Touring Jordan

OK, this is not a particularly accurate title because I've been too busy on this trip to do much sight-seeing. That said, if you come to Jordan, and you should definitely come to Jordan - in fact, I would love to bring some students over here on a cultural immersion trip - there are a million things to do. Amman itself is great, with loads of history (the Citadel is located right downtown, next to the Roman theatre, and it has been occupied over the centuries by Romans, Byzantines and Umayyads) as well as stores so modern you would think you were in Paris. Jerash provides some of the best preserved Roman ruins in the world. Umm Qais also has great Roman ruins, and is not nearly as crowded as Jerash because it is tucked away in the northwest corner of Jordan, but is also the location where Jesus is supposed to have driven the evil spirits out of the possessed man and put it in a herd of swing that jumped off a cliff - surprisingly, when I went there a couple years ago I felt fine. The Dead Sea is OK, mainly for the experience of floating in it, although it's way too pricey for my blood - it is a neat place to watch the sun go down over the mountains in Israel, partially because it looks strangely like the sun going down over the New York mountains as seen from Burlington. You can go to Bethany Over Jordan where it is believed, at least by the Jordanian tourist industry, that Jesus was baptized. You can also go to Madaba to look at more mosaics than you could probably stand, and get a shave if you want for on dinar. The desert castle at Azraq is great, especially if you're up on your Lawrence of Arabia lore. I had my ultimate nerd moment there, which is saying something because my life is one long unbroken string of nerd moments. On my first trip to Jordan I was reading Lawrence's Seven Pillars while riding around on the bus with a dozen others professors on a grant to study Middle Eastern culture. When we stopped in Azraq I read, aloud, to the other professors, Lawrence's account of the room he stayed in at Azraq in the very room - including his account of ghosts - in any other line of work I would have been beaten to a pulp, but the other professors were delighted. I had a really profound moment at Mukawir, which was a Jewish fortress on a hill that was eventually taken over by the Romans. It was where Salome danced and John the Baptist had his head chopped off. I was standing up there next to Roman columns while the sun was going down, and the lights of Jerusalem were starting to twinkle, and the Islamic call to prayer started at two different mosques on neighboring hills. It was really emotional. So, a million things to do, although that really wasn't an option this time.

The one huge exception this time was a return trip to Petra. It was a Saturday so university meetings were out of the question. It's about a three hour drive from Amman to Petra if you take the more boring modern road, as compared to around five hours if you take the king's highway. It only took about two and a half hours because the taxi driver was going around 160 kph, which, if you convert kph to mph, converts to really fast. When you think of Petra the first thought for most Americans is the end of the third Indiana Jones movie (and, actually, there is a little gift shop right at the entrance called the Indiana Jones Gift Shop). Certainly, travelling through the Siq and coming out to the Treasury is one of the most amazing moments that you'll ever experience. However, that is just the beginning - Petra is huge. You can walk around for seven or eight hours and still just be scratching the surface. At the end of the day you can walk up the 850 steps to the Monastery at the top of the mountain, which is even bigger than the Treasury. If you go a little further you come to the shop at the end of the world - these merchants carry their wares up to the edge of the cliff overlooking the Wadi Arabia, and it's almost a contest to who can come closest to the edge. Many of the merchants actually still live in the caves of Petra. There is also a massive temple in the center of Petra and endless Nabatean tombs. This time for the first time I climbed up to the High Place of Sacrifice which is on a different cliff. Exhausting, but absolutely amazing. Petra is one of those places that you see and then you can't quite convince yourself that you were there. At the end of the day I got the money shot - a Bdul riding a camel on a Roman road with Nabatean tombs in the background.

Real World Amman

ACOR really is a rather odd, albeit cool, place. There are more students around here this trip than there normally are, which gives the place a different feel. Several students are here taking intensive Arabic courses at the language center at the University of Jordan. They're all nice kids, although I was in the kitchen last night heating up leftovers when an episode occured that had sort of a MTV Real World Amman feel to it. One female student was talking to two male students and it turned into a major dish the dirt fest on another one of the female students - it was priceless. Apparently, as a forty-seven year old man, I was invisible anyway so they just went on talking as if I were not there. I was half expecting to see them later on being interviewed separately by the film crews as they talked about their deepest feelings while crying. Later on I was down in the computer lab working when the disher was coming to say goodbye to the dishee and it was full of "luv ya babes", etc. Pretty funny, all things considered.

