Austria Day 4...take 2 and day 5

I forgot to mention that after returning from the cross country skiing with Moritz, I skipped the first afternoon session to visit the only museum in Mariapfarr. The Stille Nacht museum.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Mariapfarr's little claim to fame is that a young man named Josef Mohr lived in this town in 1816. During the two years he lived here, he wrote one of the most beloved Christmas songs ever known, Stille Nacht, or Silent Night. The museum is only open for 4 hours a week, so I jumped at the chance to visit the museum during one of the hours its open. I walked in and was quickly placed into a tour group where the tour guide spoke enthusiastically about the Catholic artifacts (mostly shreds of Cardinal robes that visited the town). The entire tour took place in Austrian German and I really struggled to keep up. Finally, after 30 minutes of seeing pictures of stained glass windows and long decomposed flower wreaths, the guide took us to the highlight of the tour, a reconstruction of Josef Mohr's bedroom, complete with the original furniture and a plasma screen tv (sorry no pictures allowed). It was a very odd experience. Right before Josef Mohr's room, the people of the village had hand crafted a miniature version of the Creche (Nativity scene) next to a miniature version of what the city looked like in Josef Mohr's time (it hadn't changed much). To save costs (and perhaps the environment), the townspeople used barbie dolls for the women and hand-made period outfits from old clothing. Despite the cheap materials, the entire scene looked completely real! I really wish I could show you photos, the scene was surreal. I now know how Austrian villagers keep themselves entertained on cold winter nights. I also saw the original copy (its a cheap museum) of Stille Nacht. The church where the song was first sung is actually several kilometers away from the village, but the museum was quite nice. Since I couldn't take photos, I bought a few postcards and some souvenirs for the family and headed back to the workshop. On the way back, I saw this lovely little sunset over the alps.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Now back to the last day of the workshop.....
After the long day before me, I was not looking forward to the 3 hours of student presentations that stood between me and my bed in Marburg. However, I drank some coffee and sat through them anyways. I ended up learning a lot more interesting work. My labmates and I said goodbye to the Uni-Würzbergers and our table companions from the night before, then piled back into the car for the 7 hour drive back to Marburg. Well, it was supposed to be 7 hours. As a fitting closing for the week, the drive back took place in snow and traffic. We didn't arrive back in Marburg until 12 hours after we left Mariapfarr. I checked email for the first time in 5 days, realized that nothing was important enough to keep me from sleeping, and crawled into my own studentendorf bed. Thus ended my Austrian travels. Before I move on to the other posts, I leave you with a link to the photos for this trip. Feel free to leave comments!

Ausria Day 4- Enjoying the farmhouse...

The last day of the workshop, I decided to slow down a bit and enjoy the farmhouse that we stayed in.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

As much as I really wanted to go downhill skiing again, I felt like I had avoided my labmates all week and that I hadn't given our farmhouse a chance to be cool. Instead of heading back to the slopes with Volker and Wenlan, I headed back to a small lunch with my labmates in our farmhouse. I took the opportunity of sunlight to snap a few pictures of the stuffed animals that adorned our house.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

This little guy freaked me out every time we walked down for breakfast. I always felt like he was hissing at me.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The farmhouse was located far up in the hills, so far, that we could clearly see the ski slopes that I had been on the day before.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The farmhouse was very quaint and had this adorable (but incredibly smelly) giant puppy that loved to get attention.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

After I took a short 20 minute nap, I joined my labmate Moritz and headed out to the cross country trail that passed by our little farmhouse. I still had my cross country skis from two days before, so Moritz and I planned on finding out where the trail led. The sky was sunny and clear so it was the perfect day for viewing the hills around us. After navigating the steep section near our farmhouse, the path seemed free and clear. Moritz is seen here saying, "look mom, no poles!" (not really but he could have)

From Austria-Mariapfarr

The trail lead us through snow covered forests and alpine valleys, even more beautiful now that I could actually see them.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

