Dagstuhl Seminar
One of my writer friends said “an essay is a way to express a status of your life, however beautiful and liveness, the true the better.” Okay, this essay is more like a collection of tips noted to my future self. I felt my memory capacity is fuller as I am getting older, I need to write things down.
Dagstuhl seminar is an invitation-only prestigious academic seminar, mostly organized by European and US scholars. It is hosted at a remote location in Germany. Each time, there are around 20+ scholars gathering here for a week, for discussing and working on a trending research topic. Unlike huge conferences, such a small-sized seminar is my recent favorite, we can have in-depth discussions and make closer friends. The academic atmosphere in these seminars is very good, often reminding me of the intellectual discussions, philosophy walks seen in movies and books.
This building is called “Castle”, is the earliest seminar building and there are also rooms to live in.
We sometimes go for a walk nearby after lunches or have some wine in the cellar during evening discussions.
There is even a music room.
Love these simple and adequate bedrooms. It has a full closet where you can hang your clothes and put them in draws like at home. The bathroom equips everything although their shampoo and conditions are just so so so I often bring mine from home. During covid, each room is loaded some testing kit and masks. Remember to pack an Euro-US converter for your charge. The seminar here has some, but it is good to remember to bring your own.
My way of dealing with jetlag is sleeping whenever you feel sleepy and getting up whenever you are bored at sleep :). Just remember to pack some snacks for the first 1-2 days, as there is no food here in the middle of night when you wake up. For example, right now is 5:34am in Germany, I already ate some snacks, had a shower, edited several papers, talked to some students, and now writing a blog. Well, I am supposed to be at the breakfast 7-8 am and at the seminar at 9am. I probably will crash any time :). One difference of attending the seminar when I am getting older is I try to take it lighter and enjoy it.
One important note I want to make is about traveling to Dagstuhl. When I was junior, I felt it is such a complicated process to get here. Over the years, I finally realize it is just flying to Germany Frankfurt and then taking two hour trains to the Türkismühle train station via RE3. Of course, there is a local train S8 (4 stops, 13 minutes) connected from FRA (following the sign of train and go to the platform 2 and 3) to the main train station, Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof (hbf). Then there is a taxi ride from the Türkismühle train station (RE3 stops here) to Dagstuhl (20 minutes, 76 euros). I often pre-book train tickets on the DB website and email Taxi Martin (info@taximartin.de) to pre-book a taxi. They are like my old friends, and often kindly reply quickly “oh there are another 3 more people arriving at this time, do you want to share the taxi for a cheaper price” :). The RE train is fairly comfortable and easy to work there. I typically book return train tickets during the seminar after I meet people and figure out if we should go back together.
How to plan the time? From FRA, it takes 1-1.5 hours to get out of the airport, like for this trip, there is a super long line at the passport control. Then you can hang out at the train station 1-1.5 hours easy to buy some snacks for yourself and gifts for your friends and family. There is a cool book store and a chocolate store. That means, you can book an RE train about 3-3.5 hours after you land at FRA. Note that you will need to pack light, as in the airport and train stations many escalators here are not available, so you have to carry that luggages down the long stairs by yourself. I typically leave US Saturday and arrive here Sunday afternoon, and then leave here Friday afternoon, flying back on Saturday morning. Frankfurt is a good place for shopping if you want to stay one more day here on Saturday. My favorite coats and shoes were bought from Germany :).
One more tip, taking some Euro coins, for example, the bathroom at the train station takes 1.5 Euros.
A fun story — at the train station, I was eating a german pork knuckle. There is this bro sitting across my table also devouring a pork knuckle. He finished every piece of meat on it and kept nodding at me and the boss at the food counter, “wow, this is super yummy”. I noticed that his pants and belt dropped below his waist. I like those happy, natural and ordinary people from all over the world.
