The ten students in the 2014 Salzburg group are settled into their dorm rooms and most have met their roommates (from France, Greece, Pakistan, Kosovo). They sailed through two weeks of intensive German classes and orientation activities, and have been on the regular course schedule since mid-September taking art history, philosophy, the study abroad seminar--and German, natürlich! They’ve also mastered the art of riding city buses, traveling by train, shopping at the beautifully renovated Merkur, cooking pumpkin soup and Putenschnitzel, and wearing Dirndl and Lederhosen. We saw Mozart’s Zauberflaute in the Marionettentheater and were given a tour of the Hohensalzburg Festung (fortress) by a guide who had a key to all the locked doors! Moreover, the group is healthy, arrives on time, and remains cheerful and flexible, even during those early days of unrelenting rain. Ausgezeichnet!
We visited the most beautiful example of Austrian Baroque at the Melk monastery, stood before the grave of miraculous Saint Walburga in the Eichstätt convent, walked the streets of Eichstätt to see Germany’s largest collection of Baroque buildings, ate dinner in an old castle, marveled at the immensity of Nürnberg’s Altstadt, learned about the Third Reich at the new Documentaton Center at the former NSDAP party rally grounds, and saw the lovely library and monastery church in Metten. And these are just the highlights! The students are soaking up knowledge like sponges, making comparisons, integrating knowledge and experience, and asking probing questions. We’re hoping for more of the same as we finish this first month and look forward to the second.
Best wishes to all from this very special place, Salzburg group 2014
Contributed by director, Anna Lisa Ohm.
