Summer School in Kansas City, June 2012 The City Kansas City is a wonderful city in the north-east of Missouri, a small part even belongs to Kansas (US people call it the Mid-West). Although the population is just about 500.000 people, KC is a very wide and broad city with very much space between the buildings and the streets, mostly green area with lawn or trees. Together with Kansas City, Kansas, the metro area is about 2.1 million inhabitants. The suburbs around KC consists of small houses all of them orderly in a row, each with a porch and a national flag waving in front it, one house more beautiful than the other and trees lining the streets giving the impression one is in the middle of the woods. Downtown has a wonderful skyline with amazing buildings, museums, parks, theaters, pubs, bars, restaurants and houses. The whole city is very clean, very new or renovated, and you wouldn t find anything broken or damaged throughout the city. Unlike in Graz, everyone has and needs a car here, because at the one side KC is so big, on the other side there is so much space that makes easy traffic and especially there are lots of parking areas (missing parking lots are a main problem in Graz). Among cultural life, nightlife and social life KC offers a lot of possibilities to do sports, like tennis, soccer and especially jogging. While jogging or walking down a lane, you ll meet many birds and rabbits crossing your way, and surprisingly they are very confiding. Fig. 1: Typical house and lane of KC, with national flag, perfectly mowed lawn, and porch. Fig. 2: Skyline of Kansas City
The People One of the biggest surprises for me was how friendly, gentle and helpful the people around there are. No matter if you are stepping into the bus, waiting at the KASSA in a supermarket, coming into a restaurant or just meet people on the street, they always will greet you with Hi, how re you doin?. If you take a ride in the bus and you are a little lost (because you are new in the city) the busdriver tells you exactly where to go. Like in most parts of the United States the people originate from all over the world, mostly Europe, Africa and Asia. Kansas City is full of wonderful and different churches, most of them protestant or catholic, but also some of other religions like synagogues or mosques, reflecting the widely spread variety of the people. Sights, Museums, Theaters Kansas City, a fairly new and modern city, offers lots of beautiful and architecturally impressive sights and buildings, here a short excerpt: Train Station: Formerly an important traffic junction in the Wild West today passed by four trains per day only the train station became a museum and a sight for the biggest part. Fig. 3: Train Station of KC. Left: ceiling, middle: picture from WWI museum tower, right: fountain in front of the train station. World War I Museum + Tower: In front of the train station on a small hill you find the World War I Museum with a big tower on the top. The Museum offers a vivid and detailed exhibition and shows a fascinating and very catchy film about the causes of the WWI. On the tower you can enjoy a wonderful view over the entire city and the skyline of Kansas City. Fig. 4: World War I Museum: Left: tower, middle: whole WWI museum from outside, left: inside of WWI museum. Kauffman Center: To me the most magnificent building in KC is without doubt is the Kauffman Center, imitating the Opera House of Sydney from the outside. Its architecture is amazing, both
beautiful and functional, as you can see at the inner glass cladding supported by steel cables. Founded by the very rich Kauffman Family it covers two halls: one theatre and one orchestra hall. Fig. 5: Kauffman Centre. Left: sight from behind, middle: from the inside, right: from the WWI museum tower. Nelson Atkins Museum: This museum, just a few minutes from the Oak Place Apartments by feet, is built in ancient style, and consists of one part for modern arts and another bigger part for older/ancient arts and exhibits. Fig. 6: Nelson Atkins Museum. Left: from the park side, old part, right: modern part Fountains: Kansas City is called the city of fountains; it is the city with the second most fountains following Rome. During the summer when temperatures more than a 100º F (37º C) can be reached for weeks their water refresh the air and makes the city (at least in their environment) more comfortable. Westport + Power & Light District: The Power and Light District, signed by blue light chains mainly in trees, is the Uni-Viertel of Kansas City, but not only for students and younger people. Westport has many bars and pubs and offers a relaxing and cozy ambience. South Plaza: The South Plaza is like the Herrengasse in Graz, the social centre of the city and the public heart of KC. Many restaurants, shops, banks, the city library and many more things like parks and tennis courts enrich this urban quarter. By feet it can be reached within about 10 minutes starting at the Oak Place apartments. Steamboat Arabia: Built in 1853, sunk in 1856 on the Missouri river near KC and recovered in 1987 the Steamboat Arabia museum is the museum with one of the most exhibits in the world, as far as its relics were all saved, cleaned and are now exposed in the museum, containing conserved food and liquids, buttons, devices and instruments, clothes and textiles, weapons, silverware and dishes and so on.
UMKC The University of Missouri, Kansas City, is a wonderful public university with all available branches of studies. The School of Medicine as well as the School of Nursing and the School of Dentistry is right next to the Truman Medical Centre. The organization system works excellent, every student has got an own room at the University, about ten students share a recreation room and one medical doctor supervising them, and the students are advised to assist doctors in treating patients during their whole study. Fig. 7: UMKC. Left: Truman Medical Centre, middle: School of Medicine, right: School of Nursing and Dentistry. Medicine and Music The summer school course was lead by Dr. William Everett, Musicologist, and Dr. Stuart Munro, Psychologist, with the aim to deepen the cutting points between medicine and music, the possible interventions of music in medical treatment and therapy and the general impacts that music can have on the human body/brain. In this course we learnt how music therapy today is used to treat patients of all ages, we read Oliver Sacks Musicophilia with lots of stories with interactions of medicine and music, we discussed the role of physicians in Opera, various diseases processed in musical theatre, the diseases of famous musicians like Beethoven, Mahler or Ravel, and we did a lot of student presentation: every student had the possibility to show a song with special personal meaning to the class and talk about it, we all made a group presentation about a film corresponding to the topic, and we all worked out a creative project that should somehow reflect medicine and music as one in a creative manner. In total the course was very impressive, interesting and enjoyable, the class climate was very confiding and relaxed, our colleagues were friendly and welcoming, and our professors were like as a student could wish ones professor should be. Food Food in Kansas City, and generally in the Mid-West is delicious. The national food is the American Barbecue with lots of amazingly creative side dishes. Also steak and burger is delicious and available in many variations. Correlating to the different population there is also Chinese, Korean, Italian, Mexican or Ethiopian food. Alcohol in America is only allowed inside of restaurants or bars, but strictly forbidden on the street or in front of bars and in the car.
Acknowledgement: Special thanks for my whole trip to Jacqueline Ware-Sodsod and Petra Papst for an unobstructed organization, Dr. Steward Munro and Dr. William Everett for wonderful and very instructive lessons and unforgettable hours, Tom Marks and Michael Stobaugh for spending a lot of time with us and being very good friends, and especially to Bill and Lynda for helping us with every small troubles, spending so much time with us, welcoming us in KC and being like a family for us. Thank you very much to all!