My group first woke up around 4 am to 4:30 am. I then took my suitcase and carryon backpack downstairs, the adults and chaperones were waiting there with a crate full of breakfast bags for everyone. Each student took one and we all headed onto the bus where we would go to our first flight. When we got there, we said goodbye to our guide and the beloved bike horn named “squeakers”. We ate our lunch, got on the plane, and a problem arises where the plane has gotten delayed. A passenger hasn’t shown up to the plane so the wonderful customer service has delayed the flight. We then start moving as the passenger boards and fly to Frankfurt. As we land, we have to go through passport control. Personally, I am claustrophobic so the hour we spent getting pushed and sweaty in line, most of us got angry and irritated at others very quickly. Many of us missed it but the service of Lufthansa saved us and we all took a bus to the plane. My row on the plane mainly just slept or watched movies for the eight hours. I watched 4 movies and then went to sleep for a while. My final thoughts on the trip was that it was too short for how much we did during one week. We had some days where we didn’t like anything because we were either too tired or had pains in our legs. Most of it was very fun and educational and I am telling all of my family and friends about this trip. It is a trip that I will always remember in a good light and cherish.
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I woke up at 06:00 Saturday morning with Nina jumping on the bed. Somehow she was already dressed to leave and I was half asleep in my pajamas. Nina’s morning routine is very similar to mine. Get up, do hair, brush teeth, wash face. When I arrived downstairs Herr and Frau Seyfarth we’re sitting at the table with Nina. Breakfast consisted of rolls, butter, marmalade, and jam. After a quick breakfast Herr Seyfarth drove Nina and I to pick up Gabby and her host sister, Amy. Finally we made it to the school and as Amy and Nina left we all promised to keep in touch. The homestay was by far my favorite part of trip to Germany.
Started off the day with a nice breakfast at my host families house. We went to sleep quite late so we were up a little late. It was just us to since her parents had already gone off to work. Once we were all dressed we left the apartment and made our way to the tram. We missed the first tram and had to wait a bit for the second. We spent most of the time talking about things we had in common. I really enjoyed getting to know her. Once we made it to the school, we said goodbye to our host parents and made our way on our tour. As we were all on the bus, we were all talking to each other about what we did the night before. Silke could tell that we were really talkative and excited to share our experiences from the night before. So she allowed people to go to the front of the bus and share what they did that night before. Our first stop of the tour was going to the Berlin Wall. Our tour guide gave us an explanation of what it was like to live in East Berlin at the time as the wall came up. He showed us where the wall stood and how the 2 wall system worked. It looked almost impossible to escape. The wall was now full of art. Some very political and others just works of random art. Some are really well detailed and beautiful. I was also able to buy a piece of the wall. I thought that was pretty cool. After looking at the wall, we went to go look at museum island. It was a really impressive place where a lot of ancient art and artifacts are kept. What I thought was most impressive about the museum was that all the pillars had been through world war 2. You can still see the bullet holes and see where people stood to fire at the enemy and where the return fire was. After the museum island, we went to go visit the holocaust memorial. This memorial was quite different that others. It was a bunch of concrete blocks that got higher as you got more to the center. It was supposed to make you feel like you were getting lost. It was quite an impressive feeling. Near the memorial, we walked to the where Hitlers bunker was. It was just a car park, which was quite strange. One of the biggest characters from history was remembered by no more than a car park. After that, we said good bye to our tour guide and went our for lunch. I tried some “Currywurst” which was really good. We were told to meet under the TV tour. It was really impressive and one of the most iconic buildings of Berlin. After lunch, we went back out to the museum island and went to see all the exhibitions inside. There were some beautiful exhibitions of old temples. I really liked the one of Babylon. I always remember reading about it but it was the first time seeing an actual replica. After museum island, we went to see the museum of Terror. Which was a old Gestapo headquaters. It has a was right next to the Berlin Wall which was really interesting. We also saw the destruction of the bombings and all the rubble they left behind. After a stay in the hotel last night, we woke up extra-early today in order to visit our sister school, the Tagore Gymnasium/Tagore-Schule. The students were, once again, very welcoming. We were able to enjoy a tour of the school buildings with the students, a gym class, as well as several academic classes with our hosts. After school, our hosts brought us to their home (by public transit or a car). My host, Nele, took me on a tour of the inner city of Berlin. As public transit infrastructure is highly developed in Berlin (and Europe as a whole), simply using the trams, the U-Bahn, and walking on foot were enough to get around the entire city. In addition, we also ate at a currywurst restaurant deemed to be the best in Berlin. After our adventures in the main city, we returned to the flat and played board games, like ZACK! (similar to Uno) and Menschen Ärger Dich Nicht (similar to Sorry!). ~Alex Wang