After about 30 minutes, Moritz (wisely) suggested that we head back. I, however, was convinced that a beautiful valley lay just beyond the trees and convinced him to push through. No less than 5 minutes after I convinced Moritz to continue, my last reserve of energy completely gave out. However, stubborn person that I am, I refused to tell Moritz and just pushed ahead anyways. My stubborness paid off as 5 minutes later, we found this amazingly beautiful mountain pass.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

It was like a storybook picture, we even saw a dog hopping through the valley below. We snapped some photos, then hurriedly skiied through the valley and back to the main trail back to our farmhouse. The views were captivating and I kept pausing to snap pictures.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

However, the gently lowering sun reminded us that we had to return for the afternoon session so as quickly as our legs would allow us, we skied back to the farmhouse.

I thought I would make it through the week without a single injury, but on the last slope before the farmhouse, my legs again gave out and I lost my balance on the cross country skis (yes, it is possible to do this). In a scene reminiscent of the day before, I tumbled head over heels. Cross country skis do not release as easily as downhill skis, so my left ski (and leg) ended up criss-crossing with my right leg, twisting my knee in the process. Apparently my camera fell out of my purse and snapped this photo.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I struggled the 100 meters back to the farmhouse, stripped off the skis, and then crawled back into bed for a 5 minute nap. My knee hurt pretty badly but it was still functional, so I swallowed some pain killers and returned to the workshop. After the last session, all workshop participants piled into a charter bus for a catered meal on top of a mountain. I wish I had taken photos, but my body was completely exhausted at this point so anything other than sleep was completely incomprehensible. Despite consuming a cola (something I never do after 3pm) and wiggling my legs, I kept finding myself collapsing into a pile of jackets beside me. We finally left the restaurant at midnight, which meant that I didn't crawl into bed that night until after 1am! I am pretty sure I fell asleep while my head was falling onto the pillow......

Austria Day 3---Downhill skiing

On Day 3, I woke up to gentle rays of sunlight pouring through the window. I ran out to the balcony and saw glorious sunshine!

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Hoping that the sun stayed around, I packed my gear for downhill skiing. During the morning coffee break, I conversed with my labmates and discovered that yet again, they would return to the farmhouse for a nap. Wanting to take advantage of the sunny day, I met up with my Uni-Würzburg buddies again and secured skiing companions for a day. As soon as the morning session ended, we drove to the market, picked up some food and water, then ate our way to ski lift 25 minutes away. After arriving, we quickly found the ski rental shop recommended by the lady in town (12 Euros for a half day rental!), strapped on our boots, and headed to the slopes. One of the Uni-Würzberg colleagues had never skiied before. Since the only other colleague only knew how to snowboard, I ended up teaching the new colleague how to ski, a frightening prospect considering that I had only skiied 8 times in my life, usually on a fake mountain in Indiana. I had never skiied on a real mountain. My most realistic ski experience was two days skiing at a Michigan resort. (Michigan is not exactly renowned for its ski terrain). In fact, I had not stepped into downhill skiis in over 2 YEARS!. However, the colleague insisted that I could teach him, so I spent the first hour of my downhill day remembering how to fall safely, turn, stop, and slow down (in that exact order). I couldn't complain too much as the view from the idiot hill (direct translation of the german word for bunny slope) was still pretty amazing.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Wenlan, was a fast learner so he soon felt confident enough to navigate the easy slopes on his own. Volker (snowboarder) and I (skiier) then took off for the real hill. I was mildly anxious. Mostly because I was still exhausted from the day before. However, I refused to let tiredness overtake me, so Volker and I hopped onto the six seater lift (it even had a little shell that you could close to keep the wind out) and rode to the top. The view from top was AMAZING! The pictures below do not do it justice!

From Austria-Mariapfarr

From Austria-Mariapfarr

From Austria-Mariapfarr

Volker and I rushed down the hill several times. I learned that falling in fresh snow powder isn't very conducive to downhill skiing. AFter a few wrong turns, we ended up on an advanced slope, where I learned that running into snow piles (although a fairly unpleasant experience) does keep you from running into a tree. Note: The Europeans do not block off hazardous slopes, they just assume that you aren't dumb enough to try them. They also don't really tell you which slopes are really hazardous until you are already on them.