Shuttle Diplomacy

Someday, I suppose, Champlain and the Global Modules network will be famous and we'll just be able to alert people when we're rolling into town and they will arrange their schedule to fit ours. Let me wildly paraphrase Uncle Tupelo and say that if there will be a time, that time's not now. Everyone is very nice and, once they've had a chance to really think about the GM approach, they usually become very big supporters. Still, we're a small school pitching a new educational paradigm so we have to work around everybody else's schedule at this point. Since I've landed in Amman I've had multiple meetings at the University of Jordan on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today (Sunday) and will again on Tuesday. The only days that there were no meetings scheduled were on Friday and Saturday (weekend days) and Monday (I'll be down at the Dead Sea presenting at the LINC Conference, which will probably mean meetings, although of the more unofficial kind - as Michelle Miller always says, "heaven forbid you end up next to Scudder in a buffet line at a conference because you will hear about the Global Modules"). The meetings might be Powerpoint presentations to entire divisions or discussions with university presidents or planning meetings with professors where we actually sit down and discuss possible themes and readings or question/answer sessions with students. On Thursday I had a 9:00 a.m. meeting with a dean at Princess Sumaya University, an 10:00 planning meeting with an English professor at UJ, a meeting with a different dean back at Princess Sumaya at 12:00, and then another planning meeting with a different English professor back at UJ at 1:00. Luckily it is only around a twenty minute walk between the two schools.

Working Out in Amman

Finding a place to work out is usually quite a challenge. However, it's never been much of a problem in Amman. Whenever I'm in town I get a six-visit membership at the Madina Gym (it's embarrassing/resassuring when you're already in the gym's computer system). It is a short taxi ride from ACOR - just go down to the next roundabout (something Vermonters understand) and take a left - it's only a few miles and costs about a dollar. Taxis are easy to find, with the exception of Thursday nights when they are almost impossible to find. A couple times on Thursday nights I've had to walk the entire way to the gym, which at least got me out of doing cardio. You just tell the taxi drivers Madina or Sports City or do a pantomime of bicep curls or just point straight ahead and direct them with whirling hand motions when you get to the roundabout. The gym looks like any fitness center in the west and during peak time plays the same music - I heard a lot of Eminem and that song "I got 99 problems, but . . ." a lot. However, if you go in the morning you get the Arabic equivalent of easy listening.

UJ

My main mission in Amman is to continue a dialogue I started a couple years ago with the University of Jordan (although I'm talking to other Jordanian universities as well). UJ is huge. It has around 40,000 students and has almost a large midwestern university feel to it. The picture is of the clocktower in the center of campus, which is where you always agree to meet people before going on to another location for a meeting. Someone over there told me that something like 60% of all Jordanian university students attend the University of Jordan. I think there are a couple small dorms for women across the street from the campus, but beyond that itis completely commuter (which is really much more common around the world than the US residential college model). The diversity of the student body is fascinating, especially in regards to the dress of the female students. You will see many women dressed in a very conservative style with only the eyes showing (even down to wearing gloves), others dressed in a completely western style, and many somewhere in between.

