Tübingen

On Tuesday, we drove two hours to Stuttgart to pick up Stefan's mom, Helen, whose tenant had driven her west from Steinebach to meet us. On the way back to Freiburg, we decided to stop off in Tübingen, location of the eighth oldest continuously operating university in Germany. The university was founded in 1477, some 380 years after Oxford, some 13,000 years after the area was likely first settled, and the very same year (surely not coincidentally) that Tübingen expelled all of its Jews (allowed back in 1850).

Unlike Freiburg, most of Tübingen survived WWII intact. The Altstadt thus includes many original wattle-and-daub houses, the oldest of which date to the 14th century; parts of the Schloss above the Altstadt are yet three centuries older. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon meander.

Freiburg University

The University of Freiburg was founded in 1457 by the Habsburgers and is the fifth oldest university in Germany. In a 20th-century addition to signify the pursuit of knowledge, statues of Aristotle and Homer (by C.A. Bermann, 1915) keep watch outside the hallowed halls of the Jugendstil Kollegiengebäude I. Inside the Kollegiengebäude III, a depressing, poorly lit assembly of cast bronze female figures--the Nine Muses (by Bettina Eichin, 1986)--reminds students of the unparalleled joys of higher education.

Germany's students aren't particularly thrilled with their universities at the moment. For the past few months, they've been holding demonstrations to protest the rising costs of tuition and a shift in degree programs to something more akin to American bachelor's and master's degrees. Freiburg students have been holding a sit-in in the Audimax lecture hall since mid-November.

Tuition at German universities costs a few hundred Euros per term. Is that a burden students and parents, or all tax-payers, should bear? Many tax-payers here think society as a whole benefits when its individual members are well educated. Of course, these are the same tax-payers who think society benefits when everyone has access to affordable health care. That just goes to show what kind of dangerous thinking a quality education can lead to.

Lund*

Stefan disagrees with my assessment, but I believe we've just returned from visiting the Urbana, Illinois of Sweden: Lund, Scania.

There are some obvious differences, of course. Lund boasts a beautiful, bright Romanesque cathedral dating from about 1100 (modified several times since then). Inside the cathedral, near the main entrance, is an astronomical clock that was built in 1424 and restored in 1923. At 12 noon and 3pm every day, two knights on top of the clock clash swords to mark the hour; two heralds raise their trumpets while a hidden organ plays In dulci jubilo in two-part counterpoint; and three Magi and four servants process with gifts in front of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus. The lower part of the clock includes a terrestrial calendar that's good every day until 2123.

Urbana doesn't have a cathedral, but consider this: both Lund and Urbana are home to world-class universities surrounded by miles and miles of fertile farmland in all directions. Lund University was founded in 1666, but several of its campus buildings are contemporaneous with those at the University of Illinois (founded 1867): think ornate plasterwork, wrought-iron railings, mosaic floors, and carved, richly stained wood. To outsiders, both towns appear flat, but the locals appreciate that there really are hills and ridges--really. Large student populations mean lots of bookstores and cool coffee shops to be chic and profound in. And the welcoming, interesting, book- and travel-loving faculty we met would surely get along delightfully with my parents' circle of friends at Illinois.

Plus, Swedes have freezers large enough to store more than one flavor of ice cream at a time; they call the first floor "the first floor" instead of "earth level" and the second floor "the second floor" instead of "the first floor"; and almost everyone speaks fluent English--just like people in Urbana.

From the Urbana of Sweden, we returned to the Copenhagen airport, flew back to the Savoy of France, and drove home to the Madison/Eugene of Germany.

*Even farther from southern Germany