However, Volker and I managed to find our way back to the more basic slopes with just an hour left before the lift closed. We quickly rushed down the hill and discovered the joys of mini ski jumps (microscopic is more like it, but I did achieve air time of about 0.2 seconds and still land safely). I eventually regained my ski legs back with enough time to take three more runs in under 25 minutes! On the last run, however, my ski legs gave out and I had a rather dramatic head over heels tumble where snow somehow permeated through my three layers of ski clothing, one ski ended up 2 meters from where I ended up, and my glasses became completely covered in snow. It took me about 5 minutes to put myself back together and meet Volker at the bottom of the hill. Promptly at 16:00, the skilifts closed and we headed back to ski rental shop to return our skis. We found Wenlan, somehow mixed in with a group of schoolchildren. He had given up for the day and take his skis off already. I however, anxious to partake of all the ski time I could, used piles of snow along the way to relive my downhill experience. We packed up our gear, paid for the half day, then loaded into the car for the trip back. After a few wrong turns, we made it back with 15 minutes to spare before the afternoon session started. Before I could return to the program, I had to snap pictures of the amazing sunset in the mountains.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I rushed into the women's restroom to change out of my sweaty clothes and then joined my colleagues at the tables. On a previous hike, I had discovered that dried figs can quickly restore energy to the system, so I snacked on dried figs and managed to stay awake for the last two sessions of the day. The group then piled into the car for a dinner in town, where we happened to find the only hotel with a full salad bar. Since one never gets enough veggies when traveling, I was extremely excited, especially since Austrian and German salad bars feature red beans (all vegetarians or semi-vegetarians know the amazingness of this food). After dinner, the group members piled back into the car for the trip back to the farmhouse to enjoy Austrian beer and dried fruits. I rediscovered the wonderful stretching powers of yoga with my Yoga for Skiers yogaamazing podcast and then fell asleep around 12:30am.....

Austria cont....

My apologies for not finishing with the rest of the Austria entry. I've had a lot happen in the last few weeks (visitors, traveling, traveling + visitors, thesis writing, etc) and I am just not that dedicated to blogging. I'll try to fill you in on the details later. But for now...continuing the Austria story.

Day 2: Massive snowstorm but I'll ski anyways

On day 2, I woke up, peered out the window and saw white. No sun, just white. The light snow the night before had turned into a mini-blizzard. The conference started at 8:45am that day, which meant that we had to leave the farmhouse by 8:30am. We quickly scarf down the fresh bread and homemade jam and load into the car. The driveway up to the road is on a slight incline so we carefully try to drive the car on top of the 5 inches of freshly fallen snow. It turns out that a rear wheel drive car won't actually climb a hill with 5 inches of fresh and 4 inches of old snow. We tried 10 times to get up the hill, at one point coming within 3 meters of the road, only to slide back to the parking area. Finally, after 15 minutes, the owner of the house walks out and tells us to take the hill backwards. We look at him like he's crazy but try anyways. It works! So for the next three days, the only way to get out of the house was to drive backwards. Weird.

We arrive at the conference 15 minutes late and grab seats in the back. If you remember from my last post, I wasn't really registered for this conference, I was just supposed to sit in the back and stay quiet. Our late arrival ensured my spot. However, I should not that because we arrived late, we ended up sitting next to this professor from Berlin. I found out later that he was married to the Chancellor of Germany, so I met the first man of Germany. However, you should never EVER call him that unless you want to be placed on his blacklist. Don't even mention politics unless you want to see an angry German. I really enjoyed hearing about his research on materials chemistry so hope I can run into him again someday. ....Anyways....

