In Route to Switzerland through Konstanz

My trip started on the morning of Friday the 13th, and I was not at all worried about the coincidence of depature's date. I had decided to reach Switzerland by first stopping in the German city of Konstanz and spending one night there.

Konstanz (sometimes written as Constance in English) lies directly on the border with Switzerland and on one of the largest lakes in Europe, Lake Constance. The city of 80,000 is a popular vacation destination for Germans in the summer, and supposedly enjoys a unique sub-tropical micro-climate due to its location on the lake. Because of its proximity to neutral Switzerland, during World War II the Allies decided not to bomb the city. As a result, Konstanz is in the rare condition for German cities of enjoying an original, Medieval historical center. Since Konstanz was only a stop-over on my trip to Switzerland, I'll provide mostly pictures in this post and let them speak for themselves.

I arrived Friday afternoon and first had to find a place to sleep for the night. The hostel lay on the far side of town in an old converted watertower, as you can see in the photograph below. Unfortunately, the front desk would not be staffed again until five o'clock. I stored my backpack in one of the hostel's lockers and hoped that when I returned in the evening they would have a bed available for me. It turned out that only a few other people were currently sleeping at the hostel.




From there, I returned by bus back to the city center and explored the Medieval old town. Below is a view of one of the city's former guard towers. In the second image you can see a typical view down one of the old town's streets. Assumingly in an attempt to add color and motion to the streetscape, the city had hung torn pieces of cloth above the streets. At first I mistook the decoration for Tibetan Buddhisit prayer flags, but upon closer inspection discovered that they really were just pieces of old sheets and clothing.





From the old town I walked into Switzerland. That was written correctly. The Swiss Frontier, as it is called, is reachable in about five minutes from a shopping mall in Konstanz's city center and the city's old town. Because Switzerland is not a member of the European Union it's borders are some of the few left on the continent where one still comes across armed guards. The border crossing is seen in the first photo below. In spite of the imposing look, crossing from Germany to Switzerland and vice versa was as simple as walking down the sidewalk. In the second picture is a road sign facing Switzerland.





Before the sun set tool low on the horizon, I made it to Konstanz's lake front. Lake Constance, or the Bodensee in German, is about 36 miles long and around 200 square miles. Several ferries and private boats sail on its waters. Below is view of the city's main pier reaching into the waves.



In this last picture one can see some buildings of Konstanz in the background, as well as the point on the lake where the Rhine River emerges and continues its journey to the North Sea.


After a night's rest in the hostel I awoke the next day ready to enter Switzerland farther than a couple city blocks. In the morning I boarded a train that would the start the leg of my trip taking me to the Swiss Alps.

Last Sessions

February 2nd and 5th marked the last days of my classes for the semester in Eichstätt. Most of the classes were filled with any unfinished work and last minute explanations of how I would calculate students' grades. At the end of each class I thanked my students for the semester, wished them luck, and told them that perhaps we will see each other again in the spring.

On Monday the 2nd I said goodbye to U.S. Current Events and Debate and Discussion. As they have been requested several times, following are pictures of the classes. In the first photograph is a view of U.S. Current Events. From left to right, the names of the students, with their country of origin in parenthesis, are Audrey (France), Deborah (France), Maria (Italy), Anna (Poland), Giorgia (Italy), Annachiara (Italy), Evelyn (Germany), Olya (Russia), Liliya (Ukraine), Xavier (France), and me. Not pictured because they either didn't need credit or simply missed the last day are Marat (Ukraine), Tonya (Russia), and Yan (Russia).




In the next view you can see my Debate and Discussion class. From left to right are Konrad (Germany), me, David (Germany), Gesine (Germany), Renate (Germany), Marat (Ukraine), Deborah (France), Martin (Germany), and Katarina (France). Not pictured because it was the last session and she didn't need credit for the course is Cornelia (Germany).



