Last week in England

This week we are winding down, and the students have their final presentations tomorrow.  My students are creating their own definition of what Gothic is.  Molly actually said that she realized what cultural relativism really means after having been to so many countries.  She said its just that people do things differently, and it it's all okay.  Molly is the one  in the hoody.

Isn't study abroad great?  Another student, Sarah, comments that doing study abroad has allowed her to become more courageous.  She says it helped her come out of her shell and try new things she never thought she could do.  Isn't study abroad fantastic?  Sarah is the one with the wonderfully red hair. 

This week we had our final conferences with all the students asking them, "So, how has study abroad changed you?". Okay, so how has this trip changed me?  Interestingly enough, I have learned to have a lighter hand and a quieter mind.  I can more clearly see where people's fear comes from, and what effect that fear can have.  I feel like a wandering mendicant with my experiential begging bowl.  Some of the students complain that the novelty of the new cities and the manor house wears off too fast, but I feel like I have rediscovered the constant renewal of novelty in everyday life.  Here at Harlaxton, we have bacon and eggs every day for breakfast.  Everyday, I get my little saucer of bacon and egg,  and it is as divine each morning as it was the day before.  Oh delicious breakfast!  I walk through the halls of Harlaxton and smell the past in the walls, and it is so much fun every single time.  We went to Kew gardens and it was as deliriously beautiful as it was the first time.  

So as I get older, and more practiced in being in the moment, I find that I have more joy and patience.  I also think that being well rested, joyful, and patient leads to more compassion for the suffering of others.  I used to think it was my responsibility to take it away from them, but that's not nice.  It is better to be a sympathetic witness.  

City of stone and moor

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We arrived in Edinburg in the glowing evening, but the next day, the heavens opened and the rain poured down in a blowing welcome to the North country.  

Above is the castle in the mist and rain.  It was divine!  I loved the stone city in the grey rain, the water making little rivers between the cobble stones and the wind making free with our umbrellas.  I have been to Edinburg several times, and I have never sprung for the cost of actually entering the castle.  But this time I was with a group who Attended Castles, so I went in.  The weather was foul and perfect for this eclectic pile of stone perched on an ancient volcano.

 In the evening while we dried off in our hostel, Debbie read the history of the benighted Rock from her guidebook.  The English took it, the Scots bravely took it back, then the English took it, but the Scots audaciously took it back.  Rinse and repeat.  We visited the Museum of War, but it talked about how the horses got shell shock, and I wept to think of the poor emotional horses being terrified out of their little horsey wits, so I had to go wait for everyone in the lobby.  Then in the next memorial for dead soldiers they did include two horses and a dog, so I was slightly mollified. War. 

I was cheered by our company:  see how cute we are?  

The next day I joyfully climbed Arthur's Tor in Holyrood Park.  It was a delightful to be in the grass above the Stone City.  Our group was congenial, the food was delicious (macaroni and chorizo at the Fiddler's Elbow), and the Edinburg Central Hostel was quite reasonable.  Oh, and I saw more UtiliKilts than regular tartan wool kilts.  Debbie and I agree that more men would wear kilts as it is a most attractive garment for any gentleman.  

We are in Harlaxton

We arrived at Harlaxton Manor last night.  The students have been prompt at the refectory, and it is lovely to have three hot meals a day at regular intervals.  It just as lovely to have someone else wash the dishes afterwards.  It is positively, deliriously wonderful.  And what makes it all the more wonderful, if that is possible, Debbie and I have been relegated to the Gregory Cottage since the faculty state rooms are full.  Oh, woe is us, and we rub our hands with glee.  No need for plush blue starred carpets and gilded ceilings for us. Give us a little cottage with a parlor, a kitchen with a kettle, a sea of daffodils, and we are happier than Wordsworth in Cumbria.  Here is our cottage door under the blooming dogwood trees: 

And then when we thought it could not get any better, we found the tub.  A deep, prop tub. A tub that a lady of a certain age recognizes as the truest way to appreciate the panacea that hot water can be.  

