Opening convocation and the High Table dinner

We processed down the Cedar Staircase behind the bagpiper, Billy James:

Here's a better picture of Billy:

Listening to the convocation speech in the Long Gallery:

That evening, we missed the principal's reception in the Great Hall, because our fancy academic robes were locked in a closet and there was a little trouble finding the key...

But we did make it to dinner in the Long Gallery

complete with more bagpipes.

Classes started today. Pictures of me teaching wouldn't be particularly interesting, so there aren't any.

August 14-15: Germany, day 1

Day one was loooooooooooooooong. In retrospect, we were a little nuts. Or I was, since I made the crazy decisions. It was a planes, trains and automobile day.

Automobile: Drove to Evansville airport.
Planes: Flew from Evansville to Detroit. Sat around for 3 hours. Flew from Detroit to London. Sat around for 6 hours. Flew from London to Frankfurt.
Trains: Caught the train from Frankfurt to Bingen, which is on the Rhine.

The stretch of the Rhine that we were interested in seeing doesn't have any bridges, so it can be slightly convoluted to get from a town on one side to a nearby town on the other. Since the train we were on goes on the 'wrong' side of the river, we needed to change to a train on the 'right' side. We got rather confused when we arrived in Bingen, and convinced ourselves that the train sitting RIGHT THERE couldn't possibly be the one we wanted. So we didn't get on. It was. The next train came an hour later. It was a long day - we arrived in Bacharach at 7:30 pm on 8/15. We had left Evansville at 1 pm on 8/14. The entire trip took 23.5 hours.

But worth it, because this is Bacharach.

Bacharach has a castle. Today it's a youth hostel. We didn't stay there; I couldn't imagine climbing to it laden with luggage.

Dinner was Döner and pizza. Not traditionally German, but yummy, and more importantly, still open.

I can't believe I'll be teaching in this room this semester

I think the students are going to be a little distracted. Heck, I think I'm going to be a little distracted. I mean, the view out the windows is something like this:

And the building looks like this:

Unfortunately (not really) I sleep in a different building.