I've had complaints from people saying I don't update enough about what I am doing in Vienna for my dissertation research. Well, I guess that IS what I am supposed to be doing in Vienna! So, in case you're keeping track, I am halfway through the manuscript (about 350 pages to date) and I plan to be finished with all the pages by the time I leave Vienna. I have taken a lot of notes (over 40 pages to date), so I should have a good amount of material to use in my document. The music collection of the Austrian National Library is in a great building that used to be a palace, so I definitely get to go to a great place everyday to do my research. I'll post about the palace soon - it's got a great history.

"Seelenreise" - part 2
On March 2 I was off to Koblenz for my 30^th birthday. It was a special way for me to spend this day because that is where my grandmother is from. When I arrived in Koblenz at the visitors center, I asked how to get to the Jewish cemetary. As the lady was telling me what busses to take, another lady, who was waiting said that she lived right next to it, and that she would be willing to take me right over there. I know it sounds kind of out of the ordinary, but I got a good vibe from her – she didn’t seem like a serial killer, and Koblenz is, as European towns go, a pretty small town. As she drove me to the cemetary she asked what I was doing there, etc… and so I told her about my journey and it turns out she is an amature historian and a native of Koblenz and her name was Sabine. She offered to meet me later to give me a tour of Koblenz! I was in disbelief – what a nice thing to do. So, I went to the cemetary and found the gravestones of my great-great-grandmother (Ur-ur-grossemutter), Meta Siegler, and her father, Nicolaus Nahm, according to my grandmother. I put stones on their graves and also flowers.

Then I went back to town and walked up the Rhein and the Mosel rivers (the coverge in Koblenz), and then I found the location where the synagogue used to be. My grandmother had told me that it was now supposed to be a gym, but I found out through the visitors center that it is actually a children’s library. I didn’t know what to expect, but when I went there I found many large picture frames on the walls of the children’s library that detailed the lives and fates of the Jewish families of Koblenz. There was also a room that served as a memorial, which contained more of those large picture frames, books about Jews, Jews in Koblenz, and the Holocaust, and also Jewish artifacts. I thought it was fitting that it was at a children’s library because the children see the memorial when they come there – that is good.

Then I talked with Sabine and we decided to meet up near the library for my “tour.” I thought maybe we’d walk through the town a little, I’d see the Rathaus (all towns have old Rathause), you know, pleasant and consise. Well, that’s not exactly how it went. I did not know the extent to which Sabine knew her Koblenz history. She took me on a full walking tour of Koblenz giving me details I couldn’t have gotten even in a guidebook! I wanted to thank her for all she had already done by taking her to dinner, so she recommended a good Italian place and we had a lovely meal there and I met the nice people who work there (whom she knows). As if that weren’t enough, she offered to take me up to the Festung. I wasn’t really sure what that was. The German word for party is “Feste” but I could tell that it was something historical by what she said about it. She said we’d have to drive there and after we got on the way and she pointed to it, I realized the Festung was the city wall (“fest” as an adjective means strong or firm, so Festung the noun kind of means, “reinforcement” or “strong/firm-thing”). I should say at this point that we were only speaking in German to one another, which is what I prefer to do. Now that doesn’t mean I always understand, but I think it’s good to try and usually with a good description unknown words can be learned. The thing is that in Koblenz (as in all of the cities I visited) they have a special dialect and accept. In this case, the word “ich,” which should be pronounced in high German “ickh” with the gutteral sound, is pronounced as “ish,” and the ending “–ig,” which should be pronounced similarly (but softer) is also pronounced as “ish.” Not to mention that she talks pretty fast. Whew! Depending on the situation, I generally can understand now about 80-90 percent of a conversation, but I have to say that with her I was probably getting about 60-70. But listening to her sure helped me listen faster.

In any case, we drove up to the Festung, where there is now a youth hostel and also several historical buildings and items (like an old cannon, etc…). Now at this point it is getting late (8pm or so), and they don’t let people up there after a certain hour, but don’t underestimate Sabine! She talked to the guy at the gate for 5 minutes and it turns out she knows his wife, etc… and she told him that my grandparents used to live there and I came from the US to visit there. Well, I thought she told him that my grandparents used to live in KOBLENZ, but she meant that they used to live IN the Festung itself! I wondered why she would say that, but she explained that it was because after the war everything was so bombed out that there were not enough places for people to live and so people lived in the Festung. So this man thought my grandparents lived IN the Festung. Well, whatever works. So, we walked around there and she gave me a detailed account of the building of the walls, and how they used to shoot stuff out of the catapults, and stuff, citing exact trajectory calculations. Needless to say, I was pretty darn impressed.

