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Published: June 28th 2022
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Pentecost Fair 1
I know it looks like I just drank three giant mugs of beer and am about to power down a 30" sausage, but I'm not a glutton. Only two of the beers were mine. Departure
I'd like to think of myself as a seasoned traveler-- ten minutes before I leave for the airport I toss a clean shirt, a bottle of whiskey, and a bullwhip into a well-worn valise and I'm off. The reality is different. I over-plan to the point that I drive myself crazy. There's plan A, backup plan B, and backup to the backup, plan C. I print out my plane tickets and compulsively check them every day in case the words miraculously rearranged themselves during the night. The uncertainty of travel caused by COVID and flight cancellations has made me even crazier. And this time I have to multiply everything by five because I'm also worrying about my four students. I calculate the odds of all of us making it there and back again without a hitch to be 1 in 32.
At SFO I need to show an Air Canada agent my proof of vaccination. For some reason this couldn't be uploaded ahead of time. The agent makes a few quick keystrokes and says "Next". "But wait," I respond, "Don't you want to see my card?" "Do you see these lines!" she shoots back. "I haven't got time
Hugo
This is Hugo in the beer garden. He's the team brain. He never looks up from his phone, even when he's thinking. for that."
At the gate another Air Canada agent pushes a wheelchair to where I'm sitting and asks if it's for me. I watch to see if she asks anyone else. She doesn't. My phone dings. It's a message from the organizer of last night's milonga. It says someone I danced with has tested positive for COVID. I board the plane anyway.
Arrival
A cavernous German train station-- hissing steam, flapping pigeons, piercing whistles— it's a nightmarish scene imprinted on me from every WWII movie I saw as a kid. Today I'm in the Munich Hauptbahnhof looking for the four students I sent here from San Jose. What was I thinking? I tore these young innocents from the bosoms of their families and simply told them to meet me here? As it would for the next week, a tape in the back of my mind played the imagined voices of angry parents demanding to know the whereabouts of their precious issues. Miraculously, I see them crossing the vast floor, heading directly toward me. Josh and Jaime are being led by Andre, one of the German students. Hugo trails behind, his face buried in his dual-screen smartphone. Mohammed is
Proud profs.
That's my pal Wolf-Dieter in the background. He is the project leader and organized most of our activities. I snapped this photo just as the presentation ended. missing, but this was to be expected. He's missed everything so far.
Getting to work
Tuesday morning is our first team meeting at the Ingolstadt Technical School. My four students join four local students to prepare the final presentation of a project they've been working on since February. The presentation will take place on Friday afternoon. There's lots of work to be done. To my relief, Mohammed is there. I was up until 1:00 AM the night before trying to guide him by phone from the Munich airport to his hostel in Ingolstadt. Around 11 PM I thought I had his route worked out but then he got on the wrong bus.
Every so often during the day the meeting would seem to go off track. For example, at one point the students turned on me and began scolding me for shooting my cat. Was I on trial? Did I shoot my cat? And then suddenly the meeting was back on track and I realized that I had drifted off into another jetlag micro-nap. After the meeting, I walked down to the Danube, which flows past my hotel. I soaked my feet while imagining a Roman army on
Pentecost Fair 3
I actually went on this thing. I could see the curvature of the earth. my side of the river uneasily staring across at a menacing Goth army.
The Pentecost Fair
Although the Germans invented Protestantism, always-independent Bavaria maintains its Catholic identity. This means Pentecost is a big holiday here. At the end of the day we walk to a nearby Pentecost fair. It's vintage Bavaria. In huge tents we sit at long tables drinking one-liter mugs of beer and eating sausage. A brass band plays polka music. Women wearing dirndl's show off their cleavage. Men in lederhosen sing drinking songs. We leave before anyone stands on a table and starts making speeches about the Fatherland. Outside of the tent there are cheesy carnival rides. Some fly into the air to astounding heights. Others spin, lurch, and flip. None of them look safe. My students love them. At the end of the evening there's a massive fireworks display. I'm not sure what any of it has to do with Pentecost.
The Nuremberg Expedition
The Friday presentation went well. The customer was pleased. The professors were pleased (even though we didn't do much). To celebrate we went to Nuremberg the next day and did all the usual European stuff—castle, cathedral, rathskeller. My students seemed
Wallberg Expedition 3
At the summit (1722 m). to enjoy these things, but not quite the way I hoped. I wanted them to see these things in the historical and cultural context I grew up with. For example, I remember newsreels of Hitler standing at a podium-- grandiose Nazi architecture behind him, a crowd of tens of thousands in front of him. He's pounding the podium while screaming into a microphone like a madman. The crowd is eating it up. I take my students to the exact spot where Hitler delivered this speech. The podium has been preserved and there are a few historical plaques. Today it is a venue for car racing. My students want to know where the pits are located and in which direction the cars go. Of course, it's likely my students never saw the newsreel, or if they did it was 10 seconds of an ancient history course, shown alongside a painting of Napoleon on his horse.
The Mt. Walberg Expedition
The program ended in spectacular fashion with a trip to the Alps, which can be encountered about two hours south of Munich. We rode a ski lift from the base of Mt. Walberg on the shore of Lake Tegernsee to
Wallberg Expedition 4
Hugo. And yes, that's his dual-screen phone resting on his face! a ridge near the summit. From there we hiked the rest of the way. The air was filled with paragliders. They take the lift up, jump off the mountain, slowly drift down to the lake, and then repeat. At one end of the ridge is a small chapel. There was a crowd there and I could hear a brass band. I investigated. The crowd was the church congregation, gathered for Sunday services. They wore their finest alpine outfits. There was no organ, no choir. Instead, a polka band played solemn hymns.
The students and I climbed to the summit on the other end of the ridge. It took about an hour and involved a little bit of scrambling across rocks. I was desperate not to seem feeble in front of them. Could they see the sweat pouring off of me? After the ordeal I got to introduce them to my favorite alpine tradition: the hut, the inexplicable restaurant in the middle of nowhere, the restaurant you happen upon when you don't think you can take another step, the restaurant that has currywurst, beer, schnapps, and kaiserschmarrn just waiting for you.
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Gloria
non-member comment
I'm good
Hah! Right on time for July 4th