The conference schedule for the week looked like this.
07:00 -Wake up, pack for day
07:45am- Breakfast
8:15am - Leave for Conference
8:45am - 10:15am: Conference talk (yes, one speaker, not multiple speakers)
10:15am-10:45am: Coffee break
10:45am- 12:00am: 2nd Conference talk
12:15am- Departure of ski bus
17:00 - "Afternoon" session begins (I love how the afternoon session is really an evening session)
18:00 - Second afternoon session begins (no coffee break)
19:00 - Break for dinner
22:00- Finish dinner, return to farmhouse
22:30- Snacks and Schnapps with labmates
11:30 or 12:30 - Fall into bed

Repeat

That leaves a little more than 6 hours for sleeping at night. I could have taken the option to skip skiing and return to the farmhouse for an afternoon nap, but that would have been crazy. Instead, I decided to "dig in" and go skiing everyday. This meant that I usually dozed off for a few minutes during the 'afternoon' sessions. However, I was shocked to discover that my body could actually keep up with this marathon, in fact, I felt more alive than I had in a long time! It turns out that the body can deal with a lot as long as you pump it full of caffeine and balance it with fruits and protein.

I won't bore you with the details of the talks other than to say that I learned a lot and feel much wiser for having listened. All the presenter slides were included in a book so it was pretty easy to follow along. I will however share a great deal of information about skiing.

On the first ski break, I joined up with some chemists from Uni-Würzburg that I met at the last Austrian conference. My labmates decided to return to the farmhouse to sleep, but I wanted to stay out and enjoy the snow, even if it was pretty nasty outside. So Uni-Würzbergers and I headed to a local eatery to check out the local cuisine (overpriced but filling) and then headed to a ski rental place to rent some skis. After much deliberation, we decided it was too dangerous to downhill ski and instead decided to try Skilaufen, or cross country skiing. After getting fitted and receiving an amazing deal on ski rentals, (7 Euros for skiis and boots per half day!), we headed to the local trail. After spending 20 minutes figuring out how to attire ourselves properly, we finally figured out how to move and set across the lovely expanse of skiland.

Despite the falling snow, the scenary was amazing! The hour long ski run took us through snow covered forests, snow filled bowls, wide open fields, and next to a few quaint Austrian homes. I apologize for the lack of photos. I thought I took dozen of photos on this portion of the trail but I can not find them on my camera. Thus I conclude that I actually didn't take the photos. This photo of the village at the start of the path is the only one I can find. You can see the snow clouds hanging over us. The effect was actually quite nice.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

I learned a lesson the first day of skiing that I should have remembered later. Cross-country skiing in exhausting! It really takes a lot of energy to slide across snow and not fall over. After this first day of skiing, I was ready to collapse. However, I perserved and made it to dinner that night where I dined with current and former students of my boss in Marburg.

From Austria-Mariapfarr

It was really great to connect with former group members and learned how somethings (like the awesomeness of people in the group) never change.

After enjoying our dinner and sampling the local beers (the driver tried non-alcoholic ones), my group then headed back to the farmhouse for Schnapps and snacks. I finally fell asleep sometime around 1:30 in the morning.....and now I will leave for my next post.

Heros are meant to inspire

While traveling last week, I was greatly saddened to hear of the death of one of my heros, Mickey Sampson, the Director of Resource Development International Cambodia.

I first met Mickey the summer before I started graduate school, where I spent six weeks working with RDIC. I wanted to visit RDIC specifically because of Mickey, the person who received a PhD in chemistry but turned down job offers in the US to follow his heart to Cambodia. Since I was about to embark on my own PhD studies, I was very curious to know how a PhD could be used without being a Professor or Physician. I learned how chemistry could be done in developing country (it is possible, but difficult) but I also learned a lot about fulfilling your potential and how a PhD can open doors that you never knew existed.

The history of RDIC is well documented on their website (www.rdic.org) but what is not documented is the effect that Mickey and his team had on people all over the world. Hundreds of people visited Cambodia as volunteers and hundreds more knew Mickey from water purification communities. When news broke of Mickey's (sudden and unexpected) death, hundreds of people on facebook joined a group celebrating his life. I only knew him personally for 6 weeks in Summer 2003, but hardly a week goes by where I don't reflect on some words he or someone from his team shared. I am grateful for the time spent with Mickey and know that I am a better person for have known him. I still keep in (sporadic) contact with his wife and would send him articles on arsenic testing and developments in arsenic water treatment. Its very difficult to express how great an impact he had on my life.

