Streetwise Professor

I’ve been incommunicado for several days, up in the Austrian Tyrol, where the internet is but a rumor, for the most part.  (Yes, TRex, there are parts of Europe where internet access is difficult, at best.)

The weather was appalling, but the valleys I visited were stunning.  Even though the highest peaks were shrouded in heavy cloud, and I had only glimpses of the rocky and glaciated summits, the views were spectacular.  Makes me wish I was a skier, although some of the slopes look downright suicidal.

Like I say, the weather was bad.  Under 10C in the valleys, with a constant drizzle: exactly freezing at 2000m, an elevation I reached via a ski lift.  There was snow both evenings at elevation: today starting about 1800m there was about 10 cm of wet, heavy snow.

Not exactly what I was expecting on the first days of summer, but that’s life in the mountains.  Enough to whet my appetite for a return visit.

The trip to the area south of the Inn followed a very enjoyable three days of teaching in Geneva, at HEC (Hautes Etudes Commerciales) of the University of Geneve, in Geneva, Switzerland.  I taught a specialized course on commodity price modeling for a masters program in commodity markets and trading, with 17 students from all parts of the commodity business and all types of commodity firms.  It is a pleasure having self-selected students who have an intense interest–and career prospects–in the rather arcane subject I teach.  The students were enthusiastic and active.  I look forward to repeating the experience next year.

I’m now in Nurnberg, Germany, on my way north to participate in a ceremony in a street will be named for one of Mrs. SWP’s great-grandfathers in a little town called Rotenberg am der Fulda.  Ironically, one of my GGGFs came from the same area–Kassel.  Then off to see the areas from whence the Pirrongs (or Pirrungs or earlier than that, Pierrons) lived before seeing the light and decamping to the US: namely, the countryside east of Saarbrucken.  Then perhaps a side trip to Strasbourg.