John and Jen’s Excellent Adventure-Erste Teil
Hi, my name is John Heimel, and I’m a travelholic and a fellow music theory doctoral student at UNT. Jennifer has been very gracious and allowed me to stay with her in Vienna, and 
we are also travelling together to several other countries while I’m in Europe. As I’m writing this, we are on the train returning to Vienna from Budapest, and tonight will be my last night in Vienna.
I’ve been very impressed by Vienna, and have enjoyed taking in all the
sights. There are probably too many to list, but a few of my favorites were Stephansdom, the Roman ruins near Michaelerplatz at the Hofburg palace, and the Naschmarkt. I was also fortunate enough to play the organ at the Augustinerkirche, and the acoustics were phenominal. Jennifer and I were walking by the church and I heard Mendelssohn’s third organ sonata. We decided to go into the church and talk to the organist, whom had been playing the Chororgel for a baptism. He was nice enough (after I asked or course) to offer to meet us later in the afternoon that day for
a demonstration of the Hauptorgel. We returned that afternoon with about five of Jennifer’s fellow Fulbrighters, and he allowed me to play. Fortunately he had both a Bach and Mendelssohn book that I was able to play from, although I wish I would have practiced something in advanc
e. It’s also always fun trying to play on the flat and straight pedalboards in Europe, but I still managed to get enough of the notes correct. I think I’ve enjoyed meeting and hanging out with Jennifer and Colin’s friends even more than the sights, and of course I’ve been trying to practice my
German as much as possible.
We travelled by train to B
ratislava on Sunday, and I am not planning a return trip anytime soon. While waiting on the outdoor train platform I decided to have one last cigarette before boarding the train. Two policemen approached me and told me that I was going to get a fine for smoking, and he pointed to a sign that was hidden behind an electrical line. The fine was equivelant to about $10, but the range was not fixed and I could have paid as much as $25. I also learned later that there were several other people who got “fined” for the same thing. I put “fined” in quotation marks because it was obvious that the policemen were pocketing the money. The city of Bratislava itself is not bad, but even the most historical landmarks are still in a state of disrepair from the communist legacy.
From Bratislava we took the train to Budapest and stayed with our friend, Gyöngy Erodi’s mother. Our host, Gyöngyi was ve
ry gracious, and cooked authentic Hungarian cuisine for us during our stay. She is also a tour g
uide, so we got to hit a lot of sights in Budapest in a relatively short period of time. Many important people are linked to Budapest, including Theodor Herzl, Franz Liszt, Bela Bartok, and Zoltan Kodaly, all of whom Jennifer and I have studied at some point in our academic careers.
After one last night in Vienna, we got a ride with a nice German family to Munich through a ride sharing service called the Mitfahrzentral. They were coming back from vacation, and we enjoyed a leisurely ride along the Alps in northern Austria and southern Germany. Once we arrived in Munich, they invited us to their home for Kaffee. Although the ride took much longer than expected, it was fun to travel with them and they were very nice people.
While in Munich, we are staying with Thomas and Nicky, two friends of Jennifer. I also got to meet Nicky’s twin sister, Sandy, and her partner Judith. They have all been very gracious and helped us navigate our way around Munich. Today we also met Dr. Phipps at the Lenbachhaus and had lunch together. More to come later…
Bis später!
John
John and Jen’s Excellent Adventure-Zweiter Teil
Since the last post we have traveled from Munich to Leipzig and from Leipzig to Berlin. We certainly have had some interesting travel experiences associated with getting there (my philosophy = getting there is half the fun). So, from Vienna to Munich we traveled by car with a very nice family who was actually on their way back from Hungary. It was a man, Ralph, his wife, Lisa, and their young son, Michael. They had plenty of room in their van for our big suitcases (thank you, John for taking stuff back to Dallas for me!) and for us. We thought it would take about 4 hours to get to Munich, but with all the stops we made it actually took 7. One of the stops we made was at the Mondsee (a lake/family area), which is not far from Salzburg. There John and Ralph played on this tire-thing that was really fun! They recommended some locally-made stinky cheese, which we ate – after that our fingers smelled like feet for the rest of the day! We finally got to Munich and enjoyed a wonderful time with Nicky, Thomas, Leonie, Sandy, Judith and also our professors, Dr. Phipps and Dr. Heidlberger. When we met with Dr. Heidlberger, he and John took the opportunity to drink real Bavarian beer and smoke the special European cigarettes. Before we left town we had coffee with a lady I met at the Vienna opera in January. She was a very interesting older woman, who has a doctorate in forrestry science – we listened to stories about her life and experiences and it is apparent that she was a pioneer as a woman in her field. Our time in Munich was really great, but it was sad to know that it was the last time I will see my friends there until my next visit to Europe.
Here’s what John has to say…
I was very happy to get together with Dr. Heidlberger and his family in Munich. We met at a favorite restaurant of Dr. Heidlberger’s when he was doing research in Munich and enjoyed a few drinks and lunch before parting ways. Jennifer and I had reserved the cheapest car we could, but when we arrived to the Hertz rental location, the car was not there. Much to our “disappointment,” we were given a BMW 6-speed manual with moonroof and a navigation system. Since many places on the Autobahn have no speed limit, and the speedometer on our car went up to 260 km/h, we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, due to weather and traffic we only got it up to about 205 km/h which translates into about 128 MPH. At least we were able to sustain this slow rate of travel for most of our journey from Leipzig to Berlin.
In all this excitement about the rental car, I almost forgot to mention that we attended a church service at the Thomaskirche on Sunday in Leipzig. The choir was excellent, and one could not help but think of Bach and stare at his likeness in the stained glass window when the choir was singing. Unfortunately, the organist did not utilize the instrument to its potential, but that is just another reason to come back. We also visited the Nikolaikirche, which was the meeting place for the revolutionaries that later led the revolution against communism in the former East Germany. All around Leipzig, there are quite a few abandoned buildings and graffiti, which are remnants of the former communist regime. The former East Germany still has not yet really recovered from the years of repression.
Since I have visited Berlin before, I will let Jennifer share her thoughts after this part of the trip it over.
John