The voluntourism group Pepy Tours put it best.

Today, the world has lost a true humanitarian, scientist, and dedicated change agent who went out into the world and not only thought "Look at all of the problems out there! How could people have gotten it so wrong!" he also thought "I can do it better than it is being done. I can use my skills to add value to this world." and so he did. Mickey didn't look for medals and awards, he surely wasn't trying to scale up anything to have bigger and further results. Instead he was looking to do it right.

I hope that I can follow in the footsteps of one of my heros and use my gifts to not only find problems, but to find the best way to solve them.

Sampson family and RDIC, you are in my thoughts and prayers just like you always have been.

Austria...Background and Day 1

So I thought about writing a post about each day I was in Austria. In fact, I planned on writing the posts on my laptop at the end of every day and then posting all of them when I returned. However, my time in Austria was so packed that I barely had time to crawl into bed before my body fell asleep each night! So now I will regale you with tales of my adventures.

Background: Every year, the central european theoretical chemistry community arranges a weeklong workshop in Mariapfarr, Austria; a tiny little Austrian village with two claims to fame.
1) The author of Silent Night, Josef Mohr, lived in Mariapfarr for two years....more on that later
2) The city is situated on the sunny side of the alps, so in the summer, they offer their Sun Guarantee. You will see sun during every day of your stay or you recieve a coupon for an extra hotel night....more on this guarantee later.
The workshop is highly sought after by both theoretical chemistry professors and students alike due to the location and the fact that the morning session ends at 11:45am. The ski bus leaves at noon (the bus stop is directly across the street from the meeting site) and the lifts close at 4pm. The 'afternoon' session conveniently does not begin until 5pm. Its easy to see why this workshop is popular. :-)

I tried to register for the workshop during the second week of October, but it was already full. My research boss, however, was horrified that I would not be able to experience Mariapfarr so he tells me "You will go to Mariapfarr, I will make some calls" I thought he was joking, but I asked him again during the first week of February, "Are you serious, can I really go?" He made the phone call that afternoon. I was going to Mariapfarr! That gave me 6 days to prepare for this ski adventure. I called my parents that day and asked them to mail my ski pants via expedited shipping. They shipped the pants on Saturday with " 5 business day gaurantee". The pants arrived 9 days later...but more on that later.

Housing and travel were easy. One lab mate was driving a family size car, so I would just tag along with them. My travel meant that I would make the group two girls and two guys, so I would just share the double room with the other girl. Perfect! I frantically tried to finish off all my work, packed my suitcase, bought some snack food for the trip...and I was off to Austria!


Monday: Departure from Marburg
My ski pants had not arrived on Friday, so I petitioned my labmates to pick up me in lab, just in case my pants arrived early Monday morning. We were originally supposed to leave at 8am, but I convinced my labmates to pick me up at 8:15 am instead. I dragged myself and all my luggage to lab and waited at my computer before they arrived at 8:25am(I even got a bit of work done), still no pants. As we walked out the building, I ran into to the recieving room to check to see if the pants had arrived....still no luck. We then walked to the car and loaded all of our stuff. The time as we drove out of the parking lot was 8:45am. I found out on Saturday that the pants were delivered at 8:52 am....no joke...we missed the pants by 7 minutes!!!

Anyways....as we drove out of Marburg I fell asleep, dreaming of a delivery trucks dancing in my head. I guess I should have stayed awake, this was only my third time to ever ride on the real German Autobahn, but to me...a road is a road. The most interesting thing about the Autobahn is that you have to pay 50 cents to use the bathroom at Autobahn rest areas. However, you get a 50cent ticket that can be used on anything in the rest area. Its a great way to pay for cleaning the restroom by convincing people to buy a 3 Euro cup of coffee. The day started out clear but as we drove farther south, the temperature dropped and snow began to fall. As we went further south, the snow depth along the road went from .25 inches to 3 inches to 8 inches. (The fact that its colder in southern Germany than middle Germany will never cease to amaze me, even though I know that Bavaria is a little bit higher in altitude).