Then we left and went to my grandmother’s house and her school. She had looked them up on a map earlier since I had mentioned the address, though I had no idea she was going to do that. We took pictures there, but it was pretty dark and so they didn’t really turn out very well. She said she would go back there with her camera, take pictures and send them to me! Can you believe this? I didn’t even ask her to do that – she just wanted to do it.

I had left my bag at the train station at a locker (most European trainstations have lockers “Schliessfacher” – very convenient), so she took me there to get it. It turned out that something went awry with my locker (I did something wrong, I’m pretty sure) so she talked to the security guard for me and we got my stuff out. I probably would have been able to handle it, but it would have been slower and there was a greater possibility that I would have ended up in prison (hey, it could happen…). Then she took me to my hotel (which was admittadly remote) and made sure it was suitable, reminded me to lock my door for security and we said our goodbyes, but not before taking a picture of us shown here.

What an amazing person. How many people would just drop everything and do all she did for me that day? Me, a perfect stranger. I told David that I think that she is the Koblenz version of me because I like to think that I would go out of my way to help a stranger the way she did. I reflected a lot about this unpredictable day, this unique person, this place where my grandmother, her sister and parents fled from in fear, this place where I spent my 30^th birthday alone, but not alone, and I thought again about redemption, if there is such a thing. I was very touched by the experience.

"Seelenreise" - part 1

For the last 3 weeks I have been all over Switzerland and Germany on what I have dubbed my "Seelenreise," which means (literally) "soul journey." The reason that I called it my soul trip is that for the second half of the trip I traveled in Germany to the places my family is from and also to places of import to a bassoonist. Details to follow.

The first part of the trip took place in Switzerland, to where my friend Danny and I traveled. We flew from Vienna to Cologne, Germany, and spent a day there (en route to Basel) and we drank wonderful Koelsch beer (it's native to Cologne, and a requirement of all visitors of age), and we also got a taste of the pending Carneval celebrations (that we actually missed by being 2 days early). Now that is a town that knows how to throw a pagan celebration!

Then we went on our way to Zurich by plane (I heart Germanwings) and took the train to Basel, Switzerland where we found our hostel despite all odds. Staying at the hostel was quite an experience, to say the least. Interesting people stayed there - Basel, is pretty expensive, so most people not from Switzerland can't afford to stay in a hotel. We met some interesting Indian men who were attending a business convention. They were so great - they cooked a vegeterian dinner for us one night and they were just the nicest folks. They gave Danny a sample of their products - I think one thing was a spray deoderant and I can't remember what the other thing was. We met people from Libya and Romania, too.

In addition to that we met a very not-nice man at the desk who gave us a hard time. We played a little good cop-bad cop and eventually got things worked out. I guess there are just people like that. The hostel was a tad on the, shall we say, *rustic* side… that sometimes is the case with hostels. So, we did research in Basel at the internationally renouned Paul Sacher Stiftung (they have a great collection of Stravinsky manuscript, Kyle!) and then on the weekend we went back to Zurich to do a little site-seeing. It was a great town, and the hostel we stayed in there was the best one I have been to. It was a good experience. Our impression of Switzerland was that it was very clean and very expensive. We ate a lot of Kebaps (it’s a kind of Turkish sandwhich you buy on the street) just because they were cheap and one day we even ate at *gasp* McDonalds, although Danny paid 11 Swiss Francs for his “value” meal. That’s not actually as much as it sounds like, although it is like 8 dollars US.

So, then we went back to Cologne on the first of March and instead of seeing the city again, and since it was so close, we went to Bonn instead. That’s where Beethoven was born and grew up. So we went to the Beethoven house (which, let me tell you, is SO much cooler than the Mozart house) in Bonn and also walked around a lot. It was a great town. Then I dropped Danny off at the airport and started my lone Seelenreise.

The first night I stayed with my friend, Reiner’s sister and brother-in-law, who are very cool people I found out. They live outside of Cologne, so I got to meet their doggie, “Little Dog” (she's a chihuahua) and see the city a little bit more, courtesy of Kike ("kee-kay" from the name, "Enrique"). Enrique and Monika are truly an international couple. Monika is from Cologne, but Enrique is from Columbia. They met through Reiner when he and Enrique were both studying as undergrads at UNT. So, they both speak English, and naturally Monika speaks German and Enrique speaks Spanish. So, they speak English to each other! Can you imagine being married to someone and both people are speaking not their first language? Pretty amazing.

More on the next 10 days in my next update.