The first thing that friends and family back in the US asked when they heard that we were moving to Marburg is "where is it"? Which I suppose is sort of a funny default question, since few US folks are conversant enough with German geography for the answer to be meaningful... But nonetheless, the answer I give is "about an hour north of Frankfurt by train" (by which I mean Frankfurt am Main, and the time varying slightly depending on the speed of train). Marburg is a nice university town of 79,000 or so inhabitants. It is in the state of Hessen, on the Lahn River, surrounded by hills and forests and farms.
The first thing people here ask us is how long we are staying, which is always a good question to ask in a university town. I mean, you go to different lengths to welcome people if they're staying 1 week, or 1 year. The answer for us is that my current contract is for 2 years, but we might end up staying for more like 3ish, given the timing of the academic job cycle and the fellowship(s) that we do or do not get. So the most accurate answer is that we'll be here for the foreseeable future.
SO, with that preliminary out of the way, I can proceed to post about our great adventures in and around Marburg. Although we'll see how good I am about keeping up with this blogging!
Gorgeous. We can't wait until we visit!
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