The First Road Trip

In the time since the last post I've done quite a bit of driving and seen lots of very cool things, both in Mississippi and elsewhere.

A quick arithmetic briefing before I get into details:
American Military Bases Count: nonzero
Sate Count: +1 (current total: 38, though maybe up to 40.)
State Capitals Count: +1 (current total: 15, plus maybe one or two more?)
Synagogue Count: +3 (current total: I have no idea. Probably >100)

The first few pictures are pre-trip:

Last weekend there was a neighborhood picnic in the park around the corner from my house, the park where the community garden is. Pretty much the only foods there that were vegetarian-friendly were the desserts, which was fine by me. Apple pie, brownies, cookies, raspberry tortes, watermelon...yum! Then I stayed at the park for a while reading In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez) in my hammock. I'd seen the movie in Spanish class in high school, but missed most of it because we weren't allowed to have the subtitles on. 

I went back for more figs, I couldn't help it! They're so deliciously sweet.

The art museum has a hexagonal display of hexagonal mirrors at slightly different angles such that the above effect is achieved. Pretty cool.

The Natchez Trace runs from Natchez, MS to Nashville, TN (440 miles), including a stretch through Jackson. The trace consists both of a parkway and of a walking/biking trail, and a couple weeks ago I decided to check it out, as it's the closest thing to hiking in this part of the state. (Actually, in most of the state: Woodall "Mountain" in Tishomingo State Park--in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains--is the highest point in Mississippi and is a whopping 807 feet. But it's so far north it's practically Tennessee).
I think it could be really cool to bike the entirety of the Trace when I finish my two years here.

When I saw the sun setting I realized I should probably head back to the car, but I stayed to watch just a bit longer. One thing I've noticed in Mississippi is that there's so much sky here! There aren't really any tall buildings (the tallest in the state is 348 feet and it's in Biloxi; the tallest in Jackson is 318 feet, and it's the only one over 300 feet), so there's nothing really to break up views of long stretches of the sky.

Sunset at the Trace.

More from the Trace

On my drive back from the Trace I pulled into a parking lot to watch the end of sunset because it was just as beautiful there.

On Tuesday morning of this past week, two of my coworkers picked me up in our rental car so we could hit the road for our first community visit road trip of the summer. Summer visits are designed to take advantage of geography, so the three of us went together to hit the northeastern part of the Florida panhandle and southwestern Alabama in Dothan (my community).

We looked at our driving route and saw that I-98 bumped right up against De Soto National Forest and decided that would be a nice lunch spot on our way out of Mississippi. Only when we drove into the park and followed what looked like a sign for a trailhead, it turned out that somehow we'd entered Camp Shelby, a joint-forces military training camp in use since World War I. Oops. We're not sure why the Arabic (?) is there--maybe to help the soldiers acclimate to what they'll see when they're deployed?

This is who we were sharing the road with. Nobody told us to leave, and nobody asked us what we were doing there.

We left Camp Shelby and soon enough passed a sign for Lake Perry, where we (finally) ate our picnic lunches.

One of the stained glass windows in the chapel of Temple Emanu-El in Dothan, AL, one of the communities I'll be working in this year. Dothan is actually one of the few small-town Jewish communities the ISJL works with that I'd heard of before taking this job because last year it made the the pages of the New York Times with a story about a "Family Relocation Project" that aimed to bring 20 Jewish families to the congregation/community by 2016, and in exchanged offered $50,000 to each family.
Funny and irrelevant side note: The website http://dothantemple.org/, which I thought was the synagogue's website, is in Japanese.

Florida's capitol in Tallahassee! Actually, the building in the front (with the ridiculous candycane awnings) is the Old State Capitol. The tall building in the back is where state proceedings actually happen now. At our pizza parlor meeting with members of the congregation we met a Tallahassee newbie and history buff who offered to take us to see the Old Capitol Museum and the state history museum the next day, which we happily took advantage of.

Inside the (new) capitol building. I'd never been to Florida before, so this trip added me both a state and a capital to my list.

Turns out we had almost a whole day of down-time in Tallahassee, and everybody we asked said the best thing to do would be to go to Wakulla Springs State Park.  I was picturing something along the lines of Yellowstone's hot springs and geysers, but when we got there it was actually a mini-lake with a high-dive and docks. And the water was free-zing.  I made sure to dunk all the way under to make my mama proud before we headed off to find some trails. Those weird stump-y things coming up from the swampy ground are actually tree roots!

Apparently, Wakulla is the world's "largest and deepest freshwater spring"--and unlike the big body of freshwater I'm used to from home, this one has alligators in it.

Some 'shrooms.

