Hello, hello and welcome to this belated blog post! This was is overdue for about six days. Shame on me! I wanted to write about our fun time at flea markets and craft markets last weekend. Last monday I started a first try to write this entry but somehow the "writing bug" didn't bite me at all so I postponed writing to the next day and then again to the day after and so on.
Yes, yes what a lovely day. Expected temperatures: well over 98°F (36°C). Late morning Birgit, our friend Jules and me got prepared to hit the most exciting flea market / craft market / district festival the city of Leipzig has to offer: Westpaket!
About Westpaket I could write a whole entry but I'll try to make it short and sweet. Originally, a "Westpaket" (west parcel) used to be a parcel sent from people of Western Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) to their friends and relatives in Eastern Germany (German Democratic Republic). These parcels usually contained clothes, chocolate, coffee and toys. Moreover, the parcels were a way to communicate as phone calls between both parts of Germany were restricted and only few people in Eastern German had access to phones (and almost all phone calls were intercepted anyways). Overall a "Westpaket" can be seen as a way of exchange and communication, but also friendship, cooperativeness and solidarity.
The "Westpaket" market is just that. People meet, exchange what they collected or made and just have a good time together. I only took a very few photos as I as so busy looking at things.
At one of the stalls they sold big sticks of chalk and also had some sticks of chalk to try out immediately. No need to ask Birgit twice. She drew our SmileMolecules logo an Etsy shop address on the pavement:
As nice as it looks.... can't be compared to this guy though (true soccer fan, drawing shows the excitement before the soccer match Germany/Argentina):
My favorite photo motif though is the "inner pig dog". I believe this saying is only known in the German language. So what is an "inner pig dog"?! To explain I'll try to translate some points of the German Wikipedia about the "Innerer Schweinehund". The term "inner pig dog" is an allegory of lack of will power (and/or motivation), which inhibits a person to pursue an unpleased job/activity/task. Usually the saying is "you gotta overcome your inner pig dog". Does that make sense to you?
So how did we meet the inner pig dog and what does it look like? At the Westpaket it looked like this:
First I thought it's a scary and creepy chicken. When I took the photo the guy who sat next it asked what I'd think it is. I instantly and without thinking answered "It's an inner pig dog!" and I was right! For guessing correctly we got jelly babies. Only when I looked at the photos at home I realized the body does not have wings and the legs don't have chicken claws. The longer I thought about it the more it made sense. The inner pig dog sat on the step of Theater Bus. Now, what does this mean? I believe you got to overcome your inner pig dog to engage yourself with theater. At least this is my interpretation. What do you think?
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That is the funniest things I've ever heard!!
ReplyDeleteBut Westpaket is such a great concept adopted from history. I like it because it is meaningful. I was at the Berlin wall on Sunday and the feeling of Berlin still communicates joy and freedom from no more boundaries. This is one bit of the city that really touched me and made me feel happy to be in despite not being used to so much litter and grafitti.
Actually, the concept goes even further but that would have been too much for the blog post. The website of the "Westpaket"project can be found here: www.westbesuch.com but it is only in German. The photo section shows the atmosphere really nicely.
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