The Penn Stater Magazine

On the Autobahn with Ronnie and Sophie

July 15, 2010 at 2:06 am Tina Hay 2 comments

One of the things that sets this trip apart from other Alumni Association trips I’ve been on is the presence of two faculty hosts: Ronnie Hsia and Sophie de Schaepdrijver, both from the Penn State history department. They’re both very knowledgeable about the areas we’re visiting, and quite a few of the travelers have mentioned what a great dimension they add to the experience.

The drive from Strasbourg to Würzburg yesterday was close to four hours, but between Ronnie and Sophie—and tour manager Mark Godin—we were entertained and informed the whole way.

Since we were leaving France behind and going into Germany, where we’ll spend the rest of the trip, Mark handed out a pop quiz to test our knowledge of Germany. It ranged from “How many world championships does Michael Schumacher have?” (to which some of us replied, “Uhhhhhhh, who’s Michael Schumacher?”) to “When do you shake hands in Germany?”

(The answer to the latter is that you shake hands with someone every time you say hello or goodbye to them. For example, Mark shakes hands with our bus driver, Horst, every morning and again in the evening. In the U.S. we would just shake hands with him when we first were introduced to him and again at the end of the trip.)

Mark also talked about the differences in how much you tip in France vs. Germany, how much people obey the walk/don’t walk signs in France vs. Germany (guess which country’s citizens take the rules very seriously?), and how the breakfasts would get a little fuller now that we’re in Germany. In France, he explained, a breakfast is just yogurt, a croissant, and maybe some cereal. “And if you really want to be French,” he added, “you have half a pack of cigarettes with breakfast.”

Ronnie took a turn at the mic on the bus, telling us about some of the religious conflicts over the centuries, including the one in the 1740s that caused many Germans to emigrate to the U.S. The Archbishop of Salzburg told the Protestants to either convert to Catholicism or leave—and many of them chose the latter option.

Ronnie asked how many people on the bus have German in their heritage, and practically everyone raised their hand. That’s not surprising, according to Ronnie: German-Americans are the United States’ largest ethnic group.

As we got closer to Würzburg, Ronnie talked about the beautiful Residenz we would see there—a palace done in Baroque and Rococo style. The palace’s beauty, he said, “conceals a rough and intolerant past” in which the archbishop ruled the city and in which Jews and Protestants were not welcome.

The commentary wasn’t all serious. Ronnie talked about some of the customs we might encounter in Germany—such as a greater degree of comfort with nudity than we have in the U.S. He also recalled an article he once saw in Der Spiegel debating whether Germans have a sense of humor. (“Like all academic discourse,” he said, “the answer was inconclusive. But thoroughly researched.”) Sophie told a few funny stories. And at one point Ronnie got back on the mic and said, “I’d like to return to the subject of nudity, if I may,” which drew a lot of laughs from the passengers.

On one bus ride on the trip, Steve Walker, our other tour manager, taught us how to read the license plates of the other cars on the road. Most cars registered in the European Union have a blue vertical stripe on the left-hand side of the plate, with the EU symbol and one or two letters designating the specific EU country. “F” is for France; “D”—like the one you see in this photo—is for Deutschland, or Germany; “A” is for Austria, and so on.

Steve tried to stump us with some of the trickier abbreviations: Do you know what “LT” stands for? How about “E”? “CH”? (Lithuania, Spain, and Switzerland, respectively—the “CH” stands for “Confœderatio Helvetica.”)

Today we’re off to Weikersheim Castle, followed by a visit to the town of Rothenburg, another one of those postcard-perfect places with a well-preserved Old Town section dating to medieval times.

Just a reminder that you can see lots and lots of photos from our trip by going to the magazine’s Facebook page and clicking on the Photos tab.

Tina Hay, editor

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Entry filed under: Alumni Association, College of the Liberal Arts. Tags: EU license plates, Ronnie Hsia, Rothenburg, Sophie de Schaepdrijver, Weikersheim Castle, Wurzburg, Wurzburg Residenz.