Since our first "event" of the day on Friday was services at the synagogue, we left Tallahassee early enough to have time to play at the beach in Panama City in the Gulf! It was glorious. I've never been in a natural body of water that warm before--the water felt like it was at least air temperature, if not body temperature (which were probably not that different from each other on that day, actually).

Thanks Gideon for having an ~~~ moment and writing to me about your State Count right when I was trying to figure out mine. Though this website is intended for tracking your election predictions, it's also a really good way of marking which states you've been to (and how many total electoral votes you've hit). So here's the key: BLUE (38) means I've been there. RED (2) means I'm not sure. And TAN (10) means I haven't. [A note about qualifications: Everyone has their own rules about how to count where they've been. Some say just driving through is enough, some say airports count. My rule is that I have to use a non-airport restroom.]

Now I'm back in Jackson until I head to Shreveport, LA (and Galveston, TX) on Aug. 6.

Moving to Jackson, MS

A few people have requested that I take up the Blog Formerly Known as the Prague Blague, since I am once again in a new place doing new things with with new people and will be traveling quite a bit. I can't promise that I'll be as diligent about this as I have been in the past, but I'll try, at least for a bit. And at the very least, just as a good way of saying bringing family and friends up to speed with what I'm doing now.

A few words of introduction: Exactly one month and one day ago I became a resident of Mississippi, or "The Hospitality State," as my new driver's license proudly advertises. I moved here (specifically, to Jackson) to begin a two-year fellowship with the education department of the Institute of Southern Jewish Life. Yes, the very same place where I interned in the summer of 2012. Essentially, the ISJL works with Jewish communities all over the south, from Texas to Virginia, to help document their histories, preserve their communities, and enhance their Jewish educational opportunities and religious experiences. As a Fellow, I'll be "attached" to 6-7 specific communities and make visits to each 3 times a year running programming, coordinating services, teaching classes, and really whatever it is I'm asked to do. Our big conference is this weekend, and shortly after I'll find out which communities I'll be assigned to for the upcoming year!

But I've gotten ahead of myself. I'll give a brief outline of what has happened in the past months since I became a Mississippi resident:

 As soon as I was done with finals, I met my dad in Jackson to set up logistics for my move. We got everything done (got a license, registered a car, got license plates, set up water for my apartment, got car insurance, and visited the state capitol!)

I flew back to campus, and a couple days later, drove up to Maine to go hiking with friends. We spent a couple days in the White Mountains (on the Maine side of the border) and a couple in Acadia National Park (in eastern Maine). Both of these photos were taken in Acadia, on one of the most beautiful hikes I've done. The colors and textures were so vibrant! It was a wonderful week, and exactly where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing with some great people. 

I arrived back on campus the night Reunions (capital R, plural) began. The absolute highlight for me was getting to (re)introduce to each other two men who hadn't seen each other in 75 years, both of whom I interviewed for my senior thesis on the development of Jewish student life at Princeton, between 1915-1972. On the left is Henry Morgenthau III '39 (97 years old) and on the right is Joseph Schein '37 (99 years old). As a student in the 1930s, Joseph Schein led the Jewish services for the (very small) population of Jewish students on campus. I was fortunate to have the honor of walking with Henry Morgenthau in the P-Rade alumni parade, at his 75th reunion.

And then I graduated!

And a few hours later I was on my way to the airport to start the next two years of my life! Except the airport gods had other plans that involved "sleeping" overnight in the Atlanta airport. It was Shavuot (a Jewish holiday celebrating the receiving of the Torah), so I downloaded a sound file of the book of Ruth (the book traditionally read on the holiday) and celebrated that way. I finally made it to Jackson on the first flight the next morning.

There have been some incredibly beautiful sky things happening since I've been down here:

My fourth night down here there was an incredible lightning storm. It was almost midnight and I was heading to bed when I saw huge flashes coming from outside and immediately grabbed my camera and headed out to watch. 

Two nights later I was at Shabbat dinner at a friend and coworker's house (I have coworkers!) and stepped outside to grab something from my car when I looked up and saw this. The contrast is not as stark here as it was in real life, but on the right (south) side, looking west, there was a light, fluffy-looking pink cloud taking up most of the sky and the light blue strip right next door made it look like cotton candy. But to the north was an incredibly ominous dark grey rain cloud. (I also saw a rainbow that day!)

Mom called me to tell me to go outside and look at the moon, so obviously I did just that. This is what I saw from the street in front of my house. 

And now a little bit about settling in:

This is my house!

And this is my porch swing! The first few
days I ate ever single meal on the swing :)

This is my room. The postcard collection has been
in the works for a long while--one is from a high
school friend, sent to me at camp in 2007!

