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Published: June 24th 2023
summit!
The SJSU Crew at the summit of Mt. Herzogstand (1730 m.) Unfortunately, a fourth team member wasn't able to come to Germany.Ingolstadt, Germany
"There is no 'Sie' above two-thousand meters,"
That's my friend Wolf-Dieter explaining the informal way people greet each other on alpine trails. We were following our students up a steep mountain slope near the border between Bavaria and Austria. Following instead of leading, because I had twisted my knee in a tango mishap a week before. (Don't ask.) Wolf-Dieter's wife, Suse, a retired physical therapist, lent me a pair of crutches that made me look like I belonged on a March of Dimes poster. Wolf-Dieter was good enough to keep me company as I crutched myself up the mountain. Hikers passed me like salmon swimming around a turtle.
In preparation for the climb, I rested my knee all week by confining myself to my hotel room in Ingolstadt. I dutifully hobbled to the lab every morning to watch the students work. They were entirely self-directed. Any professorial advice I might've given was by now redundant or non-sensical. After lunch I limped back to my hotel for a nap, emerging again to meet everyone for dinner at one of the local beer gardens. Back in my room for the night I lay in bed with an ice pack on my knee
You wanna see some drinkin'? Step back.
Apres climb, I demonstrate the proper way to drink schnapps at the local hutte. watching German TV. One program was a reality show called
Adam seeks Eve. It was like a dating show, but the contestants were naked. I had no idea what they were saying. I watched a lot of soccer matches since that didn't require knowing much German. I never saw anyone score a goal. I asked Wolf-Dieter if I was missing something. Apparently not. Goals are so rare, he explained, that when one happens the joy is ecstatic. So it's sort of like sex, I guess.
Pentecost is a major week-long holiday in Catholic Bavaria. In Ingolstadt the big Pentecost event is a fair featuring dangerous-looking carnival rides and huge beer tents sponsored by various brewing companies. Men dressed in lederhosen and women wearing drindls sit at long tables eating meter-long sausages and drinking beer from cartoonishly large steins. They sing along to a skinhead death-metal band playing Bavarian drinking songs. As the evening progressed the atmosphere became more frenzied, as if people were just waiting for someone to jump up on a table and lead them in a putsch. That someone was my student, Rahul, an articulate slenderly-built Indian who throws himself into new experiences without hesitation. I had
Lost!
Cay consults his GPS while I grimace helpfully. seen him drink at least one beer, maybe he had two, and now he was leading a conga line of elderly fraulines that weaved around the tables like a drunken caterpillar.
Berlin
"I have no idea where we are."
That's my friend Cay admitting that he has no idea where we are. For the past two hours we had been riding on the Mauerweg (Wall Way), a bike path that follows the route of the Berlin Wall. The wall is gone, of course, but every kilometer or so there will be a photo of someone who died attempting to climb the wall at that exact spot. The person's story accompanies the photo—a pair of teenage lovers, a disenchanted rebel, a guard who forgot the day's password. It wasn't the policy of Stasi to inform the next of kin, so relatives were just left to wonder what ever happened to their Hans or Gretel.
The path ended abruptly at a locked gate. Cay consulted his GPS app and concluded that the Mauerweg must've turned down a narrow path through the forest. Twenty minutes later that path turned sandy and we had to walk our bikes. This couldn't be right, so Cay consulted his app again.
Stasi Victim
Photos along the Mauerweg commemorate people who died trying to escape E. Berlin Perhaps the Mauerweg was a path parallel to this one that we could reach by cutting through the forest. Walking through the woods we occasionally spotted footprints. Like Kalahari Bushmen, we'd crouch down and examine the tracks. Could this be the Mauerweg or just a deer path? Cay's app struggled to find a signal, so he wandered off in circles looking for better reception. A thunderclap shook the trees and the sky darkened ominously. I saw someone up ahead. Perhaps he could help. As I approached a police dog tied to a tree lunged at me. I was transported. It was 1965 and I was Hans, trying to escape East Berlin. I had become lost, disoriented, and desperate. It was only a matter of time before bullets flew. I found Cay and insisted we retrace our footsteps. When we finally got back to the gate we noticed that it only appeared to be locked.
Trieste, Italy
"You have to be nice to me because I am the owner!"
That's Sophia, our Trieste landlady for the next several nights. She was either crazy or was pretending to be crazy as a way of deflecting our long list of criticisms upon seeing the flat she was renting to us. The description she
had provided to Booking.com was a pack of lies. There was no parking, there was no second bed, there wasn't even a place to sit down. In an exasperated show of contempt and rage she produced a cot and a blanket from somewhere. She threw the blanket over the cot and huffed that she was a professor doing the work of a maid.
Why Trieste? Cay is a good travel companion for me because our travel styles have similar degrees of aimlessness. We both knew the vague outlines of the region's history and culture, neither of us had been there before, and so off we went.