But it would not be the cottage of Shangrila if it did not have Digestive Biscuits. Ah, and I hear Debbie on the step, and look, here she comes in with an enormous bag of digestive biscuits, chocolate and plain. Oh, is life good? Resounding yes.  :-)

Happy Mothers Day to Priscilla

Hi Mom!  Happy day upon which we love you just as much as every other day, which is a lot, but we announce it to the world.  Rah, rah, you are wonderful and fabulous and it is because of your love  and support that I can do what I am up to today.  No, really, its true.  Even across the Atlantic ocean I can hear you snort and say that it is because of my own will to achieve, but, see, that's what I mean: you inspire that will and confidence and joie de vivre.  You, you, you, oh, wonderful mummy, you.  Yup.  I'm a big fan.

So in addition to loving my mother very much today, as usual, I also went with the Band of Young Scholars to the Prague Castle.  We saw the ever so grand St, Vitus Cathedral. Here is one of our lovely young scholars observing the sublimity. 

In the afternoon, we walked down through the town and had diner at u Fleku, a 15th century restaurant.  I had potato soup in which the herbs danced around on the palate and had a little flavor party.  There was also an ancient accordion player who played Beatles tunes and other schmaltzy favorites.  He wore a checked suit as loud as his accordion.  The serving of pork knuckles that one student received was positively medieval, in perfect keeping with the reputation of the restaurant.  

Lovely Crone with Claws

Kafka had problems with Prague, but a lot of other people did not, in fact, they really liked it.  I like it too.  It is more energetic if a bit grimmer.  This morning we went to the Kafka Museum and I think the students may have enjoyed it.  It is marvelously Informative about K's life, and it makes one much more sympathetic for the troubles he felt, real or imagined.  He was sensitive.  

Debbie and I argued about the panther at the end of The Hunger Artist.  She quoted Rilke a out how it was sad to see the panther caged, but I argued that K saw The Panther differently at the end of the story: it was a panther that was satisfied with his constriction because he got what he wanted.  K could not get what he wanted, like peace, quiet, and food that didn't hurt, but he keenly felt his limitations. He frequently mentions how it was hard to write because it was too noisy. Yes, yes, I say.  Thie constant noise is so distracting.  I feel so relaxed when I put in earplugs.  I feel so beaten about the head and shoulders by Muzak.  Debbie and I had a two Hour lunch at the Cafe Slavia, in which there was no music, only the low hum of conversation.  It was divinely civilized. 

On our walk home, we passed an institution that was labelled in Czech that we could not read, but it had a big red skull rotating and on top of it like some kind of strange macabre mobile.  It was actually funny because this is not the color of skulls and this is not what skulls do.  This is the essence of the Uncanny.  I enjoy the whimsy of this kind of uncanny.  However, there is the totally discombobulating uncanny.  As we walked through the Old Town Square, suddenly a woman shed her coat and posed in front of a lamppost.  A man, equally suddenly began photographing her with brisk intensity.  This unfolded so quickly because the woman was naked but for a little tiny corset.  It was so Not What Happens happening that it was utterly disorienting and only upon reflection did it become shocking.  

Experiential Blog Two

0. 2. Pay special attention to the buildings and landscape in Vienna. Notice the layout of the town you are living in and the places where you go for entertainment. Notice how people interact in these locations.

•   Describe the buildings and landscape.

•   Compare it to what you expected to see.

•   Explain what conclusions you come to about how the buildings and landscape influence or reflect what you are learning about the culture. Explain what cultural insights you learn from this critique.

  We lived in a newer part of the city but did most of our touring in the old city.  The hostel was in a sketchy area of the city where the Flowers of the Evening bloomed along the streets just south of the hostel.  The cafes were dark, and the guests wore leather and slashed tshirts.  Never the less, it was still pretty quiet.  Even the rough edges of Vienna are restrained.  In the middle of town, there was a quiet but energetic bustle in the shiny gift shops, Armani, Hermes, and Bulgari shops topped by Baroque windows on the second floors.  Even the tourists were restrained.  There were little garden spaces sprinkled throughout,and at Karlsplatz there is a fountain that had big bean bags on the lip of the fountain where one could take one's ease.  The elegance of the palaces, the lovely streets with places to sedately dine, perhaps, might influence people to behave a little more relaxed and politely.  But drunken louts and impoverished, disillusioned people still have places in this center of culture.  One of the young ladies in our group notices that none of the people on the crowd are Wearing short shorts, Daisy Dukes! As it were, but then suddenly we see this woman in 6 inch stilleto shoes, a tiny white transparent dress, and, I tell you just because it was visible, a white thong. She did not appear to be a person from Vienna, or at least her parents were not from this town.  Her brazen display seemed to be in harsh contrast to her surroundings.  