The size of the place provides unique challenges and opportunities. With a university this big Champlain would only need a tiny sliver of their courses to more than take care of all of our Global Module pairings, although, obviously we want far more variety than that. However, it's also a greater challenge to find a way to tackle a school that big, as compared to the simplicity of talking to a small university. In the case of UJ it was partially a case of simply showing up again and again until they realized that I wouldn't take no for an answer (I'm like the devil from that horrible mini-series Storm of the Century - "give me want I want and I'll go away"). Sometimes I think we forget in the US what an email, faceless society we are. In most of the rest of the world it is almost an insult to simply email back and forth, especially when starting a partnership - instead, it is more customary and preferred for you to show up and do the ceremonial dance of sharing tea or coffee (I don't know how my bladder is going to survive, I have to have another cup at every meeting, hour after hour). One of the reasons why I've suddenly made such great strides is that 1) there is no suddenly about it, these are relationships I've been forged for years, and 2) Champlain has given me the resources to visit these places and talk to folks face to face and thus I can build trust. The other key to the recent success at the University of Jordan is finding the "right" department and the "right" individuals. We've found a home in the Division of Arts, and especially in the English Department. Dr. Ahmad Majdoubeh, the Dean of Arts, is a very big supporter. Inside of English we have great supporters such as Rula Quawas, Inas Ababneh and Lazaward Sughayer. Rula is currently running her third GM, Inas is running her first, and Lazaward is planning her first for the spring semester. In addition, they are very active in bringing in other faculty members. To be successful with every new university you always need a Rula. She is a ball of fire and just walks up and down the hall stopping by every office to talk to everyone administrator, professor and student. She is like a force of nature and she's been essential for the progress we've made here and I look for a new Rula at every institution. I think we could almost fill half of our COR 120 sections with GM links just from the Arts division here at UJ, although, again, I'll almost certainly try and bring in more universities to create even greater diversity in the discussion. We also have to keep in mind that we'll be expanding the GMs into second year courses like Spirituality & Belief and Capitalism & Democracy, which would also be great fits for Global Modules, so I'm also laying the groundwork for future classes as well.

Hamdil'allah Hamdil'allah

My luggage showed up my second full day here around noon, which meant that I only had to do a couple days worth of presentations in the same jeans and shirt that I travelled in. The other day a photographer came in to take pictures of me while I was running a powerpoint presentation and he was dressed much better than I was. I get hit hard by lost luggage because it's hard for me to stow away clothes as a carry-on because I already have two carry-ons I can't live without - my laptop computer and my CPAP machine (I have profound sleep apnea, so having the machine lost if I bury it in my suitcase in just not an option). Of course, carrying the CPAP is it's own little joy because the machine itself is about the size of a toaster with all sorts of wires and hoses coming out of it and even I think it looks like a bomb. So, anyway, for the moment life is good - clean clothes, toiletries, notes and books - hamdil'allah hamdil'allah (thanks be to god)!

The House on the Hill

This is my fourth trip to Jordan, and the fourth time that I've stayed at ACOR, the American Center of Oriental Research. ACOR is a big white stone building (like every other building in Amman) on a hill across the street from the University of Jordan (it's about a ten minute walk downhill to UJ, although a steep climb back up the hill). It's run with US government money and with private donations and it's established to give travelling American professors and students an inexpensive, safe place to stay when they're in the region doing research. It's $30 a night, room and board. Well, the board is really only a big lunch, which is almost always "comfort food" and not some exotic Middle Eastern delicacy. Yesterday we had fried chicken and today we had meat loaf. You cook your own breakfast (or pour a bowl from these seemingly self-perpetuating boxes of cereal that look suspiciously like the ones that were here on my first visit in late December 04, although they never run out). Supper is leftovers from lunch. It has a great library and some real archaeological treasures squirreled away down in the basement. You meet the most amazing people just sitting around chatting over lunch - folks that are out digging at Petra or finishing their tenth book or even lunatic Vermont professors pedalling an international online network. It's like the big nerd dorm on campus. Everyone is extraordinarily friendly and there is a real collegial atmosphere here. I remember on my first visit here I cajoled a bunch of professors to get up at 3:00 in the morning so that we could watch the college football national championship game broadcast live. People are always around if you want to go out to a restaurant or grab some ice cream or just sit around and talk about just about anything. They also have a great collection of DVDs that visiting professors have burned over the years and left as parting gifts so there is always something to watch on TV. It's in a nice neighborhood where you can walk up the hill and see some nice houses and a mosque or down the hill to find shops and restaurants. There is always a guard with a machine gun in front of the place, but I suspect that is simply because of the US connection. I've always felt completely safe both in ACOR and in Amman. I walk all over the place or jump in taxis and go all over the city and have always been treated warmly by everyone I've ever met here in Amman. ACOR itself has sort of become my home away from home.