The week progressed and Thursday arrived. In American Culture the students had to write a brief essay as their final assignment in class. Actually, the essay wasn't necessary for me to assign in order for them to receive credit for the class, their presentations during the semester would have been enough, but I was curious to see their writing ability and to grade essays. I have to say though that most of them wrote at a fairly impressive level considering that they are not native speakers. In the picture below, from left to right, are Maximilian (Germany), Katharine (Germany), Elena (Germany), Benedikt (Germany), Anelor (France), Anna (Germany), Elaine (France), Aurelie (France), and Xavier (France). Not pictured are Julie (France), Cornelia (Germany), Bruni (Germany), and Manuela (Germany). All of the not-pictured students did not need credit for the course and therefore did not need to attend the last session of class when everyone else wrote the essay.



The next picture shows only about half of my students in English Conversation on U.S. Current Affairs. From left to right, including those sitting at the table, are me, Jil (Germany), Anna (Germany), Lisa (Germany), Elena (Germany), Julia (Germany), Julia (Germany (the semester actually started with three Julias)), Martin (Germany), Simone (Germany), and Jörg (Germany). Other students not seen in the photograph are Julie (France), Anelor (France), Tereza (Czech Republic), Birke (Germany), Annika (Germany), and Anja (Germany). As you can see, this was the class that I had with the highest majority of German students. All in all, teaching to such an international group of students in all of my classes made things more interesting and allowed for several perspectives to be incorporated.




This is a view of one of my three classrooms. In this room I taught American Culture and English Conversation on Current U.S. Affairs back-to-back every Thursday, usually standing behind that podium and delivering my slideshow presentation for the day's lesson from the computer.



I spent the following Friday and weekend grading essays and calculating final grades for my students. In total, I had about 50 students, and, yes, I knew each of their names. All paperwork was turned in on the next Monday and my semester officially ended.

On that same Monday, Dylan came to visit me for a few days. On Tuesday we traveled to Ingolstadt in order to pay a visit to the Deutsches Medizinhistorisches Museum, or the German Medical History Musesum. More than a century ago Ingolstadt was the location of a renown medical university; this was partly the reason why Mary Shelly chose the city as the setting for her novel Frankenstein. The museum showcases medical instruments and advancements through the centuries, and exhibits on the human body. On display are perserved human corpses with skin and flesh removed in order to see the details of the circulatory system or organs in the body. While the views are rather morbid and uneasy to one's stomach at first glance, they do reveal the amazing complexity of the human body. Photography in the museum was not permitted.

Dylan returned to Salzburg on Wednesday, and, due to boredom, I started making preparations for a short trip. My destination was Switzerland.

Last Week of the Semester

This Thursday will be the last day of classes for me. The last official day of the semester is on Saturday. In the last couple weeks I have not been up to much other than preparing for the semester to end.

On Saturday, January 17 there was supposed to be an excursion to the Bavarian city of Passau, an attractive community that sits at the confluence of three rivers. Unfortunately, too few people registered and the excursion was canceled. Instead of traveling I spent the day lounging around Eichstätt.

With the semester coming to a close there is a lot of additional responsibilities I have to take of for my classes. For the third to last sessions of all my classes I asked my students to bring in and submit their Schein, the German certificate of successful completion of a college course on which I will write a student's final grade. I admit, the process is somewhat confusion; however, when the third to last day of classes came, I was reminded well of just how many people don't listen to basic instructions.

First of all, the Schein had to come from the Sprachenzentrum, or the Language Center, the faculty which offers my classes. Several students brought certificates from the faculty of their own major. Next, there are two basic kinds of certificates, Teilnahmerschein and Leistungsschein. The first is for students who merely need proof to show regular participation for a course, while the second is for those who actually need a grade for the course. Receiving a grade for the course allows one to also receive university credit for the course. Naturally, there were those who tried to give me the wrong version, and I had to explain the concepts of credit and grades. I explained all of this on the front end, but nonetheless some students still managed to not impress me with their listening skills. In the end though, I suppose they could always offer the language difference as an acceptable excuse, but I would still have my doubts.

