Over the weekend, we traveled back to the town in the Mulde valley where H hails from. The weather seemed promising at first, but the rains came in the early afternoon and did not relent. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to revisit with more scrutiny and personableness the town of Grimma, which we had just passed through before, and to travel back in time, buffeted by stories and mementos of not only of H growing up there but also the town history punctuated by great floods.
I learned about this history of natural disasters and rebuilding, exacerbated by modern waterway management that caused the river to crest above the houses by in 2002, and about the Soviet troops that were garrisoned there during the Cold War but had their own separate services and institutions and never mingled with the civilian population. It was interesting to see the sights but unfortunately, our plans were scaled back for another, fairer day.
Later, still battered by rain, we decided to take advantage of the extended operating hours of the attractions of Leipzig for the
Museumsnacht. Despite the yucky weather, we realized that these special openings require some planning to map out one’s evening—still we saw two installations that were very impressive. First, we visited the
Panometer, a classic panopticon in one of the city’s old industrial gasometers, a huge storage facility for natural gas where pressure could be built up and then distributed for domestic use across the broad urban area.
The exhibition was a living panorama of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, and being in the huge space with the scene displayed on the wall with depth and as real as life was amazing. Afterwards, we joined the party atmosphere at the venerable Grassi Museum (
DE/
EN).
The architecture alone of this place was impressive and there are several wings of arts and antiquities that I want to come back to see, but we did explore a few special exhibits late into the night:
one was a seemingly random but thought-provoking exhibit on design and applied arts, that made one think about how every commercial item, whether enduring, inspiring or disposable, had a designer with intention; the other was a glorious stroll through rooms after room of amazing artefacts from Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) to Art Déco to Modern styles.
I learned about this history of natural disasters and rebuilding, exacerbated by modern waterway management that caused the river to crest above the houses by in 2002, and about the Soviet troops that were garrisoned there during the Cold War but had their own separate services and institutions and never mingled with the civilian population. It was interesting to see the sights but unfortunately, our plans were scaled back for another, fairer day. 
Later, still battered by rain, we decided to take advantage of the extended operating hours of the attractions of Leipzig for the Museumsnacht. Despite the yucky weather, we realized that these special openings require some planning to map out one’s evening—still we saw two installations that were very impressive. First, we visited the Panometer, a classic panopticon in one of the city’s old industrial gasometers, a huge storage facility for natural gas where pressure could be built up and then distributed for domestic use across the broad urban area. 
The exhibition was a living panorama of the Himalayas and Mount Everest, and being in the huge space with the scene displayed on the wall with depth and as real as life was amazing. Afterwards, we joined the party atmosphere at the venerable Grassi Museum (DE/EN). 
The architecture alone of this place was impressive and there are several wings of arts and antiquities that I want to come back to see, but we did explore a few special exhibits late into the night: 
one was a seemingly random but thought-provoking exhibit on design and applied arts, that made one think about how every commercial item, whether enduring, inspiring or disposable, had a designer with intention; the other was a glorious stroll through rooms after room of amazing artefacts from Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) to Art Déco to Modern styles. 
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