Friday morning we get up and get ready for our host stay for the second half of the day. First we were able to go to German school, which was very exciting! Hannah had gym, Spanish and music. While the German students worked on their school work I drew a very cool castle (if I do say so myself). After our day was done we went to do our group activity in the gym. My group was the dream team and out of 8 different games we won 2 which was ok. When the day came to a close we went to Hannah's house to put our items in our rooms and we got to go ice skating! I have never went ice skating before so this was a cool new experience. This was probably my favorite day as we were able to do so much in one day. ~Cole Hannenberg In the morning, I was nervous to go to school in Germany, and meet my German Friend for the second time. But when we went into the school I felt like I fit in with the other school students. When I went into my German friends second class the students asked me and the other American students questions like, are all Americans fat etc. When we finished my German friends classes we played games in the Gymnasiums gym. After the games I went to my host family’s apartment (flat) and we ate pizza and watched T.V. Until we went to bed. ~Will Adams Yesterday, we stayed in a hotel in Chemnitz, DE. In the morning, we woke up to a fresh German breakfast with bread, tea, and coffee. We boarded the bus at 08:15 and drove 1 hour to Dresden. During WWII, Dresden had been decimated by an Allied firebombing. Much of the old city was destroyed. Today, rebuilding continues. Dresden chose a very unique path in terms of rebuilding. Instead of rebuilding the city as it was before the bombing, or building a new city, Dresden chose to rebuild the city as it looked in 1730. Thus, much of the city still looks very old on the exterior, despite being built very recently. In Dresden, we had a tour of the city with a local guide. He introduced us to many of the palaces and buildings commissioned by the former kings and princes of Saxony. After the tour of Dresden, we went to the Green Vault Museum, which features many pieces of art acquired by former nobles, some of whom made fortunes by selling the first European porcelain - Meissen porcelain. Many of these art pieces were very elaborate and ornate. Most of these were created with valuable gold and porcelain. After visiting the Green Vault, we hopped back into the bus and drove two more hours to Berlin, where we proceeded to check into our hotel (which happened to be extremely modern and clean) and visit our sister school, the Tagore Gymnasium. There, we met our host students with whom we would stay with for one night. They were all very welcoming, though many of them were clearly not used to / uncomfortable with interacting with us - though it was the same for us. Once we finished at the school, we returned to our hotel and prepared for the next day - attending school with our host students.
Around 7:00am we all headed down for breakfast, then headed for the bus around 7:30. After a 30 minute bus ride, we arrived at the Dachau Concentration Camp. Our tour guide, Stephan, explained to us the rules of the camp and usage of all the rooms, and then we had 1.5 hours to look around/explore more of the camp. At 11:30, most of our group went to watch a 20 minute video, summarizing what it was like when the Concentration Camps were in operation. We learned that Dachau was a work camp and not a death camp like Auschwitz. We were able to see a replica bunker where the prisoners slept, ate, and lived. It was very basic and small. It was very heart breaking and emotional to see the camp and to learn about the living conditions. We learned about and experienced a huge part of history. Soon after, at12pm, everyone made their way to the lunch room, and ordered from a wide variety of Spazel, Wurst, Sandwiches, Soup, and of course, ice Creams!!! After ordering, we all sat down and talked about our experience inside the Camp and what we had overall already seen. Then it was back to the bus for a 4 hour drive to our next destination-Chemnitz.. We had a quick stop at the super market on the way. Everyone on the bus had a new found energy that lasted for a total of 45 minutes or so before we all fell back asleep. Finally when we where 10 minutes out from our final destination Slike woke us up with her normal “guten Morgen”, even though it was far from the morning. We then got off the bus and found ourselves at the city center of Chemnitz. We met at a McDonalds, and Slike told us to be in that spot in 20 minutes so we could walk to dinner. We split in to groups and went our separate ways. My group and I decided to go wonder the mall area where we went into a kids store and a craft store. After that we had to start walking back to McDonald’s to meet the rest of our group. Once everyone was there and accounted for, Slike squeeked Squeeky (the duck that gets our attention) and we moved towards the department store in which the restaurant was located. Once we got to the restaurant we got food and talked amongst ourselves. At the end of our meal a few of the staff members asked Slike if they could take a picture with us because we where the first Americans they had ever met. Finally, we walked back to the bus where we drove 15 minutes to our hotel. We were assigned rooms and told to be down back in the lobby for a team meeting. After our team meeting our day was officially done and all we had to do was wait for the next day to bring us another fabulous adventure. Authors- Sam, Gabby, Ava, Anna, Sara, Mrs. Herzig This morning the group left at 8:45 for our tour of Munich. Our local tour guide Elizabeth explained the statues, streets, buildings and the meaning of them all. Along the way we stopped at an amazing palace. The palace had many additions added onto it from the original. We walked around then checked out the palace’s garden. Some people had built snowmen which were cute. The group had be be kind of careful though because the ground was a bit slick. I almost fell a few times (lol). Although it wasn’t sunny all the white from the snow was really bright, so I took the opportunity to throw on my shades.