  But what did I expect to see? Well the first time I came to Vienna, I ended up in a hotel room out by Praterstern with a view of a construction site.  I was so tired I didn't care, but I was still sad.  Rats, I thought, the myth was a lie.  But then I got out and looked around, and I found little tastes of the myth, and that was enough.  There is politeness and elegance enough. I loved sitting in the Naschmarkt, eating spargle and drinking white wine while the rain poured down. I had a moment in the myth.

  I imagine growing up so close to the 17th century, having the past so up front.  There is certainly a feeling that the grip of the past is stong.  So I wonder about innovation.  We passed the university of Vienna and I wondered how their innovation courses are taught.  I thought it was poignant that the Freud Museum/home was almost empty.  Freud, the past, is present, but it is a shell.  The Hofburg is full of history, but the windows are closed.  The Schoenbrunn is full of tourists in the buildings, and the gardens are a public park.  So there is a mythic core that remains strong, but modernity rubs at the edges.  I imagine that for a Viennese young person, it would be great to get out of Vienna but I also imagine that they come back and appreciate it more.  My cultural insight is that location is important because beauty helps a person relax. Relaxed people have more energy to be kind.  

  Since I am stuck on a training time on my hands, I want to continue this reflection as we move from the plains of Austriia into the hills of the Czech Republic.  Our train winds throu forests and hills with little towns clinging to the sides.  The rives have lovely wooden houses , and the little towns have bristly colored houses and towering orange and yellow apartment buildings.  The timber lots have huge piles of logs and peeling warehouses.  Then we are  back into the woods.  there are little ruins of stone houses tucked into the forest and silver grafitti in the tunnels, but only at the edge.  Darkneses still has some power here.  This train trip really emphasizes the feeling of moving into the hinter lands.  Prague is a sophisticated city, indeed, but you have to take a winding path through the woods to get to this city.  Of we arrived in Vienna on an airplane into a shiny modern airport.  We arrive in Prague by.going through the woods.  

  
  

  
  

Freud and Klimt

The last time I visited this place, there was no sign outside, and one had the feel of the residential street that Ladies of Consequence would come down to see Dr. Freud.  Now there is a huge,vertical, red sign that shouts FREUD right in front.  I guess they felt they were not helping visitors enough to find the place, but now the throbbing sign makes sure one knows where one is.  

Today we all went to visit the Freud House on 29 Berggasse in Vienna 1. 

Many of the Young Scholars noted that they had heard of Freud before, but this visit made him feel l Ike a real person to them.  They also rightly complained about the audio tour.  Now they furnish you with a little hand held radio that you hold up to your ear and listen to tidbits concerning the rooms and objects.  They commented on how it was not as interesting or engaging as a real person.  Well, yes, indeedy, I completely agree.  We we all spoiled by an excellent tour guide at the Schoenbrunn.  Debbie and I did our best to add color commentary, but I think we need to learn to are better turns rather than running over each other's commentary.  Our subversive comments do not do well in stereo.

One thing that strikes me about Dr. Freud's Talking Therapy was that he sat behind the patient where she could not see him.  They reclined on The Couch and spoke to the ceiling or the opposite door.  Not making eye contact probably enhanced the confessional effect of free association of dreams, rather like how riding in a car, where bot people are facing front, engenders greatly revelatory conversations that would not otherwise take place.  

In the afternoon, we went to see Klimt's Beethoven Frieze.  It is a wonderful voyage through the yearning of people to reach transcendence of the suffering of the world though poetry and music.  In the panel of the ills of the world, there is a beast surrounded by female personifications of death, illness, madness, lasciviousness, sloth, and intemperance. 

 The brochure referred to the beast with a masculine pronoun, and the traditional interpretation is that the beast represents the giant Typheus.  If this frieze is all about female personifications of horror, then may not the viewer see this symbolic beast to be female? Why must it be male? Grendel's Mother was a She, and if Beowulf hadn't cheated, then she would have won.  Anyway, I think it changes the frieze to think of the beast as a She.  At the end of the journey, poetry (a woman playing the lyre) leads human kind to the chorus of the Ode to Joy where the Kiss of the World is administered by a man to a woman who is almost completely obscured by the man kissing her.  It is just like his Famous painting The Kiss, only backwards.  It is faintly disturbing.  But this viewing makes me feel all rebellious and want to take the cool She Beast of the middle Frieze out to dinner as it seems like that would be much more interesting conversation than with the Pure Knight (who probably asks all the wrong questions like Parsifal) or that big lunk at the end who bends women's necks all weird when he kisses them.  