During the second to last sessions, my students had to fill out course evaluations. It will take about another week until I see the results, but I expect them to have written good things about the course and me. I did remind one class that I brought them candy for Christmas.

Last Thursday, in American Culture, we discussed the South. This was the last lesson for our discussions on American cultural regions, and was one of my favorites from the whole semester. Judging by their laughter, I would say the students enjoyed it as well, especially my example of Southern American English, to which they applauded--acutally, the German equivalent of knocking on their desks.

Two of my classes, U.S. Current Events and Debate and Discussion, ended on Monday. Most of the students thanked me for the semester, and hopefully without a hidden motive. I will say that it was a little sad to know that my Mondays henceforth will not begin with the same group of people.

There was one fairly funny incident that occured Monday in U.S. Current Events. A student form Ukraine was giving her presentation on U.S. foreign policy. Following my requirements, the students for this course had to speak for at least 15 minutes. However, the Ukrainian student continued until 20 minutes, until 25 minutes, until 30 minutes, and on. The end didn't seem to be in sight anytime soon, but as it was the last day of class and I had nothing else planned, I let her go on. At one point she asked the class why America practiced a policy of isolationism in the beginning of the twentieth century.

After a few answers from the other students, I offered the following as a light-hearted answer: "We (America) were tired of Europe." The student immediatly began racing through the slides of her presentation. The other students in the room had looks of surprise and shock on faces lacking any glimmer of smiles. Slightly perplexed, I repeated myself. The room erupted with laughter.

Apparently all of the students had understood, "We're tired of hearing you." I quickly clarified my words, but it took several minutes until we could calm down and return to the presentation. The student spoke for about another fifteen minutes before I asked her to come to a conclusion.

American Culture and English Conversation on U.S. Current Affairs end this Thursday. American Culture students will have to write an essay as their final exam, but given permission to use their notes, handouts, and an English dictionary I do not expect them to have a difficult time.

I have started to calculate final grades for all of the classes where already possible. Sometimes I find it hard to give the student the grade that I know he or she deserves considering that I see him or her so often outside of class as a friend around Eichstätt. Hopefully they will all recognize that I was only being fair.

I have also been fighting a cold for the past week. It likely came about after I spent a couple hours retracing my steps in freezing weather around Eichstätt searching for a lost glove. The next day I traveled to Ingolstadt in order to shop in the city's department and clothing stores for a replacement pair of gloves; the additional walking around likely didn't help. Fortuantely, my body finally seems to have beaten back the microscopic invaders.

I will try to turn in all of my grades and other necessary paperwork by Saturday. After that, my semester is officially over and I can enjoy the semester vacation.

Stay tuned for an additional post about the last week of the semester and the end of my classes.

A Hall of German Heroes

Last Monday I ventured to the city of Regensburg in order to travel a bit farther and visit a monument built for legendary figures: Walhalla. Trains took me to the city, and from there a bus dropped me off near snow-covered fields and hills. Next, a trail led up one of the hills and through what would have been silent woods if not for the sound of crunching snow under my feet. Near the top of the hill I turned a corner and a view similar to the one below suddenly came into view.

Walhalla was constructed from 1830 to 1842 under the orders of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. In Germanic and Nordic mythology the name Walhalla (Valhalla in the English spelling) refers to the home of the gods. The King wished to create a hall of honor for all heroes of the “German tongue” and for these heroes to come from a shared two thousand-year history of the Germanic nation. This tribute would include warriors, leaders, scientists, artists, musicians, and religious figures, anyone who had greatly enriched or shaped Germanic culture. It was the era of Romanticism in Europe, and ideas such as nationalism were beginning to sweep across the continent.

The monument was designed after the Parthenon of Athens, a symbolic measure to the strength and contribution of Ancient Greece. Walhalla’s architect perched the monument on a bluff overlooking the Danube River, as seen in the following pictures. A tiring series of steps leads up to what is actually the front perspective of the building.