Amman

OK, I'm back in Amman, Jordan for the fourth time (which is not something I ever thought I'd find myself saying a few years ago). I arrived last night a little after midnight, but the evening quickly became a late one because my suitcase (much like Tom Bombadil from The Lord of the Rings) irresponsibily wandered off. That left me to fill out forms and hope against hope that it eventually shows up - not only because all my clothes are in it, but also the medicine I need for the upcoming Africa part of the trip. Groan. I just hope this isn't a repeat of the Morocco fiasco where my suitcase was gone for five days. So far giving major presentations in jeans hasn't caused any harm, but it's not something I enjoy doing. I think the professors here view me wearing jeans as a charming peculiarity of American professors, although I go way out of my way to explain what happened and apologize for being so informal. I'm in the middle of a number of meetings set up at the University of Jordan, which is across the street from where I'm staying. I've been showing up here at UJ year after year and I think I've just worn them down. The English department here are huge supporters of the Global Module approach and are thinking ways to expand it to other programs as well.

Pazmany Peter Catholic University

The process of finding new GM partners is an odd one. There is a lot of thought that goes into picking out countries and universities, but some of it is just a process of adapting on the fly. A few days before taking off on the last trip I almost cancelled the Hungarian leg of the trip because I didn't think it made sense as I was balancing out the cost of the trip and the reaction I was getting from a couple Hungarian universities. I actually contacted my travel agent about just flying back early, but in the space of a couple hours I heard what it would cost to change the flight, and found a cheap hotel, and received a couple very hopeful emails. As it turns out the Hungarian leg of the journey ended up being remarkably productive and Hungary may end up being a foundation of the expanding network. I've already talked about one of the universities, Corvinus.

The other Hungarian university is Pazmany Peter Catholic University. You take a pleasant forty-five minute train ride out of Budapest to the village of Piliscsaba. Finding the right train station can be a bit iffy in Hungary because they don't spend a lot of money on signage. Instead of a series of signs that run parallel to the tracks, you often only have one sign that is facing towards the front of the train (so it benefits you to sit up in the front of the train). I kept getting out of the train at each stop to see if I could spot the sign. Luckily, the stop for the university, Pazmaneum, was very well marked and had a quaint little station, which you walked through and right into the university itself. The university is a smallish school, about the sign of Champlain itself, with a very strong liberal arts tradition. I had a series of great meetings with Marton Beke from the international program, Gyorgy Domokos, the Vice-Dean for Foreign Affairs, Kathleen Dubs from the English department, and Karoly Kopasz, a student who works with Marton Beke. Kathleen Dubs had some wonderful ideas for Global Module themes, including using portions of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for a Global Module focused on perceptions of "the other." Karoly Kopasz was tremendously excited about the project and was checking out the new GM website while we were having the meeting. He couldn't wait for me to get back to the states to get the official OK so that he could get other students at the university to post on the general discussion forum.

The Glamorous Life

At every new stop one of the first chores is to find Internet access. It might be at the hotel, but it might not be. Some of the Internet cafes are really nice, and others are a bit iffy. I remember sitting in an Internet cafe in Aurangabad, India taking care of staffing issues and, with the exception of the electricity in the city giving out every twenty minutes or so, the system worked pretty well. There was a great Internet cafe (albeit a bit too expensive for my blood) right around the corner from the Hotel Wandl in Vienna - the great advantage was that you could get a melange brought to your little table while typing away. I spent six hours propped up in front of a big window in an Internet cafe in Madrid, which provided a great location for taking care of business and also watching the world go by. In Budapest I was staying at the Mercure Budapest Buda, which was cheap as long as you didn't get wifi (or eat breakfast). They essentially wanted $10 an hour for wifi or a special deal of around $40 a day. Instead, I went across the street to a little Internet cafe, although calling it a cafe probably does disservice to the work cafe. That said, Internet access there was only around $1.50 an hour. You went up the stairs past the Lego store and took a sharp left. There was a round table with computers, which half the time was in complete darkness. While all of the computers worked, only one worked really well (it's the one on the right in the picture - I still have very fond memories of that computer).

