Week 9: Belgrade and Neuschwanstein Castle

Belgrade, Serbia 

I packed up my suitcase *again* and flew to Belgrade, Serbia for the Jean Piaget Society Conference. This was my third consecutive week at the Munich airport, but the first time I’ve left the EU and had to get my passport checked. The german officer looked at my passport and said, “You’ve been here since March? So long.” and then THREW my passport back at me, muttered “god damnit!” and sent me on my way. What was he objecting to?! I have not overstayed my welcome…yet.  

Our friendly and absurdly tall cab driver (nearly 7 feet!!) chatted with us about the anti-corruption student protests happening in Belgrade and the general dissatisfaction with the government. Apparently people can take pictures of their ID cards next to their ballots and get sent a check if they vote for a particular party. We all balked and said, “how can that be legal?!” to which he laughed and said, “It is of course NOT legal.” And then muttered under his breath, “so corrupt, so corrupt” with an air of humble resignation.  Even the Serbs who are my age have seen a lot in their lifetime. 

My hotel was on Knez Mihailova, the main street in downtown Belgrade. Belgrade was not a city on my radar and I had no idea what to expect. The downtown area was filled with open-air restaurants, shops, rooftop bars, and many street performers. It was such a lively city, but not at all crowded or touristy feeling. Everyone spoke English and was very friendly to me (and also quite curious how I found myself in Belgrade- I don’t think they get many American visitors). The food was VERY meat-forward, but otherwise similar to other mediterranean cuisine. There was a rustic quality to the city, reminding me a bit of Budapest, and had the feeling that dark days were of the very recent past. 

The coolest part of the city (at least that I saw) was the Kalemegdan park and Belgrade Fortress, a beautiful complex overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. It was built between the 1st (!) and 18th centuries and was once a major source of conflict between the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. I went on a Friday evening along with tons of Serbian locals who use it as a meeting spot to drink beer with friends and watch the sunset over the rivers. 

The conference itself was intimate with less than 500 attendees. I really prefer conferences like this because you see the same people at each symposia and actually get to have meaningful conversations. I gave a talk in a symposium on early morality. It was well-attended and despite having finished my talk at the *very* last second, actually went really smoothly and was positively received. I also got to know a few European scholars and was invited to come speak at their universities this month. I couldn’t make it all the way up to Munster, but I am going to Regensburg on Tuesday to give a talk and visit the lab of a new colleague. 

Neuschwanstein 

Bright and early Sunday morning we headed to the Hauftbahnhof with Jake’s mom, sister and aunt to take a tour of the iconic Neuschwanstein Castle (aka the “Sleeping Beauty” castle). My post-conference exhaustion coupled with Jake’s solo parent exhaustion meant we had to *really* step up our energy to keep kids happy on an all day tour. 

Although you can take a train to the castle on your own, we opted for a tour so that we didn’t have to wait in line for tickets once we got there or try to navigate the transit from the train station up to the castle. That meant that we also had a fabulous tour guide who regaled us with the story of the “Mad King” Ludwig II, who built the castle in the late 1800s. We drove through several picture-perfect towns in the Bavarian alps, each of which had its own Maypole in the city center.  

There’s a small town called Hohenschwangau at the base of the castle with a couple of hotels and restaurants. We got bratwursts and pommes (getting reallll sick of these) and explored a beautiful lake at the edge of the main pedestrian street.  

We then took an AWFUL shuttle ride up an incredibly windy road to get to the castle. Reminiscent of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter. I felt pretty lucky that neither of my kids vomited on me on the way up, but it was a close call. We got off the shuttle and got in line to take a picture on the Marien Bridge above the castle. Our guide told us ahead of time, “it’s supposed to feel rickety.” Let’s just say we got on and off quickly.  

We couldn’t take any pictures inside the castle, but it was truly fabulous. It was built in the 19th century and felt much newer than other castles we’ve visited so far (a weird sentence to write!). The amount of over-the-top detail and opulence in each room, including the integration of swans (Ludwig wanted to be known as the “Swan King”) gave the feeling that a slightly insane person commissioned the design. 

The girls were CHAMPS during the tour. Multiple people stopped us and commented on how well-behaved they were. We’ll take it! If only they could have seen their monstrous behavior in Salzburg the following week. As the only young kids on the tour, the girls were delighted to be given their own audio headset to listen to the tour guide. Hadley also held her Playmobil horse throughout the tour, showing it each room in the castle. The girls have a million horses, each with a unique name, and I asked Hadley to remind me of the name of the one she was holding. She looked up pensively and said, “This is Butterfly….the first.” Someone’s been hearing about a lot of royalty lately!  

Diane bought the girls princess wands, which Hadley used to turn people into frogs. 

Grade 1 Workshop

On Friday we headed up to the girl’s school for the Grade 1 Workshop, which the kids have been anticipating and preparing for for weeks. Just like her elementary school at home, IBSM is an IB school in which they pursue various Units of Inquiry. The workshop celebrated the end of their Five Senses Unit, in which they learned how people missing one of the senses cope with it (sign language, braille, etc). The workshop began with a “surprise” performance of the kids singing and signing “Imagine.” I’ve been hearing Eden hum “Imagine” under her breath for the past couple of weeks, but didn’t know they’d learned how to sign the entire thing. The real surprise to me was that she volunteered to introduce the performance to the parents in English.  I see so much of myself in Eden that it gives me pause (in a good way) when she does things that I would have been too shy to do at age 7.  

The second part of the workshop involved parents making their way through stations set up by pairs of kids in which they created a game related to the five senses. Eden and her partner created a braille word scramble and then taught us how to write our names in braille using dot stickers. We loved getting to play charades, make acrostic poems, and play bingo with all the grade 1 kids (note: NOT called first graders here). I was actually surprised how little English some of them knew given that it’s a bilingual school. There are certainly some international kids (from China, Turkey, Israel, Russia that I’m aware of), but the majority of kids are German who mostly speak German. Despite not having a ton of friends to talk to, Eden seems so happy at school and adores her teachers. The small private school vibe in which everyone knows her name and she knows theirs really suits her. 

There was an awkward hour break between the end of the conference and end of the school day, so Jake and I went to a neighborhood cafe and had another incredible brunch. We’re all about the breakfast boards! 

Cultural Observations:  

Cigarettes INSIDE! In restaurants and cafes! Yuck. 

Live music- Both of the traditional Serbian restaurants that I went to had live bands, similar to Mariachi bands in concept, except WAY more intense. They’d stay at a single table for multiple songs, take a few shots, maybe get up and dance. Everyone was whistling and cheering. Serbian Dinar (the currency) were flying! I was eating with the other speakers in the symposium, including a very soft-spoken older man and my german collaborator who said it was impossible to understand what anyone was saying at the table (since English is not his native language). They were all wondering if we could pay the band to LEAVE our area so that we could hear each other. I guess we’re not as fun as the Serbs! 

Food “Grades”: This is a german observation that I noticed immediately and find it so curious. Most packaged foods in german grocery stores are given a food “grade” between A and E (A is “best”). It’s not at all clear to me what the criteria is. White flour gets an “A” and most cheese gets an “E.” Sweetened kids’ yogurt usually gets a “C” (even ones with a ton of sugar in them) and frozen, packaged french fries get an “A.” Nuts often are a C or D. A good reminder that what people view as “healthy” is a reflection of cultural norms. 

Next week: Salzburg and Grossarl, Austria! Our final week of international travel and then we're staying put in Germany until our return home to the US.