Weekend in Leipzig: four observations, presented in list form so that I don't actually have to put forward the effort to make them coherent

1. Johann Sebastian Bach is buried in the Thomaskirche in central Leipzig. His grave is smack dab in front of the altar and impossible to miss. I feel like they don't give you such prime religious real estate in Catholicism unless you're a saint, and even then you probably just get a side altar.

2. In my hostel, there was a Japanese student who was taking a seminar on urban planning in Leipzig and enjoyed looking at the ugly, East German-style buildings outside the central ring of the city. He told me that he really wants to go to the U.S. and see Detroit, which he's heard is equally run down.

3. If there's a funny smell in your hostel that you can't identify, I think it's better to chalk it up to the cleaning agent the staff uses. You might be right, and you'll feel better.

4. On Friday evening, I went to a dance club I'd passed eariler in the day - a really neat old building with high brick vaults that were nearly all underground; it was built over the ruins of the city fortress. Anyway, while I was there, someone tried to pick me up. You can all roll your eyes at my inexperience here, but it was the first time that had ever happened to me, so I found it interesting. It was simultaneiously flattering and really weird. This blog entry would get a lot more interesting right now if I'd said yes, but I said no (well, not quite: we'd been chatting for a bit and he'd asked very nicely, so what I said was more like "thanks, but no").