The Internet or the lack thereof

OK, so I have moved on to Budapest and am still having Internet problems. I have some great pictures that I would love to post, but inconsistent or expensive Internet access is making it a little more difficult than usual. Apparently I will have to put some pictures on my memory stick and then transfer them. I am sitting in a little hole in the wall Internet cafe in Budapest that is across the street from my hotel, the Mercure Budapest Buda. In the hotel it will essentially cost me around ten dollars an hour to get wifi (if I can get it to work, it is the same system that I struggled with at the Hotel Wandl in Vienna). So, I walked across the street and am paying around a dollar and a half an hour. Of course, I am also sitting in the dark at one of five computers set up on a round table. Still, I do have a budget to nurture . . .
No trouble getting here this morning. Again, that amazing European public transportation system. In Vienna I paid 67 euros for a round trip ticket to Budapest. The train left on time and was perfectly comfortable. I figured out the Budapest metro system and bought a week pass so I am set there. Starting tomorrow morning I have a series of meetings stretched over three days with Corvinus University in regards to the Global Modules project. They seem really excited, so I am looking forward to the conversation. No time to sight-see so far (the hotel has a fitness center so I booked for the rest of the day). Maybe later in the week.

Danube University Krems

As always, the main chore of travelling is to promote the Global Modules network, either through presenting at conferences or visiting universities. We want as many different voices represented in the international dialogue as possible. We're focusing on creating a strong foundation in Africa and the Middle East, two areas that are all too often either ignored or vilified. That said, we also other parts of the world included as well. Obviously, we want European universities and we're trying to get a variety of schools. Last month I visited two universities in Sweden, and this trip I'm talking to multiple universities in Spain, Austria and Hungary.

One example of a potential Austrian partner is Danube University Krems. It is about an hour outside of Vienna, meaning that you travel around on the great intercity train system and then jump on one of the S lines that head out of town. Danube University Krems is an innovative school that is only around 15 years old and has around 3000 students. Our local champion is Sabine Zauchner. Her interest in the project shows how even in the academic world there are advantages to "networking." I met a professor from Klagenfurt University in Austria when Michelle Miller and I presented on the Global Modules at a conference in Hyderabad, India. The Klagenfurt professor then asked me to present at a Learning Communities conference in Klagenfurt, where I met Sabine after my presentation. She then encouraged me to visit her school and now it is paying benefits. They are interested in getting involved in the Concepts of Community core class for the spring semester, linking up for a couple Global Modules, and then, hopefully, expanding from there.

Vienna

Sorry if I haven't posted much from Vienna. I'm staying at the Hotel Wandl and the Internet options are really limited. There is supposed to be a link through the room itself and wifi in the lobby (both of which you have to pay extra for), neither of which actually work. So there is only one common computer in the lobby, which is constantly busy. The other option is a local Internet cafe around the corner. That said, the Hotel Wandl has a great location, and compared to the Hostal Persal from Madrid it qualifies as luxury accomodations. It is located at the Peterplatz and is right across from St. Peter's Church. One of the statues of the church stares in my window. The hotel is about two blocks from the Stephensplatz, where the massive St. Stephen's Cathedral is located. I'll have to post a picture of St. Stephen's later. I'm reviewing the ones I already took and none of them do it justice (it's massive).

Vienna is a lovely city to visit, although after Madrid it seems pretty sombre. My friend David Kite described Vienna as "heavy", and it's actually a very good description. The architecture and statues are all pretty massive. There are a lot of statues of Hercules, although I'm not exactly certain why. Maybe it was the seemingly Herculean task of keeping the old Austro-Hungarian empire together that made it seem like a good choice. I was in Klagenfurt, Austria last year and there was a statue of Hercules fighting a dragon in the main square, but he looked more like an Austrian shopkeeper than a mythic hero. It is a very expensive city to visit (and, to be fair, to live - it's not as if they're just sticking it to the tourists). I'm in the middle of a long trip and was pressed for time so I just had the folks at the Hotel Wandl do the laundry. We don't need to talk about how much it cost, but next time I'll just bag it and go looking for a laundramat.

