As a first-year student at UMaine in 1986, I took a German class. I figured I should take one because my mother's side of the family is German. Well, one class became two...became three...on and on. I started going to German Club meetings, and all the kids who'd studied in UMaine's Salzburg program would bring photos and stories about their year abroad. In 1989, I visited my UMaine friends in Salzburg and I knew that I needed to take part in this program.
In 1990, 35 of us went off to Salzburg for the school year. It was a year like no other. The things I learned, the people I met, the trips I took, the many ups, the few downs--in short, the year changed my life. My resident director and UMaine professor, Herr Roggenbauer, along with Frau Roggi, showed and taught us so much about his home country. We were in great hands.
Eighteen years later, this is a kind of half-way point in my career. It's time to reacquaint myself with a city in which I've already spent three years of my life (Salzburg pulled me back again in the early 1990s--I worked for a boarding school where my wife-to-be also worked!). It's time to look up old(er) friends, see what new buildings have been erected, visit family in nearby Regensburg, and brace myself for all the new German words that have been adopted...essentially English words with a German twist!
I guess it's my turn. UMaine and my wonderful current employer, The Pennington School, have allowed the pieces to fall into place so that I can have the opportunity to lead a crew of college students on a journey. I only hope I can do the students justice just as Herr Roggenbauer, now a retired resident of Salzburg(!), did.
Will you come to Salzburg? If you do, you must be warned. You won't want to leave. You'll have to go back again, just know that right now. After visiting this city, never again can you happen upon "The Sound of Music" on TV and not end up watching the rest of the movie!
Herr Käse
