The second day of classes felt less painful, at least to me. I changed the final exam to a project that the students can start working on now, and it should be a lot more fun and motivate some of the stuff I'm teaching them.
Kurt Matzler and his wife Ruth had invited us to dinner at their house and we were to meet them in front of our hotel at 7:45. Judy started down, but I'd forgotten a bottle of wine we'd gotten for them so I went back to the room. When I got downstairs, Judy was there with Ruth and I introduced myself... completely forgetting that Kurt and Ruth had come to our school in October and Todd had arranged for me to talk with them about a project I was working on.
Ruth was (justifiably, and puckishly) ruthless for the rest of the evening, managing to work in some comment about remembering people probably every few minutes. But in a very fun way, to the point that I asked if it was OK if I just crawled under the table and stayed there until dinner was done.
The Matzler's have an absolutely gorgeous home in Hungerburg, well up the mountainside with what must be absolutely spectacular views of the Alps and Innsbruck (unfortunately, it was rainy the night that we were there). Kurt prepared a fantastic dinner, and they kept our plates and glasses filled as we talked about a variety of subjects (besides my memory). One that was particularly interesting was the (relatively) recent history of Tirol, which I knew little about. Tirol has 3 regions. Ruth is from what is considered east Tirol, while Kurt is from south Tirol, and in fact is an Italian citizen (though his native language is German). South Tirol was settled by Germanic people but was promised to Italy in 1915 in return for entering the War on the allied side. It was annexed by Italy in 1919. Hitler and Mussolini signed a pact that would allow South Tirol to remain Italian while Hitler annexed the rest of Austria, with the German-speaking South Tirolians to be transfered to German-controlled land or dispersed around Italy. That never happened due to WWII, and when Italy surrendered Hitler stepped into South Tirol. After the war, the allies decided that Italy would retain South Tirol, with the stipulation that the region be granted a large measure of autonomy. That didn't work, as South Tirol was grouped with Italian-speaking Trentino and the German-speaking Tiroleans were a minority. This led to a lot of dissatisfaction and some insurrection and terrorism. It wasn't until the 1970s that the South Tiroleans had very real autonomy. If I understood correctly, until then they couldn't have German-language signage.
I asked Kurt and Ruth if Tirolians consider themselves that first, or Austrian or Italian, as the case may be. They thought about it a little and agreed that it's probably Tirolian first.
After more than enough wine at dinner, Ruth broke out the schnapps, including some she had made herself. It was an enjoyable and informative evening, though Judy and I planned to get an early train to Salzburg the next morning... and morning was going to come too quickly!
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