Biomap

Since we'll be losing our home in the next few months, I've been thinking a lot about the places I've called home for the past (almost) 40 years. Here's a little map of where I hung my hat. I'll update it when I get more information organized or feel like expanding some of the stories ... which probably won't be for a while since we're leaving for Europe in 2 weeks. We'll fly to Frankfurt to meet up with our friends, then fly to Barcelona for a week before returning to Germany. Afterwards, Stephen comes homes and I settle in Marburg until the end of August. When I get back, we have the pleasure of finding a new home for the next 2 years ... because I swear on a stack of Bibles that I won't live in Texas after I finish the Ph.D.

Heidelberg

The first Sunday we drove about 90 minutes south to Heidelberg to walk through its old town market and climb the hill to the castle. Heidelberg is known for its university--the oldest in Germany--and the roster of important thinkers associated with it: Hegel, Gadamer, Habermas, Jaspers, and Apel. We also saw the site where Hannah Arendt once lived. It's a bit weird, I think, for tourists to use these philosophers as points of interest. I can name a handful of colleagues from my university who would visit this town solely because Hegel walked these streets. I just went to see what I could see, not to do the pretentious "walk of fame" circuit. I swear. We didn't even stop at the university to search for the lecturn where Hegel preached dialectics. (Why do I feel like I need to defend myself...?)