05.29.08

An afternoon in Salzburg

Posted in Travel at 3:46 pm by sophiaca

We left Prien and headed for Prague. Our good intentions of getting to Prague before the end of the day were thwarted though, when we found we’d missed the only close connection for the day. Oh well. We caught the train to Salzburg and spent a few hours there, waiting for the connecting train to Prague.

Salzburg is a great place to while away a lazy afternoon. After dumping our backpacks in lockers at the train station, we made our way through the Mirabell Gardens, then across the river (making a detour past the Hotel Sacher shop in Salzburg, just to pick up a piece of the wonderful Sacher Torte, brought in from Vienna especially).

The area around the cathedral was full of markets – mainly stalls of various trades and craftsmen – blacksmiths, silversmiths, musical instrument makers, timber-workers, and the list went on. And of course lots of people wandering around enjoying the late September sunshine. When I lived in Germany I had spent a lot of time in Salzburg (at Christmas time it’s just beautiful), so I wanted to visit a couple of my old haunts.

One of these was St Peter Stiftskeller – a fantastic restaurant, part of which is carved into the cliff-face. As much as I would have loved to stop for some of the delicious Goulaschsuppe, we only had time for a cappuccino (and photos of course). This restaurant would have to top my list of best restuarants in Europe – the atmosphere, the food, the service. It certainly must have something going for it – it’s the oldest restaurant in Central Europe, open since 803AD.

Alas, after our coffee it was time to make our way back to the train station. We did however stop to listen to, and buy a CD from a street artist – spanish guitar (and very good spanish guitar). Even if you are only ever passing through Salzburg, I would highly recommend taking a few hours to wander around – there is a lot to see, even if you’re short on time.

05.28.08

Moving on from Budapest – Prien am Chiemsee

Posted in Travel at 3:05 pm by sophiaca

After ECDL2007 had finished, my husband and I took a week and a bit to have a break and travel around, before heading back to Australia. First stop after Budapest was Prien am Chiemsee, in southern Germany. I lived in Prien for a few months, back in late ‘99. I hadn’t been back since, but as it’s quite a beautiful little place I really wanted to go back.

Nothing had changed (apart from there being no snow at that time of year (Sept), whereas it was covered in snow when I was there last). We managed to get to Prien on the last weekend of their big summer season – so everyone was still out and about, and all the “touristy” things were still in full swing.

We took a boat out onto the lake (Chiemsee) and we caught the ferry across to the islands – for those of you looking for somewhere nice to visit, Prien is lovely. The largest island on the lake has a castle built by Ludwig II of Bayern (slightly crazy guy) who built lots of castles throughout southern Bavaria. The smaller island houses a convent. We stopped for afternoon tea at a beer garden type place on the Fraueninsel (island with the convent). My gastronomically-adventurous husband decided that the un-refrigerated smoked herring in the cabinet looked like a good bet (the smell was enough to turn me away!) – it was served with pickled horseradish and a slice of good solid brown bread. Hubby hadnt tried pickled horseradish before (it’s hot hot hot) so got a bit of a shock when he took a large mouthful. The smell of the herring lingered with us for the rest of the afternoon…

The highlight for me though, of our day and a half in Prien was Sunday night. We had seen posters around the town advertising a target shooting competition and my husband was keen to find out more – alas, we couldn’t find where this competition actually WAS. Late Sunday afternoon, we inadvertently stumbled upon the location of the competition (in a guest house / pub / gun club sort of behind the town). We decided to have a go, and I who have never held a gun before managed to take out the Women’s Competition, and actually came second overall. After some confusion and much bayerisch conversation, we established that as we would not be in town by the time the award ceremony was on, I would receive my prize there and then (a lovely watch!). I was absolutely chuffed, and can’t wait to go back to visit FSG.

ECDL Workshop – Towards a European Repository Ecology

Posted in Institutional Repositories at 2:33 pm by sophiaca

This workshop took place on the last day of the ECDL2007 Conference in Budapest, Hungary. The participants were from all over Europe, and each had slightly different purposes in attending the workshop. One of the things that struck me during the day was that although everyone comes from different backgrounds and circumstances, they were still keen to talk to each other and find out how other people were approaching the concept of repositories within their own institutions, and what difficulties people were finding.

Several presentations were given on an actual “Repository Ecology”, and people’s interpretation of what that meant. There was quite a range of interpretations, and of course, many of which varied from what MY interpretation had been – it was clear that we had all thought of Repository Ecology based on our own backgrounds and experiences. All the presentations given though, were extremely valid and also showed that the concept of what a Repository Ecology actually is, is perhaps too broad to be functional.

We had a couple of quite technical, indepth presentations of how an ecology such as this would exist. Based on my experiences at the time (being part of the RUBRIC project which was such a large collaborative effort), my primary thought process when looking at the concept of a Repository Ecology was how it would work on a ‘people-scale’ – ie how people would communicate effectively, what tools they would / could use to facilitate this, who would be a central point of contact / driver, what infrastructure has to be in place to support this. So this was what I based my presentation around. I guess it’s a different level of looking at the repository ecology concept.

What I really enjoyed about this day, was that no one was trying to be prescriptive and say that Solution X was the only way to go. Instead, everyone was giving their input into all the different levels of the Ecology and how they would operate. I found it a very worthwhile day, and really enjoyed seeing people from such a variety of repository backgrounds get their heads together to come up with suggestions about how to establish a Repository Ecology throughout Europe. I’ll be keeping tabs on what happens from here, to see how it all develops.