Returning Home -- June 24

What an early morning this was.  We all had to be ready to go by 4 AM to begin with breakfast.  Many of us spent the morning by reliving some of the moments we cherished as our favorite.  But before long, the group was divided into two.  One group leaving with Mrs. White to come home, another heading back to Pfaffenweiler to stay with family or friends.  I came with Mrs. White.  After breakfast, we all loaded onto a bus and headed to the Berlin Airport.  We all got through security and other miscellaneous airport business, before we sat for a while, waiting.  That is one thing I really don't like about travelling.  There seems to always be long periods of waiting.  However, before long, we were on the plane headed to London.  It was a short flight, being approximately an hour and fifteen minutes.  We landed, and embraced ourselves for more waiting.  About four hours.  Many of us gulped down the coffee, reminiscing some more over Germany.  After getting through the gate and security, we sat there waiting to board, and came across another American school group, from Terre Haute, Indiana.  Ironic? Yes.  Before we knew it, we were on the flight headed to Chicago.  This flight, we were pretty scattered on the plane, so I can't really say what we all did.  I, however, watched some of the media they provided and slept several hours.  The flight was rather unevenful, much like the entire day.  But after about seven and a half hours, we had landed in Chicago.  We immediately went through customs, finally being back on American soil, which felt really good.  We could understand people and fluently communicate again! After customs, we had to claim our luggage and re-submit it for the flight to Evansville.  Bryor ended up losing a carry-on, almost causing a few of us to miss the flight. However, we all luckily made it onto the flight.  The short flight caused anxiety for me.  We were so close to being home, but yet we weren't actually there.  But after landing, it was over.  We all quickly grabbed our carry-ons and hurried into the airport, to quickly be greeted by all of our parents.  As requested, my mom was waiting for me with a jar of Jiff peanut butter and a spoon. After minutes of hugs and excitement, we went to collect our luggage.  Unfortunately, my luggage was the only one that hadn't been there.  It was still in Chicago.  This is one of those moments where you just think "Why? Is it too much to ask to just simply be here to go home?"  Luckily, it arrived at my house early the next moment. Anyway, after collecting luggage, we all went our own ways, ending up at our houses to sleep for our first night in four weeks in our own bed.

I would like to take just a minute to thank everyone who helped with our trip.  Thank you Mrs. White and Mrs. Wehr, for doing everything you could to make our trip great.  Thanks to Sister Cities for donating such a generous donation for our exchange, it really  means a lot.  Thanks so much to the Deutscheverein for everything they've done, you guys are very kind.  Thanks to the Schnitzelbank for allowing us to host meetings and events in their facilities.  I want to give all the thanks I can to all of the teachers and citizens in Germany for all of the activities you planned, tours you gave, and just for making our stay in Germany a very positive one.  You guys will be missed.  I want to also give thanks to our host families and partners for giving us wonderful places to stay.  Lastly, I want to give thanks to anyone I may have forgotten. This trip will always be one of my favorites.  Thanks again, everyone.

Taylor Reutman

June 23

    Today began with a short breakfast at 9 am. We then made our way to Alexander-Platz. At Alexander-Platz we boarded a hop-on hop-off tour bus. We made a complete circuit of Berlin, then we started to go again and got off the bus at the DDR (East Germany) museum. The DDR museum was a fantastic learning experience. It had plenty of exhibits that show how the life of an average east german citizen was. They had all sorts of different interactive exhibits that all the students had a good time playing with.
    There were many interesting locations on our tour. The Berlin Dome is the largest Protestant church in Germany. The stretch of road that has been named "The Museum Garden" has 5 museums on it that were built between 1830-1930. The Brandenburg Gate was at one point the main entry way into East Germany. Across from the Brandenburg Gate is a wall with many crosses one it. Each cross is for a person who died while trying to escape across the wall into West Germany.

   -Kyle Robbins

June 18th.. a little bit behind.

A little bit behind indeed. This trip is just flying by and we are doing so many fun filled activities! I had no idea what day it was until just recently! So I must apologize. Time to rewind!
     Today, Saturday, June 18th, 2011,  was another day for family fun. Once again I couldn´t tell you what the others did, but why not entertain you a little with what I did, for those of you interested anyway.
     I got to sleep in a little bit today! But don´t mistake that for the start of a lazy day! We jumped right into it. We started off by visiting Feengrottenpark which is kind of like our Marengo Caves. Fun fact for the day: Feengrottenpark was in the 1993 Guienness Book of World Records because nature made them to be the most colorful of its kind in the world. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Thuringia and is also an impressive example of medieval mining.
     After our splunking adventure, we headed to Heidecksburg palace. It was HUGE. When they told me about it, my first impression was "Oh cool, another castle!". Boy was I wrong. I´m talking gold plated doors and such. The rooms were big enough to fit 100 people each. If you are interested, here is a link.------------> http://www.heidecksburg.de/cms/pages/en/home.php?lang=EN.

