State of the Stadt

30 Juni 2005

This newsletter is a bit late. Okay, it is really late. For those in the US, have a nice fiscal new year’s day this weekend. Classes at the Fachhochschule are finishing this week and finals start next week.

Those of you who know Peter Augsdorfer might like to know he was invited to join a small band. Herr Direktor got to go with Anne-Marie and Daymoni (a visiting professor from India) to hear his first performance at a retirement home in Kipfenberg.

Peter Augsdorfer Playing Bass Guitar with the Band in Kipfenberg.	Part of the Ceiling from Asamkirche Marie de Victoria in Ingolstadt

The beginning of May brings a season of organ recitals at Asamkirche Marie de Victoria in Ingolstadt. Every Sunday at noon is about a 45-minute concert. Even for those not particularly fond of church organ music, it is a chance to look at the painting on the ceiling that makes this church significant. It has a number of different scenes from the Bible and has a number of visual illusions where the image changes depending on your position in the room.

The director made a one-day excursion to Ulm. After a few visits to New Ulm for the Minnesota version of Oktoberfest, a visit to Ulm and Neu Ulm seemed appropriate. As is his habit, the first item of business was to climb something tall. It is always nice to get a good visual image of the town before meandering about. This also happens to be Ulm’s claim to fame. The Ulm Cathedral has a 171.58 meter tall spire. Unlike most, this one also allows tourists to climb very close to the top. A mere 768 steps lead to a small platform about 160 meters over the city. Of course, a souvenir T-shirt was a must to show people who has been to the original Ulm. Mission accomplished, but only partially. An Ulm T-shirt is now in the director’s inventory, but there were no Neu Ulm T-shirts to be found.

Since the last newsletter, the only group trip was our visit to Berchtesdagen and Salzburg. This trip was shorter (and cheaper) than the usual trip to save money for a Berlin trip. Since it was only a single night tip, the director went over there a day early to do some sightseeing. The main part of this reconnaissance mission was a visit to Lake Königssee, definitely worth the trip. Next to the lake is a Bobbahn (bobsled track). Having never seen one except on TV, the director walked up the full length of the track. Engineering curiosity, of course. From there, it was natural to just keep following the trail and next thing it was about 90 minutes later and the director was about 2/3 of the way up Grünstein (one of the local mountains). Unfortunately, the bus schedule back to Berchtesgaden forced a retreat before finishing the climb.

The students arrived Sunday morning. Due to our well planned (AKA tight) schedule, it was going to take some luck for everything to work. As soon as the students arrived at the Berchtesgaden Hbf, we put the luggage in a locker and took a cab for the salt mine tour. It was a pretty interesting tour, but was a bit odd at times. At each stop, the guide would talk in German while we would huddle around the box labeled "GB" for a brief explanation in English.

Bobbahn with the bottom 1/3rd of Grünstein in the background	Less opera, more food.

After the tour, we took the 20 minute walk back to downtown and arrived just in time for the bus for the Eagle’s Nest tour. The tour normally used by SCSU is run by David and Christine Harper (http://www.eagles-nest-tours.com/). Nothing like a tour in Germany organized by a Frenchman and American. They traditionally handle the SCSU tour here and do a good job. They also provide English language tours. The tour was a nice mix of WWII history at Obersalzburg including the bunker network, and an impressive view from the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle’s Nest). At the end of the tour, the Harpers took us to Salzburg. You’ll note the omission of words like break and meal from the day’s itinerary. Again, planned down to the minute. The day was completed with the Mozart Dinner Concert in Stiftskeller St. Peter Restaurant. This restaurant has been around since at least 803 and it the oldest one in Europe. This visit is another SCSU regular. There are four courses of food (including dessert), with an ensemble performing Mozart Opera selections between each. The group consists of a string quintet and male and female singers. It was a relaxing end to the day and necessary since we were all pretty well starved at this point. The next day was left for general meandering about Salzburg before returning to Ingolstadt.

As part of this adventure, the director is under strict orders to get one of the souvenir bells from each town he visits. Probably not the most exciting part of the trip, but they are for his mother-in-law so help maintain some harmony in the family. Probably more interesting is Chris’s collection of shot glasses from the Hard Rock Café in all the towns that have one. This included a trip to Copenhagen and Stockholm to their Hard Rock Cafés. They likely also gave him the prize for going the farthest north.

The beginning of June was also the end of peace and quiet in the director’s apartment. His son arrived and was ready to party. Despite claims to be interested in visiting Germany, the primary reason for his trip is the difference in drinking age. Ashton is 16. Perhaps in early July for his 17^th birthday he may get that beer we’ve been hearing about for a year. It was also an excuse to go and see Kreig der Stern 3 (Star Wars). Now that most of the Villa residents have seen it, there are plenty of comments about coming over to the Dunkel Seite.

June also brought the Paris Air Show (Le Bourget). Although not an official SCSU trip, all the engineers and Ashton came. We included a trip up the Awful Tower and a few of the other standard Paris tourist sites, and then spent 1.5 days at the air show. There were crowds that make Disneyland look empty. The star of the show was the new A380, and watching it fly was quite a sight. As a "star" for this show, the director saw at least 7 exhibition booths dedicated to showing pieces of the landing gear alone. Of the several hundred booths inside the halls, only a handful did not show or talk about some part of that airplane.

Other than that (wow, five pages already), there were numerous small things going on. The usual Canoe trip down the Altmühl was Monday (27 June). The director has tasted a few Hofmühl beers, now he tasted a little Altmühl river water (not planned) while watching the students get sunburned. He also finally got the Villa PCs all working and up to current software versions. Bill Hudson arrived for a visit. Our end of the semester party is scheduled for 7 July, and the Berlin Trip will be the following week. The director will try to get a final newsletter out immediately before or after heading back to the US in early August.

Last update 5 July 2005