Opening Ceremony

This actually happened on Sunday, July 1, but I have been so busy I haven’t been able to post any about the actual meeting yet.  Luckily my enjoyment of the meeting is correlated with how busy I’ve been.  Even this post will probably just be a sketch that I will update later, but I wanted to give my avid readers something!

The main meeting building is the Inselhalle.  The American delegation is quite organized, so we met early before the opening ceremony and walked to the Inselhalle together.  Luckily, the Inselhalle is only across the street and a couple of buildings down from my hotel, so walking there takes only a couple of minutes.

We enter the Inselhalle for the first time, and it feels a bit formal.  There is a stage at the front and seating for maybe 1000 people.  The stage is decorated with a backdrop that has the Lindau meeting logo all over it and I’m starting to get excited.

Then I actually look a bit closer at the seating area and see there is about a fourth of the seating reserved for press–I get more excited.  I’ve never attended an event that was important enough for there to be a whole section of press.  I walk more forward toward the stage and pass the large invited guest section, which is probably another fourth.  Then there is an aisle and the next row of seats has a sign next to it that says “The Nobel Laureates”.  Looking closer, I see that each seat in the row has a name tag that reserves it for the Laureates and I have a bit of a freak-out moment as it’s becoming real that I’m actually going to be interacting with a group of 27 Nobel Laureates all week.

The student section is the closest section to the stage with the Laureate row just behind it.  We all take out seats and excitedly talk about being here and seeing the Laureates’ chairs, which may seem silly, but the atmosphere is charged and seeing a chair a Laureate is going to sit in is a whole lot closer than most of us have ever been to a Laureate before.

We have to wait a bit, but then an announcement is made and the Laureates file in.  On the stage is a slide show going through each of the Laureates pictures with their name and year of prize while the Laureates themselves have appeared and are walking to their seats.  Some of them are quite elderly and are being helped to their seats, which makes it take a bit longer.  The whole room is clapping and clapping and I’m only a few rows away from them and the sight of them all together is very powerful.  Everyone is exclaiming and pointing to certain Laureates they recognize and smiling and clapping and trying to take pictures and I’m just feeling overwhelmed.  Even writing this description is making me feel quite emotional.

Finally, after many minutes of clapping the Laureates take their seats and the ceremony begins with an opening address by the Countess Bettina Bernadotte, President of the Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

We also heard presentations from Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation, and Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany.

The speeches were mixed with a few really well done videos shown on the screen on the stage backdrop.

The ceremony ended with the induction by Wolfgang Schuerer, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation, of Tony Tan, President of the Republic of Singapore, and Ferdinand K. Pieech, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG, to the Honorary Senate of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance.

Wolfgand Shuerer inducts Tony Tan, President of Singapore, into the Honorary Senate of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance.

Wolfgand Shuerer inducts Ferdinand K. Pieech, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen AG, into the Honorary Senate of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprizewinners Meetings at Lake Constance

Food

Yesterday for lunch I had a meal of white fish that comes from the Lake Constance, which is the lake that surrounds the island town of Lindau.  It was quite tasty in a white cream sauce with herbs, tomatoes, and mushrooms.  The two people I ate with both got a spinach spätzle, which is a regional specialty.  It is a type of homemade noodle and is often served in a cheese sauce.  I got to try some, and it was very good–somewhat reminiscent of mac and cheese.

The first picture is of the maultaschen, potato salad, and vegetable salad I had for dinner yesterday.   Maultaschen is also a regional dish and is like a really big ravioli with filling and more pasta layers inside.  I would definitely recommend it.

I’m staying at the Hotel Möve here in Lindau. The hotel is family owned and the rooms are nice but small and with few amenities.  American hotel rooms are usually pretty large (most things in the US are larger than in Europe) and often have amenities like coffee makers, hair dryers, irons, bath products, etc.  However, the best you can usually hope for at an American hotel breakfast is a donut or dried out bagel and some coffee.  Occasionally you luck out and they have a waffle maker or scrambled eggs.

The rooms here may be small, but wow do they know how to put on a breakfast–see the other two pictures above.  First, the presentation is so appealing with everything in fancy glass goblets or on serving trays.  Also, the variety of food was incredible.  There were about 6 types of fresh fruit juice, 9 types of dried fruit and grains, 3 types  of yogurt, 5 types of canned/preserved fruit (but probably homemade), more than 10 different fresh fruits, 5 different breads and rolls, 3 cold meats, 6 cheeses, and a couple of desserts.  I wanted to try everything, but there was only so much I could fit in my stomach.  Everything I had was delicious.  There were even a few of the fruits I couldn’t identify.  One was kind of like a grape, but a little bigger and with green skin and reddish spikes on the outside and some seeds on the inside.  It had a somewhat sour taste but was really interesting.  If anyone knows what that is, I would be happy to hear.