     
                  Alex Hilger

June 21, 2011

Today, started out like most days. We got up and got ready for school. On the way to school, it rained the entire time. By time I got to school, I was drenched. We met at school, as usual, at 8:00 in the main lobby area of the school. Then, promptly after, we headed for the Berggold chocolate factory. We finally arrived after a leisurely walk through the pouring rain. To our dismay, once we got there we found that the factory was closed! But, on the bright side, the chocolate store was open. They had a lot of chocolates and other candies for our liking. Most of the chocolate was at bargain price! I got a big bag of chocolate for only €1,50! After visiting the chocolate store, we began the return trip to the school. On the way back to the school, we stopped to get something to eat if we wanted something. Once we got back to the school, we all waited in the main lobby until our exchange partners got out of their classes. When they got out of class, we could choose to either stay in the main lobby or go with our partners to class. Most of us went to class. Then, after my exchange partners classes were over, he and I went back to his house until 6:00. At 6:00, we had the goodbye party. At the goodbye party, we ate, socialized, and had fun. There was a lot of food that included chicken, meatballs, chips, cakes, noodles, drinks, and much more. There we some sports like volleyball, soccer, and frisbee at the party too. I went back to Heiner's house at 9:00 to type this blog and get ready for bed.

P.S. I would like to give a big thank you to the people that helped make our trip to Pößneck and the various day trips possible! Thank you for your help!

Logan Rademacher

June 20th, 2011

Today was the normal morning routines for everyone, except for me. My German partner Marie is sick, so I had to get on the bus by myself and get off at the right stop to catch the connecting bus to school. Thankfully, I made it there safe and on time. I was quite proud of myself, because German public transportation can be so confusing!
After everyone arrived to school we boarded a bus for our trip to Weimar. After the hour ride we got off and toured the city. We were able to see many museums and monuments. The main topic of the day was the poets/philosophers Goethe and Schiller. There are many museums and monuments throughout the tour that praise both the genuis men. The hard part of the tour was that we were given a worksheet to fill out during the tour. It asked questions such as name 5 museums in Weimar, name 5 important people who lived in Weimar (Bach, Carl August, Goethe, etc), and other trival facts that could be learned if you payed attention to the tour guide. It was a great way to learn about the history of the city and the importance of it. Whoever had the most answers won; and the winner was Zach Grewe, with Mrs. Wehr as a close second place! Also during the tour we went to a indoor museum/movie. It was more like a story, with each room containing a different scene from history and narration to explain it. The topic was the history of the city Weimar. It was very informative and a neat experience.
After the tour was over, we had a little over an hour to eat lunch and shop on our own. For lunch I had Döner, which is a Turkish food. This is pretty much a wrap with meat, onions, lettuce, etc. It is quite a hit with all the American students. Many people went to the "best ice cream shop in town" according to our guide. We then browsed through the little stores and made our way back to the bus.
The next stop on our trip was the concentration camp, Buchenwald. This is something that I will always remember. As we drove onto the campsite, the eerie mood was set by the strong breeze and dark rain clouds. We walked to the entrance gate, and crossed into the camp. It is extremely quiet throughout the entire area, everyone is in complete remorse. As we went through the barrack living chambers and the cremetorium where the dead bodies were burned, you cannot help but to think of all the horrible things that once happened here. It was truly shocking to see the small prison like cells that people were crammed into. The part that shocked me the most was going into the cremetorium and walking past the huge ovens that bodies were burned in. The oven doors were open, and it was truly scary to imagine bodies being dumped here. It is so  hard to explain the feeling you get while at a concentration camp, it is just so creepy and sad. We were truly walking in the path of history. Next we watched a very informative movie about how Buchenwald was run during the war. This specific camp was used as a labor camp. Our guide pointed out that there are no gas chambers on the campus, because they did not need them. They worked the inmates to death. After the movie, we walked down to the memorial site which had many paintings portraying the harsh life that people had while at Buchenwald. We also saw three mass burial pits. They are big crater-like holes in the ground;  but at the time they were used they were said to be completely level with the ground. That put in perspective how many thousands of lives were lost at the camp. The experience of going to a concentration camp is truly moving.
After we were done touring the camp, we loaded back onto the bus. The original plan for this evening was to play beach volleyball and go swimming. But due to rain the plans were cancelled. I spent my evening at home with my host family and started packing.
Lauren Mann