The interior is as ornate as the exterior. By today and after additions over the decades, the names of 191 individuals have now been carved into marble and placed in Walhalla to be honored. Most of those figures are remembered with a bust, but others receive a plaque. Due to the idea that the hall honors heroes united by the “German tongue,” more than a few honorees may spark some controversy or contention, such as Czar Catherine the Great of Russia and several figures commonly viewed as Dutch or Polish. Of course, the majority of the figures are the heroes one might expect from German history: Otto von Bismarck, Albrecht Dürer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Martin Luther, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Kepler, Konrad Adenauer, Albert Einstein, and so on.

The only figure to be represented with a full statue is King Ludwig I. For the sake of full disclosure though, his statue was not installed until more than twenty years after his death.

The last individual to be memorialized in the hall was Sophie Scholl in 2003. The university student was a leading member of a Nazi resistance group known as The White Rose. She was executed in 1943 because of her behavior and acts against the state.

Before anyone can be counted among the esteemed individuals represented in Walhalla, the person’s legacy must pass through a difficult application process of many requirements, one being that the potential honoree has been dead for at least twenty years already. Additions are considered every 5-7 years. Today, Walhalla remains the property of the state of Bavaria.

After spending time walking around the grounds of the monument and examining the busts inside, I walked back down the hill to the bus stop and began my return to Eichstätt.

With only four weeks remaining in the semester it’s becoming harder to concentrate on the work for my classes. Dylan came for a visit yesterday and spent the night. Highlights from the day were playing pool and trying a special flame-topped schnapps from the region known as Hochmoorgeist.

This coming week will likely be a difficult one though. Hannah’s visa has expired, and without finding an accepted way to renew or lengthen its validity (and understandably not prepared to marry her German boyfriend), she must return home to America. She will fly back on Thursday. Afterwards there will be only one less American in Eichstätt, but the absence will seem much greater.

Ulm and its Münster

At one point I had plans, or more like desires, to travel somewhere special for the remaining days of the Christmas break after New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, the computer lab on campus was closed until the semester resumed and I was therefore unable to search for and reserve stays in a hostel. Of course, the travel bug remained in me, but instead of visiting some more exotic locales such as Zurich or Prague I stayed close to Eichstätt. One of the two places I visited was the city of Ulm.

I visited the city of 120,000 people on Saturday, January 3. Ulm rests on the banks of the Danube River and on the border between the German states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, but it falls within the territory of the later. From Eichstätt the city lies to the southwest and can be reached in two and a half hours with the trains.

The landmark of Ulm is its Münster, or its cathedral. At 530 feet, the church spire of the Ulmer Münster is the tallest in the world, only a dozen or so feet higher than the famous cathedral in Cologne, which, incidentally, I found more attractive than Ulm’s. Normally one can embark on what is surely a long trek up the spire’s 768 spiral steps to a viewing platform near the top, but on the day of my visit more than the top half was closed to visitors for safety reasons. The signs didn’t say it, but judging by the light ice on the lower viewing platform at 230 feet, which I could reach, I assumed that worse wintry conditions above were to blame for the closure. In the first picture below you can see the spire of the Münster reaching above some buildings in the city center. In the second is a view of Ulm from the viewing platform. On a clear day one could see the Black Forest and the Swiss Alps from the top of the spire.

Here are a couple other shots of the cathedral.

Disappointed by the closure of the spire, I spent the rest of my time in Ulm strolling through the streets of its city center. In following picture is a view of buildings facing the Danube and a walkway on top of the city’s old defensive wall.

One last spot I checked out before returning to Eichstätt was a small fountain erected in honor of Albert Einstein. The physicist was born in Ulm but called the city home for only one year before moving away. The fountain offers a comical design that manages to mix the forms of a rocket, seashell, and Einstein’s famous sticking-the-tongue-out face.

A brick was conspicuously missing from a wall near the fountain, as seen in the photograph below. The inscription on the wall where the brick should be reads Ein Stein, which is German for One Stone.