And these are my Mississippi Frizzies!

There have been two poignant frustrations in the past couple weeks: 1) One of my boxes never arrived! According to the tracking website, it went from New Jersey to..... California, and then to Memphis. And then disappeared. An actual quote of something I said to one of the tens of USPS employees I've spoken to by phone in the past week and a half: "I know it's probably a federal offense for you to open my package, but I can tell you exactly what's in it in case you are allowed..." (I wrote up an incredibly comprehensive list and it's currently circulating in Jackson, Memphis, and (hopefully) the package recovery warehouse in Atlanta. So what's in the box? All my thesis books and all my books on Mississippi and the Civil Rights Movement. Hopefully I'll get it back...

  2) The internet. I didn't have it until two days ago. And then when they finally sent the modem, etc., it turns out that my house is too far from the cable connection point outside, so the signal doesn't work. Probably the funniest thing about the whole mess is every time you call they tell you "you know, you can set this all up online!" Um, the whole point is that I can't, because I don't have internet, which is why I'm trying to get internet. Anyway, after too much hold music and much back-and-forth, the technician finally came out; now it's working, though they still need to tighten up the distances so it's as fast as it's supposed to be. Let me tell you, trying to move and set up all the new things one has to set up when when moves--or trying to deal with a lost package--without internet is a real pain. 

And a bit of civil rights before signing off:

Last Sunday I drove up to Philadelphia, MS for the kickoff of the Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Commemoration. The ceremony--a memorial/commemoration for James Chaney, Andy Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, three Freedom Summer volunteers murdered by the KKK in Philadelphia, MS that summer because of their work. Some of those in attendance included Bob Moses (third person from left in the chain), Dave Dennis (to Moses' right), Rita Schwerner-Bender (next to Dennis), former Governor William Winter (behind Schwerner-Bender), and Congressman John Lewis (second from right in the row).

This upcoming week is the Mississippi Freedom Summer 50th Anniversary Conference, and the ISJL is helping to coordinate some additional programs, events, and speakers. One of those is a gallery tour of the This Light of Ours photography exhibit currently up at the Mississippi Museum of Art; coincidentally, the curator (and one of the artists whose work is included) is Matt Herron, a Princeton alumnus ('53) featured on the June issue of the alumni magazine. I sent him an email to see if he might be in town for any of the conference, and it turns out he is--and invited me to attend the gallery tour he's giving on Thursday!

The final post: Munich and Salzburg (cue "Sound of Music" songs)

The last few days in Prague were a whirlwind of taking tests (6), writing papers (4, including a 7-pager that I wrote in 3.5 hours. New record!), Seeing Things I Hadn't Seen Yet, packing, and eating blintzes for Shavuot. Then I headed off to the subway at 6am to catch a 7am bus to Munich (in Princeton, someone always offers to help me clunk my suitcase down the stairs to the NJTransit; not so in Prague, apparently). 

MUNICH/MITTENWALD:

One of the highlights of the afternoon of wandering around town with Michele was the middle-aged Bavarian man we met at the flea market of the City Museum: he started chatting with us, gave me two postcards, and upon learning that I'm from Chicago, said he'd been here once (the airport) on his way to Madison to visit his brother; apparently, he had a chance meeting with the then-governor, though his brother didn't believe him until the governor's secretary recognized him the next day! When we left, he gave us some enormous Bavarian radishes to eat. The City Museum is right near the Ohel Jakob Synagogue of the new Jewish Center Munich (their webpage is all in German), where we went for services. It was much nicer than the shul in Berlin, and although it was huge with not many people, felt like more people were singing along. Final count: on this trip, I went to services at nine synagogues in six cities (this doesn't include cities where I went to synagogues but not during service time). 

The weather report said that Saturday was going to be the only all-nice day the whole time I was in the area, so we booked a train ticket to Mittenwald, from where there are lots of hiking trails in the Alps! Yes, this is really how perfect it is up in the mountains. 

Even after leaving the area, we could hear the clanging of the bells around the necks of the sheep. 

"Good [morning] [plane] jumping [through] the moon."

Van Gogh! I think I tried to draw this painting in 5th grade art with Debbie.  Many of the museums have a special 1-euro entry fee on Sundays, so Michele and I seized the rainy day to check out the new and old art museums. 

After the museums, I went out in the drizzle to see part of the enormous Englischer Garten. This is the Monopteros, in the southern part of the park. I did a lot of walking and couldn't sit down on any of the benches since they were all wet, so I kept walking through the park, trying to figure out where I was, and eventually made my way out and onto one of the main streets again. 