We also stopped at this really cool artificial wave. The wave was pretty large for being in a smaller sized river, which came to a bit of a surprise. A man and a women who were wearing wetsuits surfed on the wave while we were there.... in 30 degrees! They were actually really good! Elizabeth later told us that locals are only allowed to surf if they are skilled because otherwise it can be dangerous. It was really awesome we got to see some surfers in action, it was cool just to see it on it’s own, but with the people using it was fascinating . I would have never jumped into water like that though, it must’ve been freezing! I think only reason it wasn’t frozen was because it was moving so quickly! We continued our city tour from the bus, and stopped for a snack around 11. I stopped at this coffee shop and picked up a hot chocolate which was really good. I had some extra time, so some of the other kids and I did some exploring. We met back at this one fountain and headed onto the bus to drive to the Neuschwansteincastle. We got to Neuschwanstein around we were allowed to walk around the little town for 20 minuets because the castle itself is up in the mountains. We all went into some of the shops and some of us had a snow ball fight. After the 20 minuets we start to walk up to the castle. To get up to the castle we must walk about for about 20 minutes up the mountain. At around 3/4 of the way up we stopped for some lunch. I ordered wiener schnitzel and it is amazing. On the way out of the restaurant we one of the best dumplings ever. We got up to the castle and took some pictures before the tour. The tour was relatively short because only a third of the castle was ever completed. The tour show us the throne room, the Kings bedroom, the Kings study; and the kitchen. After the tour we took some more pictures and walked back down to the bus. We stopped for dinner in a little village on the way back to the hotel. The dinner was chicken with potato salad and dessert was hash-browns with apple sauce. After dinner the owner of the restaurant taught us about his tradition and his life style. After that we went back to the hotel and fell asleep. Authors: Josie, Chase, and Mr. Cottone Today was our first day in Germany. As not many people got to sleep on the plane, and there is a six hour (ahead) time difference, we were all very tired today. When we got off the plane, we went to find out tour guide, Silke, and she brought us to our tour bus, driven by our amazing bus driver, Klaus. The first place we visited was the middle of Munich. We saw many churches, opera houses, and other famous places. We learned that Germany had no skyscrapers because the churches were to be the highest building in a city. We then went to lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, and there were some issues with ordering, but the food was good along with the short songs they played. After lunch we went to the BMW Showroom and the old Olympic stadium where the competition in 1972 was held. Some people went up the nearby TV tower to get a better view from above of the area. Students also looked around at the different vehicles in the showroom, and a small group played a racing game and had a snack at the cafe. Afterwards we went to dinner and had beef and potatoes. For desert there were cups of applesauce and custard. On every bus ride we had today, even if it was just for ten minutes, almost everyone fell asleep. Once everyone got to the hotel and we were all set with who we were rooming with, we all went up to our rooms and fell asleep immediately. Authors- Sara, Gabby, Anna, Ava, Sam Photo credit- Mr. Cottone Before we went on our trip we had a few important meetings. The first two where more of team building exercises. We meet our other travelers and found out our "true colors" (personality quiz). Later on we had another meeting where we were given information for the trip as well as our flight times. Then everyone headed home and began to pack. I spent about two hours packing my iteams and another hour getting my things. Then on Saturday we headed to the airport.
At the airport we meet in front of the Lufthansa bag check. We waited for a while until we were all there and checked in our bags. After that as a group we went through the TSA and headed to our gate. We then hung around the airport for about an hour until we where able to board our flight. Once we boarded many of us changed our seats to be closer to our friends as it was around eight hours long. The airplane was nice with relatively comfy seats and a good slection of movies to watch. We were served snacks as well as a nice dinner. Many of us tried to sleep but many ened up not sleeping at all. In the morning we were given a small breakfast and the plane started its decent. We were now in Frankfurt, Germany. We exited the plane and walked to out next flight. We had a bit of time before the next flight so we explored the German airport and had alot of fun. After that we got onto the new plane. Most did not change seats as it was only 45 minutes long. It was smaller then the last and all the attendants spoke German to us. This startled many who did not know German. Many of us tried to sleep again but to no avail. We then landed in Munich. We got off the plane and headed to the baggage claim and took our luggage. Then we headed to the exit to meet our tour guide for the day, Silke. She then lead us to our bus and we started our first (technically second) day in Germany! From Peyton; so we start off at the airport. Where we got our tickets and went though security ( I was a little nervous along with some others). After that we went too our terminal and that’s where we all got situated to get on the plane. I might have got little bit more stuff that I need but it’s vacation. Then we went on the plane which was very big (the biggest one I have ever been on). On the seat of the plane we got a pillow and blanket (I didn’t use either one). Also we had a touch screen tv on the back of the person in front of us. And it gave you the option between movies and two tv channels. There were a ton of movies to select from. The movies I watch was the newest Thor, and Transformers The Last Knight. The meals were ok they went Anything over the top, but it was ok we had pasta and bread with a side of crackers and salad and the dessert part it was a brownie. After that I sleep and the day was over. Authors: Peyton, Rebecca, and Mr. Cottone Here is the exciting itinerary for the 2018 Rochester Community Schools international study abroad to Germany in February. AuthorMr. Cottone is a World Studies teacher at Van Hoosen Middle School. He is also a Teachers for Global Classrooms, TEACH Bahrain, and Transatlantic Outreach Program fellow. @vhmcottone cottonetravel.weebly.com |
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