June 19th

Happy Father's Day!
Today was another free day with our families in PÖßneck.  I woke up around 9 o'clock, and waited for everone else to wake up.  We all ate lunch at 11:30. I had goose for the first time, it was actually good! We then all took showers and left around 1 to go to Museum Schloss Burgk. It was so beautiful. There was another building/park that was also there. It is called The Sophienpark. In the Schloss Burgk, there were many different rooms and also each room had a different meaning for the room. The Kitchen, Knight Hall, the hunting room, Damensalon, Kleiner Saal und Vorraum (translation- Ladies' drawing room, small hall and anteroom), Schloßkapelle (The chapel of the castle), Weiße Zimmer (white room), Musiksalon (Music Hall), Chinazimer (China room), Roter Salon (Red Hall), Prunkzimmer (Splendour Room), Neue Gallerie, Pirckheimer Kabinett (New Gallery, Pickheimer Cabinet), Exlibris-Sammlung (Exlibris-collection), and last but not least Bibliothek (Library). There was also a certain floor for children's art work from school. they were representing the different rooms of the Schloss Burgk. I then went to get ice cream with my family and we came home. I hope everyone has a great Father's Day!
Allison Rominger

June 17th

     As always, the day began with the normal preparations for the day and breakfast.  Then, we made our way by bus, car, or foot to the gymnasium.  The day began with English class.  We were split into three groups.  One group went to an 11th grade class, one went to another 11th grade class, and one went to an 8th grade class.  We were there to help the German students since we are, of course, native speakers.  In my class, the German students interviewed the Americans and then reported their findings to the class in English.  We also had to unscramble a series of American history events into chronological order.  The last task was to assist the students with their homework.  They were learning about adjectives and adverbs and also American culture and patriotism.

     After English, special classes just for the American´s began.  The first lesson was chemistry.  We made our own butter and then spread it on some freshly baked German bread.  It wasn´t always easy to follow a recipe in German, but somehow we made it through.  Although, some made it through faster than others.  My butter seemed to take a lot more churning than anyone else´s to finally solidify.  Regardless, it was a delicious snack.

     Next, we had Russian.  For most of us, it was our first experience with the language.  The teacher began by showing us how our names are written in Russian.  Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, so it looked more like gibberish than actual writing.  The teacher also taught us how to tell our age and what our name is.  It took a while for us to grasp the rather strange pronunciation, but by the end we were reasonably well trained.  The rest of the lesson was spent showing us all the characters of the Cyrillic alphabet, the pronunciations of numbers one through seventeen, and singing Frere Jacques in four different languages:  English, French, German, and Russian.

     After Russian, we had astronomy.  This lesson was just about entirely in German.  It was a little hard to get all the details, but it was still very interesting.  He began by giving us an envelope containing slips of paper with the constellations´ names in both English and German.  We had to try to match them up.  Some were simple cognates, but others were trickier.  Next, the teacher talked about the horribly unfortunate loss of Pluto´s planetary status.  He said he felt sorry that a planet discovered by an American had to be demoted.  We concluded the lesson by labeling a German star chart.

     The final class was German.  We began with a fun German song that is actually more like a game.  As you sing each verse you have to remove the last letter from a frequently sung word.  So Wanze becomes Wanz and then Wan and then Wa and then W and then _.  If you ever pronounce more of the word then you are supposed to you are out.  It was a lot of fun.  The next part of the lesson was spent interpreting the poem Erlkönig by Goethe.  She began by setting us up with the setting and characters.  Then we read and translated.  As w read, she had removed words from the ends of lines and we had to fill them in (harder than it sounds).  It was a very fun class.

     After school, I went with my family to Kaufland: the German equivalent of Walmart.  It is very similar to Walmart except it only sells groceries and other basic goods.  That means no clothes, tools, electronics, or home furnishings.  To use a cart, you had to make a deposit.  If you returned the cart, you got the money back.  That was very different.  Another huge difference was the recycling room. Just beyond the entrance, there was a large room full of plastic and glass bottles.  If you bring your bottles back to Kaufland you can get money off of your next purchase.  It´s a cool way to encourage recycling.  Beyond that Kaufland was similar to an American grocery store.

     For dinner, we went to a beach themed restaurant called Tolle Knolle. I must admit it was a little strange seeing a beach themed restaurant in Germany, but they went all out.  The ground was sand covered and they had palm trees, surf boards, and a little cabana bar.  It was pretty cool and a fun restaurant.  Despite the theme, though, I ordered a Thuringen (the German state in which Pößneck is located) specialty.  It was beef rolled around a vegetable filling, red cabbage, and a sort of baked potato.  The potatoes were cooked and then shredded and then put back together in a sphere.  It seemed like a lot of work just to make something very similar to a baked potato, but I´m just an American. It was all delicious.

     After dinner, I finished the night at a little get together at one of the German´s gardens.  It was a lot of fun. We played some ping pong, talked, laughed, sang some songs with a guitar, and instead of roasting marshmallows we roasted bread over a fire. They had this sweet dough that you wrapped around a stick and then you can bake it over the fire.  It was pretty cool. It was a gret way to finish a great day.

Zachary Grewe