Weeks 12-13: Regensburg, Lake Starnberg, Tegernsee and CAS workshop
Unfortunately we brought home an unwanted souvenir from the Kinderhotel—the norovirus. After laying low for the weekend (and sadly postponing Father’s Day), I was ready to hop on the train again to Regensburg. Along with another CAS fellow, I visited a colleague’s lab and gave an informal talk. A notable experience of visiting this lab is that we had to take our shoes off before entering! The Germans do NOT wear their “street shoes” inside, apparently even in a lab. The girls have special “haus schue” they wear at school and we have to change into our workout shoes at the gym (pretending that we don’t wear them outside all the time). This is one of those cultural conventions that actually makes a lot of sense and yet feels very strange and inconvenient to me.
Our host took us on a tour of Regensburg, which is a well-preserved medieval city, including several buildings and a bridge from the 12th (!) century. We had lunch at a beautiful biergarten on the Danube river. I was in the mood for lighter fare so ordered the one and only “salat” on the menu, which turned out to be 80% meat, 10% pickles and 10% onions. Joke’s on me! Next time I’ll stick with the bratwurst and kasespatzel.
That weekend we took the train to Lake Starnberg, which was only about 45 minutes away. Bavaria is known for its lakes, several of which are accessible via public transit from Munich. Starnberg is the most accessible and probably the most touristy. We started the day by walking along a beautiful boardwalk to the spielplatz before boarding a boat to take a tour of the lake. Lake Starnberg is known for being the location of King Ludwig II’s (aka Neuschwanstein builder) mysterious drowning. Mad King aside, the lake is bordered by the Alps and sprinkled with several castles and monuments on the shore.
After the boat ride, we met up with another CAS fellow, Audun, and his wife and baby at a beach on the lake. The girls were happy to play independently in the water and let us all talk and enjoy some aperol spritz.
The day ended with an extremely hot and crowded ride on public transit, which we decided we’d avoid at all costs with the kids for the rest of the trip (at least for a longer distance). The June heatwaves were pretty awful overall. The girls slept with wet towels most night and we even froze their stuffies to try to give them some relief. Happy to say that the heat broke in early July and it’s been much more pleasant. Pictured: Hadley's heat wave antics.
The following week was the second conference for the CAS research group. This meant two jam-packed days of conferencing and socializing. I gave a 45 minute talk each day, which was far less nerve-wracking than the December experience (in which I was introduced after attention was drawn to the real Picasso next to the podium!). I haven’t spent much time detailing the academic marvel of this trip, but it has been so reinvigorating and rewarding. The Center for Advanced studies exists to promote international collaboration and is intended for academics to simply come to Munich and talk with each other. There’s no requirement for specific “outcomes” (papers, project proposals, etc), but those things naturally arise when you’re given time to work together and discuss ideas of joint interest. After several months here, I think I have my research program for the next 5 years set. Part of quality academic collaborations is having personal connections with the collaborators, which I very much now have. I count several of the other fellows as friends and was so happy to have everyone in town for a couple of weeks. We went to the opera (the Old Maid & the Thief), biergarten, several dinners, a hike, and had a big sendoff party at Markus’ house to say goodbye to one another.
The following weekend we celebrated a belated Father's Day at the Augstiner Brau Biergarten, per Jake's request. The girls took the opportunity to wear their dirndls and strike a few poses.
On Sunday, we rented a car and drove to Lake Tegernsee. Any activity where we feel a semblance of normal US life has felt really nice and driving in a car listening to the girls’ eclectic music requests was certainly one of them.
After hitting up another awesome playground by the lake, we planted ourselves at a public pool connected to the lake. Jake and I don’t like to swim, but it was nice to keep cool all day and the girls had a blast. Hadley’s favorite part was getting to pee in the lake, which she joyfully announced each time. The number of looks and side-eyes we get from the Germans just keeps growing.
We ended our adventure at this biergarten in a fancy hotel overlooking the lake. Hard to top a view like this!
Cultural Observations:
The Tour: At the sendoff party, several of us (an Argentinian, Peruvian, Canadian, New Zealander and Norwegian) started talking about cultural differences, a fascinating subject to anyone but especially a group of psychologists and philosophers. A Canadian brought up the American custom of “The Tour.” This is when you go to someone’s house for the first time and they take you on a tour. They told a story of an international grad student who was visiting someone in the US and was offered a tour of the house, including the bedrooms. Apparently this grad student was so freaked out and thought he was getting lured into a weird threesome situation. The other fellows at the table were shocked to hear about “the Tour” —“they show you the BEDROOM? The BATHROOM?!” I was doubling over with laughter. I wouldn’t call it “The Tour” so much as “the tour” but I will skip it if ever I have an international visitor. I can’t recall my parents ever giving “the Tour” and I think we only do it as a way to show off our home improvements and aspirations. But I’ve certainly been on many "tours" of other people’s houses!
Heat: Not only is central AC absent from Munich (even in stores, restaurants, libraries, etc), I have not seen a single portable AC unit. The windows are huge and more like doors (without screens), so can’t accommodate a window unit. I went to one cafe with a tiny fan that everyone was gathered around. On one of the hottest days of June, I spent the afternoon walking around Ludwig Beck, a very fancy department store similar to Neiman Marcus, which is the only place in the city that I knew had air conditioning. AC is definitely a creature comfort we miss from the US!