El Gatos

OK, I've made it to Vienna, and am having the usual internet problems. I could make it to this site, so I guess that is a step in the right direction. The trip here was relatively uneventful, although Madrid once again earned it's reputation for being a citz of night owls. I left my hotel at 5:35 a.m. to go catch the Metro to go to the airport and there were thousands of people in the streets heading home. Granted, there was a special celebration where everything, including the Prado, was open all night, but somehow I don't think these folks are probably any different on any other Saturday night. When I made it down to the Sol Metro station there were a couple hundred folks sitting on the steps and waiting for the doors to open. I figured this had disaster written all over it, but I didn't have a choice. However, and pleasantly, when the gates opened everyone walked down them in some sense of order (albeit a drunken one) and made their way to the tracks. Once there the people on opposite sides of the tracks, who must have spent the night partying together, began to sing songs in unison and dance. Ah, Madrid.

Hostal Persal

OK, I know I have to just let this whole Hostal Persal thing go, but this is a pretty wretched hotel. The folks at the front desk are great and very helpful, but this room is tiny and the air conditioner leaks and the wifi was out half the time and the volume on the tiny wall-mounted TV was so low that I couldn't hear it and the elevator was down for a while. Still, it does have a wonderful location and a restaurant, which, while not great, does make breakfast in the morning easier (Madrid is not a big breakfast town, as you might expect from a town that is up all night). If you ever stay here just don't accept room 211. I tried to stay at the Hostal Cervantes, where I stayed before, but I couldn't confirm my reservation because they had the telephone and fax numbers reserved on the webpage. It's only 45 euros a night and is only a block from the Prado, but it's also a place that you'd almost have to go into on a dare (although the staff is nice and it has wifi). Oh, one last thing and I'm getting off the net, take a look at the shower. If you have to curl your toes to be able to stand in the shower basin then I just think it's too small. OK, OK, I've got to let this go . . .

Toledo

On extended trips like this one weekends are a little weird. It's difficult to do any direct Global Modules business, although I send out enough e-mails to give it the old college try. Usually one of the days is a travel day, and, typically, I'll be flying out early tomorrow morning for Vienna. That still leaves one day, and it's often the only time for some actual sight-seeing. Luckily, one of the University of Alcala professors, Carmen Flys Junquera, volunteered to drive me out to Toledo. I was planning on going out anyway, but this saved me the trouble of getting back on the Spanish train system (which wasn't a problem) and also provided me with a great tour guide.

Toledo is a beautiful city with a rich Visigothic, Jewish, Moorish and Christian history. In the Catedral de Toledo is possesses one of Europe's great cathedrals, which was great to see because Madrid does not have a great cathedral. The Catedral de Toledo took around 350 years to construct so you can see a series of architectual styles as you make you way from the back of the church to the front. There's a picture of it on top, although I didn't try to take one inside - flash photographs are forbidden and I've tried to take a lot of pictures over the years in situations like that and they never seem to work out too well. Plus, the cathedral was so incredible I would have had to take a hundred pictures anyway. It wasn't quite Notre Dame, but it's about as close as you can get.

The Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes was also pretty spectacular. It was ordered constructed by Ferdinand and Isabella (the same Isabella from the Columbus stories). She was a very strong ruler (and put up with Ferdinand's constant womanizing) and there was a definite effort with about every square foot to emphasize her equality with him as a ruler. Remember, when they married the united and created Spain, and she wasn't just along for the ride. There's a picture above of chains on the side of the church. Apparently they were actually taken off Christian prisoners freed from the Moors and they were put on the church as a remembrance. The Monasterio also has a great central courtyard, complete with some great gargoyles.

There's not nearly enough time to talk about all there is to see in Toledo, at least not and still get packed before my flight. The streets are cobblestone and wind around the city at odd angles. Toledo rests on top of a hill and the river curls around the base of the hill on three sides so it was a natural for defense. It sort of reminded me of Fez, although the streets were not as narrow and it was not quite as insane. Unfortunately, the streets are wide enough for cars and, even though this was supposed to be a no car day in Toledo, they did buzz through the narrow streets at an alarmingly fast rate. It's a definite must-see if you're ever in Spain. It's only around an hour outside of Madrid.