Bizarre

There are many reasons to visit Castle Hill in Budapest. Rising above Budapest on the Buda side of the Danube is Castle Hill, which is the old historic center of the city. There are several museums, including the National Gallery. There is St. Mattias Cathedral, which is beautiful. There are narrow cobblestone streets, shop and restaurants. There is also one of the odder places I have ever visited - the Labrynth. It is a little hard to find, although there are some signs. It is on Uri Street and it is very easy to walk by it without even noticing it - in fact, it looks like the entrance to a basement cafe. The Labrynth is, on one level, what the name suggests - the old series of caves that run under the Castle Hill. I thought I would check it out because it sounded sort of like the Catacombs in Paris, which I love. However, this is very different. A lot of folks over the years have used the Labrynth, from various Hungarian rulers to the Soviets, so I suspected it would be heavy on the history. Actually, there is none of that. There is no guided tour at all. You just walk down into the darkness by yourself. There are sound effects, ranging from heart beats to rhythmic drums, but very little lights - only the occasional candle or dim bulb. It's as if the entire Labrynth was given over to a mad art school student with a budget. There are human like figurines that wait in the dark for you. I actually just about scared an old woman to death. I was kneeling down at the base of a staircase trying to get a picture of some very spooky crosses placed on the stairs when I suddenly stood up - the old woman next to me screamed because she thought I was one of the figurines. In one of the last rooms there is a giant head half-"buried" in the rock. There is also a fountain with red wine flowing, although it looks like blood. I don't know if I learned anything, but it was definitely entertaining.

Corvinus University

OK, sorry to keep hopping back and forth between Austria and Hungary (I feel like a Habsburg emperor), but now that I have finally figured out how to post on this one computer - and before I start the trip home tomorrow and things truly get crazy - let me try and get caught up a little. The first university that I visit in Budapest was Corvinus University. It has a long and storied and wandering history. For a long time, under communist rule, it was renamed Karl Marx University (and, as you can see above) there is still a statue of Marx in the main part of the building. There is also a small, wall-mounted plaque honoring Imre Nagy on the far opposite wall, but it has now been obscured by a tree that has been moved in front of it (and, if you know anything at all about Hungarian history it all makes sense). The very fact that I was buying Corvinus University t-shirts for my son in the former Karl Marx University is about as obvious an indication of the victory (at least for now) of the capitalist world over the communist/socialist one. The building itself is very historic. It is located right on the Danube, on the Pest side, and it used to be the old customs house. There used to be a train track that ran right through the middle of the building (where Marx is sitting now). After the fall of the Soviet Union it was named Corvinus in honor of a scholarly Hungarian king of the fifteenth century (a golden age in Hungarian history).

Corvinus is very excited about the Global Modules project, especially in the economics, business and history departments. We should have at least a couple GMs up and running with them in the Concepts of Community classes this coming spring semester. I think they are so excited about the project because of Hungary's own struggle to join the EU and to fashion a more lasting connection with the rest of the world. In one of the many meetings I had with faculty members and administrators, I also had the chance to sit down with some doctoral students in economics, and I think they were the most excited of anyone. They were suggesting GM themes during the meeting and started emailing me more ideas before I had made it back to my hotel.

St. Stephens

And on a happier note, let me see if I can post a few pictures of St. Stephens, the massive cathedral in Vienna that sits on Stephensplatz. It is only a couple blocks away from the Hotel Wandl, which makes it very easy to visit at the end of a day of meetings - it is also right off the metro line. You can also go to the roof (although I kept missing out this time by routinely getting there five minutes too late). There are a lot of restaurants and shops in the neighborhood, and it is about a three block walk to the Hofburg, so it is a natural spot to visit in Vienna.

Oh, and I am able to post these pictures because I found the one computer at the little local internet cafe that I frequent that actually will allow me to do so.

Terror Haza

If you ever visit Budapest (and you should definitely visit Budapest) be sure to travel out to 60 Andrally Ut to visit the Terror House. Andrally Ut itself is a lovely, wide tree-lined bouelevard with a vague Parisian feel about it. If you walk the distance of it, from the city center out to the monuments and the park, you will get a sense of the city's former grandeur, its decades of decay, and its current efforts at resurgence. The Terror House is dedicated to the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944 and especially the decades of Soviet domination. The location itself, 60 Andrally, has special significance because it was the actual headquarters of the Soviet secret police. It is a very spooky place, with pictures on the wall of every person who died there during the decades of Soviet control. In every room there are those heavy black rotary phones that used to be the norm - if you pick one up it will tell you the story of the room. The phone messages are in Hungarian, but the rest of the museum is fairly English friendly, including handouts in most every room and some of the films subtitled in English. There are a couple rooms I don't think I will ever forget. In one of the rooms, which was lined with the actual case files of prisoners, they were showing a Soviet documentary of the trial of Imre Nagy after the aborted Hungarian uprising of 1956. Sitting there in that room, watching that film, with a few very old Hungarians, some with almost ashen faces as they viewed the documentary, was staggering. When you get on the elevator that takes you from the second floor down to the basement, the lights suddenly go out and a film starts playing on the back wall of the glass elevator. It is a man talking about the process for executing prisoners. While you watch this you can see the pictures of the dead on the far outside walls and a huge Russian tank in the lobby. In the basement there are the actual, reconstructed prison cells, along with the pictures of people who actually died in the rooms. Devastating, but also something not to be missed.

