Yale weekend at Schloss Wartin (Europäische Akademie e.V.)

 

For the third year in a row, the Yale Club of Germany has held its Day of Service at the 18th century Schloss Wartin, an educational foundation which was founded by two Yalies and hosts academic conferences and cultural events.  


The grounds are so pastoral; on my way to breakfast Saturday morning, I walked by a pond with gaggling geese, croaking frogs and a fenced in area with New Zealand sheep. Jochen, a professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and ex-mayor of the town, made us a real English breakfast with eggs sunny-side up, baked beans, tomatoes and toast; Charles, who's just taken a position as a professor in Bangkok, where his lovely wife Nui is from, kept our teapot full.  


 After our substantial breakfast on the balcony, we moved to the garden for some brainstorming under the trees.  Charles and Marc, now a Ph.D. student at Oxford, are planning a conference on energy and the environment in September, so we did our "service" by brainstorming how best bring politicians, industry, and environmentalists together; I also helped Jochen reformat his footnotes for a paper he'll be giving to the German parliament on Tuesday.  

We finished the day with a late evening dinner of goose, a cousin of one of their geese!  Schloss Wartin is always inspiring, and I came back to Eppstein full of stories to tell the boys about environmental projects!