Squeeze Out What You Can…

FROM ORLY GOLDSMITH, MEXICO, CLASS OF 2007

Take the advantage to be in a beautiful place in the middle of Europe, where the only people you share your time with are very likely just like you: passionate, motivated, smart, intense and funny. That doesn’t happen very often in life.

Squeeze the brains of the faculty and staff; it is rare the occasion where you can be surrounded by such a smart and experienced group of professors willing to share.

Drink landbier beer, eat the rye bread with the cream cheese at breakfast, drink the rooibos vanilla tea, the white wine is definitely much better than the red one, and the pizza place across the lake is fantastic.

Every day during the Academy–approximately every two hours–there’s a break in the debate and study sessions to wind down, and get some tea and cookies. Every break I used to joke with some people (actually anyone that was standing near to me) that we were having tea in porcelain cups, on the porch of a palace in front of a lake and mountains–how posh we all were! I still haven’t gotten over the fact that for three weeks I woke up to the sight of the Alpine Mountains and that I actually strode through the streets where Mozart was inspired, Julie Andrews sang and danced through fountains, and where someone as inspiring and revolutionary as Barenboim came to honor us. (Click Here for Barenboim article).

What I cherish the most in my memory is the ambiance (or the aura) that the place itself creates. The Salzburg Academy is a place where people come together to debate and argue issues that are very important to the world, but that are also embedded in our hearts, minds or both. It is never easy to be in a debate between Muslims and Jews, North Americans and Latin Americans, people who come from developing countries and people who come from developed countries. Nevertheless, every tea break we would all go down, drink our tea in the very ideal place and enjoy the company of each other, knowing–and most of all feeling–that ideas, prejudices, stereotypes, and worldly issues are much bigger than ourselves, and come with the package of culture, language, literature and certainly media. In a place where there are many other distractions and responsibilities that would never be possible.

(Note that Orly is the woman on the right bench in the photo above!)