Villach

Last week I travelled from Vienna to Villach, in southern Austria, and back again, to present at the ICL Conference there. The train ride down was very pleasant, although it started out with the frustration of missing the direct train to Villach by around forty seconds. That meant that on the next train, about an hour later, it was necessary to switch trains twice, first at Mar an der Bruck and then at Freisch. It was easy to to, although it also precluded taking cat naps for fear that I would sleep through the station where I was switching. The other problem was that because of the mad rush I did not have any food with me and the stop at stations was too brief to grab anything - my one attempt left me jumping back onto the train, after unsuccessfully trying to buy something, just as the train was leaving. The other problem was that the first train of the day had a cafeteria car but I did not make it down there, foolishly thinking that the others would have a cafeteria car and I would catch up later. As it turns out I had a direct trip on the way back and had the glorious opportunity to eat at the cafeteria car . . . well, it was not quite the same experience Cary Grant had in North by Northwest. The food was pretty institutional, although the experience alone made it worthwhile. The waiter told me that there were only two choice, the specials, and he waved off my first choice (although I saw it go by on a plate about ten minutes later). The one big advantage to the direct ride back was that I could grab a few naps. The train ride was around five hours both ways and it was absolutely beautiful. You can take a plane down to Klagenfurt (about twenty minutes away from Villach, although even that is a little confusing), but I would definitely take the train.

The conference itself was pretty good, although also pretty technical (of course, everything seems pretty technical to me). The Global Module approach was very well received. The moderator, a Greek professor, who had critiqued the first two presenters, actively supported what we're doing at Champlain. When someone from the audience raised the issue of the discussion being carried out in English, the moderator even went so far as to point out that the conference would not even have been held without the existence of English as a common language. The support was nice. Part of expanding the GM network is getting out to international audiences and spreading the good word. Villach is a lovely little provincial town with a river running through the middle of it. There is a lovely little cathedral, St. Jakob's, and you can climb up to the top of the tower (think the closing scene of Vertigo - I am full of Hitchcock references today). There were also more representations of soldiers in armor in that church than just about any one I can ever think of.

Budapest and the West

Hungary is the process of joining the EU, although it has been a bumpy ride (as it has for much of eastern Europe). They desperately want to be considered part of the European mainstream (much as it is with the Spanish as well). However, the transition is not easy. They have not converted to the euro yet, although they were supposed to have completed the process by 2006 amd then 2008 and now the target date is 2010 (although many experts think 2014 is more realistic). In the meantime they continue to use the Forint (often shortened to the HUF). The exchange rate is something like 174 Forints to a dollar. It is interesting because the historically weak US dollar is also suffering against the Forint - last year the exchange rate was something like 213 Forints to a dollar. I know this is supposed to help the US in trade with Hungary (as part of that huge US-Hungarian exchange of wooden figurines and chess boards), but it makes it tough for Americans travelling overseas. The Hungarians are having trouble qualifying for EU investment money because they have a very high national debt and are currently in the midst of some tough governmental economic reforms for EU membership. I talked to Istvan Benasces, the economics professor who has been a big supporter of the GM project here, about the whole process of EU integration and globalization. I was talking about whether or not Hungarians were opposed to the whole McDonaldization of the world. He said that when McDonalds showed up in Hungary it was actually viewed a good thing because it meant that Hungary was becoming a part of the bigger world trade picture and felt that it represented capitalism and democracy as Hungary came out of communism. He also said that McDonalds was appreciated because they have famously clean bathrooms, a relative rarity in Hungary. By the time you do the currency exchange here it ends up costing around five or six dollars for a meal at McDonalds, the same as in the US, but it is a much more expensive five or six dollars here than in the US, so in a way it is a symbol of new found wealth. Istvan told me that as an assistant professor he makes around five hundred fifty dollars a month, but is OK because he has other sources of income and his wife works as well.