Honestly, I think one would have to spend at least a few months living in Trieste to experience its culture. When the young James Joyce quit Ireland, he came to Trieste where its cultural diversity had a major impact on him. The wanderings of Leopold Bloom on the streets of Dublin were partly inspired by his own wanderings on the streets of Trieste. He once wrote, "My soul is in Trieste". Conversely, Trieste loves James Joyce. He is a much-celebrated figure with statues, a museum, and plaques on all of the dive
Box City
This is the campground in Croatia where we spent a few nights. Our unit is on the left, halfway up. apartments where he lived.
What our flat lacked in comfort and landlady-charm, it made up for with its location just off Via le Venti Septembre (Italian unification day). A broad pedestrian mall runs down the center of the street. It's filled with tables of cafes, bars, and restaurants. It was at these tables, drinking wine and eating pastries, that we did most of our "cultural experiencing".
Istrian Peninsula, Croatia
"Attenzione: Cavallo in strada!"
That's Cay's GPS app. To help with his Italian he programmed it to speak Italian. As the driver, I had to rely on Cay to translate.
"What does that mean?" I ask in a panic.
"Oh nothing. Just turn (MUMBLE) at the next roundabout."
"Turn right?"
"No! Left!"
(TIRES SCREECH, HORSE WHINNIES.)
It's June 16, Bloom's Day, a big deal in Trieste, but also Cay's birthday and the birthday boy wanted a sandy beach on the Adriatic. To make this wish come true, we drove down the coast of Croatia to a campground where we had rented a trailer. It sounded good, but when we arrived we discovered our trailer was one of a thousand box-like pre-fab dwelling units. The other boxes
were inhabited by vacationing young families who shielded their children when the grizzled elderly perverts in Unit L-80 passed by.
Belluno, Italy
"Aren't you here for the Assembly of Alpinis?"
That's the reply of the incredulous hotel clerk when we asked about the riot of drunkards wearing Tyrolean fedoras just outside the door. Alpinis refers to the local soldiers who fought the Austrians in the Dolomites during the first world war. Of course those guys are long gone, but their legacy has been preserved-- hijacked may be a better word-- by a loose federation of faux militias that help out during emergencies. Maybe they do help out, but I wouldn't want to get into a political discussion with any of them. Besides drinking beer, the Alpini sang WWI drinking songs until sunrise. My only compensation for not being able to sleep was that some of the singing was quite good.
Dolomites, Italy
"Rifugio Paradisiaco a 50 metri,"
That's a sign that pointed off to the right, down a nice level trail. My knee still sore, I was hobbling behind Cay as he eagerly chugged up a black-diamond slope. We were surrounded by the Dolomites, a range of mountains that rises suddenly from Italy's karst plateau without foothills to warn
Paradise Found
Cay begrudgingly allows himself to enjoy a beer at the refugio. the approaching traveler. From a distance, their skyline looks like the exaggerated drawing of a child. The peaks are unnaturally jagged, the slopes comically steep, and mountains so ridiculously tall that they still seem tall when you're halfway up them. A beer sounded nice. Maybe Cay hadn't noticed the sign, so I asked him:
"What does that sign say?"
"Dangerous cliffs", he shot back, "So we shouldn't go that way. We should keep going up."
Bolzano, Italy
"Where's mummy?"
That's me breathlessly talking to the Museo di Anthropologia ticket seller. Our one goal for the trip was to lay eyes on Ötzi, the caveman who got shot in the back with an arrow 5000 years ago. He lay under the ice like a frozen pizza until a sandstorm in the Sahara caused an unusually extreme melt in the Alps. We made it to Bolzano 30 minutes before the museum closed, abandoned our car in a dubious parking spot, and jogged across town with only the foggiest notion of where we were going.
Cay and I were more impressed with Ötzi's stuff than with Ötzi himself, who resembled a human made out of jerky. His shoes, leggings, and
Dolomites
I complained the whole way up, but the view was spectacular. coat were adequate and well-made. He had copper implements, and he had a box containing a maple leaf that he would've wrapped burning embers in, sort of a Stone Age cigarette lighter. Poor Ötzi. Was he a victim or was this the revenge of his victim? If victim, why didn't his murderer take his stuff, his shoes, his axe, his cigarette lighter? Or maybe Ötzi got too friendly with his murderer's wife, an old story, indeed.
Bolzano, Italy (again)
"Next stop: Bolzano."
That's the conductor of the train I'm on. The train that goes from Venice to Munich where a 777 is waiting to take me home. Cay and I checked out of our Bolzano apartment early, grabbed some pastry, and drove like maniacs three hours south to Venice so that I could catch the train, the train that I'm just now realizing stops in Bolzano.
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David Le
non-member comment
Love it!!!
So happy to see you're still going hard at it after all these years Dr Jon! I really enjoy looking at the pictures with huge smiles on your face. Thanks for sharing Dr Jon. Cheers to future adventures!!!