals, love riding their road bikes around the lakes, and also have some cycle touring experience. We quickly found common ground, and in the end they spontaneously invited us to their place for a night. We were really thrilled by this degree of kindness and hospitality, which, quite frankly, we had not expected to experience in Germany, where people do not readily open their doors to strangers. We did not think twice and extended our stay, and our hosts treated us to a great evening at their cosy family home, where we had yummy food, got to know two of their kids, and totally recharged our batteries. They also helped us deal with an issue that had come up a day earlier: Eva and her bike got hit by a car. Luckily, the doctor that Suse advised us to see just confirmed that the injuries are only minor – and Elfi is fine, too. With the extra time, we could spend a full day at the lake and still visit the city centre of Leipzig. Upon Suse's recommendation, we went to Zeitgeschichtliches Forum, a fascinating museum covering German history after 1945. Leipzig and its people played an important role in the peaceful revolution of 1989/90, and it was great to learn about key events at the museum and then see some venues in real life, like the building that housed a branch office of the State Security of the GDR. Outside this place, people once gathered to stop the destruction of telltale documents that had started inside once the authorities realised their case was lost. #scoutbound #halle #leipzig #gdr #ddr #halloren #cycling #völkerschlachtdenkmal

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