We stopped for lunch at Burger King where I finally learned how to properly order a menu item in German (Ich hatte gern Menu eins!). However, I didn't want a full menu, so I ordered a kids menu (Ich hatte gern ein cheese burger kinder menu) The toys in Germany are much cooler than anything I remember in the US, so its always an adventure to explore the nifty little toy I get each time. This time, I got a pink pather flashlight. One of my labmates also ordered a kids menu and we spent about 10 minutes attempting to figure out what trouble we could cause....some things just transcend cultural barriers.. :-)

We then hopped back on the road where I promptly fell asleep again for another hour, then woke up as we came to another rest stop...this one with a US Route 66 theme. I should have taken a picture as the rest stop had licsense plates from all 50 US states...It actually took me a moment to figure out why the theme was out of place...why didn't they show German licsense plates? I've been told that many Germans fantisize about the American cowboys (John Wayne, etc). Somehow Route 66 fits in with this theme...I don't get it. Sorry about the lack of photos on this part...I was too tired to pull out my camera.

After the last coffee stop, I was wide awake. However, I accidentally forgot to bring my sudoku book, so I had nothing to keep me entertained. Instead, I pulled out my macbook and discovered that macbooks don't come with games, at least not stupid ones like Chip's Challenge or spheres. Instead, the macbook comes with one game, Chess. Despite Andy's efforts to teach me, I can't play chess...its just too boring for me. However, I had nothing better to do, so I played (and lost) a couple of times before finally deciding to let the computer play itself (which was actually quite entertaining). Finally, after I thought I would die if I saw another checkmate, we saw the Alps! (sorry no photos here either). We saw Salzburg castle covered in snow and glimpses of snow covered peaks. These sights were short lived since the entire area was hit with a snow storm. Visibility was reduced to less than 15 feet so we had to slow down and stare at the white blanket surrounding us, knowing that gorgeous peaks lay just beyond our sights....

We finally arrived in Mariapfarr around 6pm that night. Our hotel, however, was not located in Mariapfarr, but in a village called Tscharra. We were told that the hotel was only 10 minutes away, but apparantly they thought we were used to mountain roads. It turns out that Tscharra was a farmhouse nearly 5 kilometers away. The snow was falling so hard that a 10 minute trip took nearly 30 minutes as we slowly crawled up the mountain.


Größere Kartenansicht

However, we eventually arrived to the farmhouse, to be greeted by a lovely Austrian family with a house that smelled like farm. Not a stinky smell, just a smell like we grow our own chickens and cows here. Very odd, but comforting at the same time. Our rooms were on the top floor and were cozy with nice warm feather duvets on the beds. (sorry forgot to take a photo) Each room had two twin beds, a table with chairs, a couch, and windows that looked out onto the hills. We also had an in room shower! (this is rather rare by European standards) The four of us cobbled together a dinner from dried fruits, chocolate, pretzels, soymilk, and a strange fruity tasting German bread. We then headed back into Mariapfarr to visit with the rest of the people in the workshop.

We survived the drive into town and found a nice cozy hotel with a large room filled to the brim with computational chemists. Clips of german, english, mandarin, and polish could be heard over the the clinking of beer glasses. After sampling the Austria beverages (including a spiced lemonade-like beverage), we said our goodbyes and headed back to our farm hotel. Ready to crash for the night.

However, as I tried to fall asleep, I ran into a problem...silence. I've lived in a student dorm for 6 months now. Even though my dorm is quiet by Marburg standards, it can still become rather loud at night. I cancel out the noise with fan. At the farm, we were surrounded by falling snow. No cars, no slamming doors, not even a mooing cow! The silence was too much to bear. Thankfully, the ever prepared person that I am, I brought earplugs. It turns out that if you put earplugs in your ears, breathing causes it to sound like you are your own personal fan. Thus, in order to fall asleep, I had to use earplugs to make it louder....I finally fell asleep around midnight...which is where I now leave you with a photo of things to come.

From Austria-Mariapfarr