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We Made it to Vienna in one Piece

Here we are finally checking in to the A&O Hostel in Vienna.


Everybody was so tired but when the girls dorm room doors closed, I could hear their cheerful chatter. Of course it mostly consisted of, "oh my god there's a bathroom" followed by "it's so tiny!" But surprisingly with such a long journey, everyone did great, nobody actually barfed, and even as we made our ways to our rooms there were intrepid plans to Go Out and see what Sunday night life in a Catholic country is like.

This intensive intro to international travel with only carry on was, well, intensive. Rachel wins for Most Inventive.


Here she is with a Big Rolly Bag (not pictured) a purse, a backpack AND pillow/blanket/2coats in her hands. Amazing. She did say she was considering another bag to check on the way home.

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Here are some things I need to remember from last year.

Things to consider at Konopiste:
1. How are men and women depicted in the narrative of this place?
2. What artifacts are emphasized in each room?
3. What *things* did the family value most?
4. How is death treated in objects and in the narrative of the place?
5. How is social rank treated in the rooms?
6. What happens to those who don't follow the rules?
7. Where do you see symbols of restraint?
8. Where do you see symbols of liberation from tradition?
9. Why does Sophie want the house and property returned to the family?

Things to consider in Prague:
"Kafka was born into a myth called Prague."
Let the space of the museum talk to you and guide you.
Evaluate the effect of Kafka's parallel universe Prague on the Prague we are experiencing.

"Prague doesn't let go. This old crone has claws. One has to yield, or else."
One reviewer called Kafka "a dilettante of horror."

While reading The Castle, consider three dilemmas: 1) the temptation of a lasting exegesis; 2) The need for an active reader; 3) The requirement of indispensable patience.

Consider: Define "kafkaesque" and give an example of your experience in Prague.

"The Hanging Man" sculpture is Freud. Head down Spalena towards Old Town Square. When you reach U Medvidku beer hall on Na Perstyne, look up. I think the formal title is "Hang on or Let Go: When to take the leap of faith."  For Kafka, he wrote about not having the choice to hang on or let go like in The Metamorphosis, or of hanging on for no reason, like in The Castle.  The Key Question  is how to you decide when to hang on and when to let go.

In Vienna:
The Schoenbrunn has vistas of power and wealth.
It is a warren of luxury and privilege.
It carries the restrictive weight of the past.
It is full of stories of manufactured happiness and actual misery.

A couple of people in the group have already posted their "getting ready to go" blogs, and I am no exception.  I spent the day Getting Ready, and here are my bags for six weeks.  Actually this includes a bunch of stuff I get to give away immediately at the airport, so the load will be lighter almost immediately.  But you know, Gentle Reader, the cruxy bit is always shoes.  The Right Shoes.  Oh, shirts and pants, whatever, but Shoes.  Each year I travel on an airplane with limited shoeage, I try to find one pair of shoes that will look respectable and be comfortable and go from cobble stones to moors.  I tried some sneakery like things last year that were okay but too informal. I *had* some good Ariat shoes that Delta lost.  :-(  So this year we are going with some Ecco shoes and a tiny pair of Merrel barefoot runners.  Alas, this will be the last song for the Eccos, but there are more.....As Debbie noted in her blog http://debbieswanderlust.blogspot.com, we will be traveling for almost 40 hours to get to where we need to be.  Even in this Day And Age, it takes that long.  Cincinnati-Dayton-Atlanta-London-(wait wait wait)-Vienna.  Cars, trains, and planes.  No boats.  Wouldn't that be cool though, if we had to have a boat in there somewhere?

I have a lot of academic reading on my iPad, but on a piece of paper for when no electronics are available, I have Mary Rose O'Reilly's Radical Presence.  It is about teaching in the moment, a very zen approach. There is a chapter on "Listening Like a Cow."  I think it will be very helpful.  I want to help our students be safely overwhelmed, comforted and nervous, adventurous and safe.  This really is an amazing itinerary. Debbie and I did it all last year, we are doing it again this year, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.  Except that I would add Venice.