OK, time to pack and get ready for the fight to Vienna. Don't know how much I'll be on, especially with pictures, in the next few days. The last time I stayed at the Hotel Wandl I had constant internet issues and could never get it to work with my laptop in my room, so I would spend hours in the lobby on the hotel computer. It's amazing that at one time I didn't want to come to Spain - now I can't wait to come back.

Tapas

Madrid really is an amazing place. Before I showed up here the first time I wasn't really that excited to go. My graduate work is in 16th century British history and I must have had some leftover Armada thing going on, but I just didn't think that I'd like Spain. It just shows how wrong you can be. I was coming back from Amman, Jordan and this was the connecting option and the price was right so this is why I ended up in Madrid. They say that politics is like making sausage, you don't really want to know how it's done. Putting together the Global Modules network sometimes feels that way. There's lot of time spent researching and planning, and there's also a lot of sheer dumb luck and adapting on the fly. If I know I'm going to fly through some place I'll quickly contact the local universities, test the waters, and then, depending up their response, decide whether or not to extend my stay. I had some real preliminary talks with the University of Alcala, they were positive, so I stretched out my initial stay in Madrid - and seriously began my campaign with the University, which has now borne fruit. It tends to work like that.

So, I decided to give Madrid a try and fell in love with it immediately. For some reason I thought the Spaniards were more dour - again, I think it's that whole English propaganda in painting the Spanish in dark colors. Instead, they are warm and fun-loving people. I know it seems like I romanticize all these other countries, and they are certainly not utopias, but in a lot of ways they simply seem a lot saner than Americans. The Spanish say that they, like the Australian claim, work hard and play hard. Well, I don't know if I've seen the work hard part yet, but they certainly play hard - or at least have a really nice balance between work and play. Yes, they don't work as many hours as Americans do, but they also don't own as much as Americans own or consume as much as Americans consume, and well, they just seem a lot happier to me than Americans do.

Central Madrid is a marvelous place to stay, even if you're stuck at the Hostal Persal. The place is honeycombed with all these fascinating cobblestone alleys heading off in different illogical directions. There must be hundreds of bars and restaurants here. It sort of reminds me of the best of New Orleans - the wonderful spirit, but without the silly, annoying excesses. Madrilenos love the late night so much that they are known as gatos (cats) because they only come out at night. As I've mentioned, dinner doesn't normally start until after 9:00 and going to a club certainly couldn't begin until at least 11:00. This is wonderful, of course, unless you're a 47 year old historian, who is heading back to the hotel as the party is getting started. One of my fondest memories is of watching the Spanish team play a world cup game in a tapas bar - the crowd was insane.

The bars here pride themselves on serving their own unique brand of tapas (hors d'oeuvres). All of them are fantastic and most of them are pretty cheap. A couple tapas makes for a perfectly fine dinner. You can just wander through the streets and find the tapas bar that fits your mood at the moment. Last night I tracked down the first tapas bar that I visited on my earlier trip to Madrid and relived my first tapas experience: one anchovy and two sardines and tomato on bread with olive oil drizzled on top (pictured above). It doesn't sound like much, but it's fantastic. After spending hours online today I was tired and wanted something quiet and quick tonight so I dropped into a little hole in the wall. The tapas were great - marinated salmon with onions and capers on bread, and then some sort of cooked crab dish - a few olives - and a couple beers - a nice meal for about ten euros. To top it off, they were playing country music. On the big screen TV they had on some dedication to Willie Nelson and I got to see him sing a duet with Lucinda Williams on her song Over Time - I'm a nut for Lucinda and that is one of my all-time favorite songs. And then I had the bizarre experience of seeing Willie sing a duet with Keith Richards on We Had It All. I figured that I must have gotten some bad tapas or something. The other thing that makes this like New Orleans is that the competition between the tapas bars is so intense that the food just has to be great or they can't stay in business - one of the few instances of capitalism actually working.