I found him!

On my wanderings, I came upon Konnexion Balkon playing near the old and new town halls. I'm not really sure what they do, except that their newest CD is modern interpretations of classical music (ie: Pachelbel's Cannon) with modern lyrics/rap overlayed. And the cellist is really, really enthusiastic. And by enthusiastic I mean really weird. According to YouTube, though, they also do some pretty fancy and formal stuff. 

On my way to the subway, I spotted this piano in the middle of a square outside one of the university buildings; since no one was playing and the square was pretty unpopulated, I sat down for a few minutes to play J.D.'s Boogie Woogie, the only piece I remember well enough to play (part of) without music. [Also, that kid is awesome. And he's the only one I could find on Youtube who does the phrasing like I do.]

On Monday morning I did one of those Sandeman's Free Tours, and it was actually pretty good! Although I'd seen most of the buildings before, just from walking around, it was great to get a chance to learn what everything was. This is the New Town Hall, and apparently I'm lucky to have missed the glockenspiel display, because it's annoying; I saw the Prague one, though!

The ceiling of the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of our Lady) has a menorah on it; during WWII, the church helped save lots of Jewish ritual objects. As thanks, when the Church needed restoration work done, the Jewish community contributed a lot of money, and the Church put in a menorah as its symbol of gratitude. 

The Hofbräuhaus started as the royal brewery of Bavaria, but then the royal family decided it wasn't fair to keep the best beer away from the citizens... Now the beer hall is open to the public; while Hitler and the Nazis held the first party meeting there in 1920, the tour guide was quick to point out that this was far from the HQ of the Nazi party--they held meetings at many breweries and beerhouses (it's where you have meetings in Munich, apparently). 

Hitler also made speeches from the Feldherrnhalle, apparently, which is ironic because the lion on the left of this picture, with its mouth open and facing the government buildings, is meant to indicate that a people should be free to criticize and speak out against its government; the lion on the right, facing the church and with its mouth closed, symbolizes that no one should speak out against the church...

The Theatinerkirche is very strange, in that all of the ornamentation inside is white plaster, a big contrast to the fancy gold/etc. ornamentation that I've seen in most other ornate churches around Europe. It was built at the demand of the court priest, who chose the cathedral as his gift for successfully praying for a male heir to the throne of Ferdinand Maria; according to the tour guide, the priest wanted the king to be able to see the cathedral from the palace, as a constant reminder of "who's really in control around here." 

After the drizzle cleared up (every day seemed to have about 30 minutes of rain, followed by beautiful blue skies with lots of sun) Michele and I rode out to the Olympic village, and asked around until we found the apartment block where the 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in the 1972 Olympics. 

There was a concert going on near the main stadium of the Olympics. 

 SALZBURG:

First stop: the Mirabell Gardens, including the dwarf garden where part of the "Do Re Mi" scene from The Sound of Music takes place. 

This is looking down on  Kapitelplatz, the Residenz, and the Cathedral from the hike up to the Salzburg Fortress.

Somehow, they get away with charging lots and lots of money to get into the fortress, and fail to discriminate between those who want to see the museum/state rooms/etc. (not me) and those who just want to see the fortress itself and the view from the top (me). So instead of paying, I continued walking along the trails of the Mönchsberg Mountain above Salzburg, and found my way to this beautiful overlook. Some UWMadison grads did a whole photoshoot for me! 

In the very back you can see the Salzburg fortress; other notable buildings include the Kollegienkirche (closed for renovation), the Old and New Residenz, and the Cathedral (which greeted me with a choral concert when I stopped in!). 

Just weird. 

The Bavarians (and the tourists who the shops are targeting, I suppose) really like their traditional outfits. 

Serendipity led me to the Department of Jewish Cultural Studies (housed in the Old Residenz building) , where I asked someone to point out where the synagogue was. Unfortunately, it was closed so I couldn't see inside, but the Brazilian couple we met at services on Friday came to Munich because they were saying Kaddish and Salzburg doesn't have Shabbat services, apparently.

I think they love bragging about Mozart even more than Hyde Park loved bragging about Obama on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 (this is where Mozart was born). 

yum.

Mandatory Abby And All Her Stuff picture! Not sure how I ended up with the baby-pack on front, even though on the way to Prague I didn't have it and on the way back I had less stuff (gave all my sweaters and books to someone who was visiting from Princeton). And somehow the lady at the airport was very nice that my hiking backpack was way over the weight limit and told me "good luck" but let me get by without paying. 

It seemed fitting to end a semester in Europe with a beer on the way back home. 

And that just about wraps up the semester...Facebook photos will follow (eventually). Thanks for reading!