Generally Americans are viewed very positively in Hungary, although they have their own frustrations with the Americans. One of the biggest is that even though the Hungarian leader supported Bush on the Iraq War it is still necessary for Hungarians to get a passport to travel to the US, while their neighbors in Austria do not have to jump through that hoop. For this reason the Hungarians feel sort of let down - why is it that the French and Germans, who were actively opposed to the war, get to come to the US without a passport but the Hungarians cannot.

The Budapest Metro System

Just a few minutes because I am running off to meetings at Corvinus University (the former Karl Marx University, but more on that later). Budapest, like the rest of Europe apparently, has a great public transportation system. It is easy to figure out, even if you don't speak Hungarian (and no one speaks Hungarian). That said, I have doubts if OSHA would be so impressed with the system. I was riding the other night thinking that the subway trains just seemed to be travelling faster than the metro trains anyplace else I have ever ridden, and boy those cars do bounce up and down a lot. The stations themselves are very clean and look new, even though it is supposed to be one of the oldest metro systems in all of Europe. The cars, on the other hand, are pretty rundown. What struck me was the fact that the escalators that connect the different lines have to be the fastest and steepest escalators I have ever seen anyplace. Naturally enough, after thinking this, the other night I was riding up a steep escalator when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see someone falling down the down escalator next to me. Falling does not do it justice really - it was somewhere between flying and the opening sequence of the skier from Wide World of Sports going head over heels. He eventually ended up a crumpled mess on the stairs and the last I saw of him he was not moving - just gently travelling down the escalator. He was surrounded by other commuters who were looking after him and the metro officials were hurrying to his aid - and I am sure, sadly, that they are well-versed in the process. So, definitely visit Budapest, but definitely hold on tight to the rail on the metro.

Vienna and Museums

While my struggles with the Internet keep me from posting any pictures (I will try to get some posted later in the week) I do want to take the opportunity to at least write about some of the things I saw in Vienna and now Budapest. Vienna is really starting to grow on me. While it is more sombre than Madrid, although most of the world would fall into that category I guess, it does have a definite charm. It does a pretty good job of balancing out the modern with the ancient. It certainly feels like a new city, but it is also awash in history. If you like museums, and, come on, what nerd doesn't (obviously, I am talking about other folks because I am completely cool - OK we all know what a big lie that is) then Vienna is a great city for you. While they are spread out over the city, there is a healthy concentration of them in the Hofburg. The Hofburg is the old imperial palace of the Habsburgs, or it might be better to say palaces. The grounds are extensive, including numerous massive statues of leaders like Maria Theresa and the ubiquitous Hercules. I visited the Albertina because they were having an exhibit of Monet and Picasso, although neither of them would naturally draw me through the door. On my last trip to Vienna I visited the same museum because they were having a Picasso exhibit, so the person who runs the Albertina must really like Picasso. As it turns out this particular exhibit didn't actually have that many Monets or Picassos, but if it gets folks through the door . . . That said, I've now decided to rename the Global Module project as the Global Monet and Picasso Project and see what it does to the walk-up traffic. Of course, my decision to change the title of my dissertation from The Tudor Concept of National Security to Love's Savage Fury: The Turdor Concept of National Security never did lead to that movie deal . . .

Last year I also visited another museum at the Hofburg which featured an eclectic collection of ancient musical instruments, medieval armor, and material from the ancient site at Ephesus (where the Austrians have been digging for a hundred years). I had a great time and was tempted to go again, but instead decided to visit the culture and history museum, which is also part of the Hofburg grounds. It had a wonderful collection of Egyptian, Greek and Roman material, including an amazing display of Roman jewelry - which goes to show you just never know what you will find amazing on any given day. I would not have bet a tired dime that a display of Roman jewelry would be fascinating, but it truly was. The same museum had an extensive art museum including over forty Peter Paul Rubens paintings. They also had an extensive collection of medieval paintings. For all the failings of the Hotel Wandl (apparently my home away from home - I am passing through it three different times on this trip) it is only about four blocks from the Hofburg, which makes for great museum viewing.