This is the end...

Easter has been a time of fires, of rejoicing that life has once more survived the winter. Unused to such contrasts between the seasons, last week Jutta and Jurgen, my wonderful hosts, enlightened me on the cold dark depths of the European winter with their photos of the Baltic sea, taken just a few months ago. The sea had frozen in massive waves on the shore, depicting an eerie surf beach stuck in cryogenic stasis. Some people say it was the worst winter in 1000 years, and while we all like to hyperbolise from time to time the point remains that the Osterfeuer has been a highly anticipated celebration this year. With this in mind, the long easter weekend has been both a poetic and appropriate ending point for our trip. To celebrate new life with our hosts is not only about the greenery that has once again filled the countryside of Brandenburg (especially Werder), but a tribute to the friendships that have been begun, tested, and ultimately, strengthened by the descent of 25 Kiwis on a German village on the outskirts of Berlin.

So, with a heavy heart and a heavier stomach, we return to Auckland. All my efforts to avoid cliche are melting away as all I can think to say is that the return is not an ending, but merely the beginning of something much larger. This has been a fantastic experience and I cannot wait to repay the generosity that we have been shown here in Germany. 

auf Wiedersehen Deutschland!

Easter Sunday (And our last Sunday in Germany D:)

It's been so much fun here in Germany and now I guess it has come to an end. Germany is so awesome and everything has been great! The weather in Werder has really shapped up this last week and it has been sunny and hot for the last week.

Easter is a huge holiday in Germany. It is celebrated 100000000x more than we do in NZ. Last night I went to a traditional Easter fire where they burn all the old remains from winter. I went with my host family (And Bradley's host family) to Trechwitz to watch. In Trechwitz, they built a huge lighthouse out of wood in the middle of the field then lit it when it became dark. It was amazing to watch but is got extremely hot after 3 minutes...

The trip to Germany has been really really fun and exciting. Many thanks to Frau Zimmer, Frau Ankersmit, and Herr Howell for orginising this trip and doing a really good job of it. I'm pretty sure everyone loved it as much as I did.

See everyone in NZ on Thursday...

Johnson.

P.S: I HAVE HARIBO :D

20th April

Even though I haven't been asked to write about this day I figured that I will as I haven't posted anything yet and nobody else has written anything about it....sorry if you were going to! I apologise in advance for how much I will probably write and if it is boring to read...XD

The 20th was the German students last day of school and Easter holidays, so we were allowed to sleep in a bit longer than usual to my delight. About 10am we met at the train station and headed off to the zoo along with some of the German students who chose to join us. The zoo was enormous, and so was the variation of animals they had on display. We all saw a million different birds, monkeys, big cats, elephants, giraffes.....bears, including the popular polar bears, panda bears....they even had sheep and cows in the zoo. Within the massive zoo I managed to get separated from the group for a lengthy amount of time but I found my way back eventually. I spent the time I got lost by somehow walking right into the aquarium and reptile house free of charge without a ticket. It was amazing. For someone who hasn't seen a snake before it was incredible, giant snakes were everywhere pressed up against the glass, also loads of water creatures like stingrays and sharks, heaps of spiders, frogs, lizards, turtles, and crocodiles too. Regretably this side trip of mine prevented me from seeing the polar bears but that was alright. The temperatures were surprisingly high, with the day being over 20 degrees and feeling like the NZ summer, everyone cooked in their usual jeans or maybe it was just me. After meeting up again, sharing pictures of the animals others had missed, we headed home leaving us with around 3 hours to prepare for the slightly premature farewell evening.

The farewell evening was held at a bowling alley, which actually turned out to be a skittles (?) alley. Everyone looked fantastic in the dresses and nice clothes they wore specially for the evening. The events began with the dreaded saying of thank you speeches, all the group was quite nervous. This mainly was from having only been informed about the speeches on Monday morning (the farewell evening being on Wednesday night) and not having much time to write and practise them. Every speech was wonderful and moving, some of the group, audience and teachers found it quite emotional. During my speech I found myself in tears as I thanked my 2 hosts, their families, the teachers.....who without, Meine Königin (Frau Zimmer) in particular, any of this absolutely spectacular experience and magnificent exchange trip to Germany would have never happen... After the speeches, and giving our hosts roses we were called upon to dance the Polka thing to Anne-marie, even with minimal space to move we still managed it. This was followed by the waltz, which some remembered while others dashed to join the queue for dinner, which conveniently was being served. The dinner was a bbq, filling and delicious, I enjoyed the steak especially. At some point amongst the blur of the evening both groups of students sang their national anthems, hopefully the NZ anthem didn't sound too bad.... and not forgetting the NZ and German performances. Johnson and Charlie did a piano and saxophone duet which sounded amazing and the Germans had 3 students playing music and Melanie perform a dance, both were much appreciated and enjoyed. To escape the mosquitos most students then headed indoors and tried their luck at skittles, similar to bowling but it involves a slimmer track and the balls are smaller without finger holes. The night was happy and sad finishing around 10pm.

-sarah

Photos

Tuesday 19th April :)

Ooooh first post, oh goodie ^^
On the 19th we went to Berlin (again) and did a tour called The Story of Berlin. It was a very interesting tour which included a tour of an unused bunker for a nuclear attack. We arrived in Berlin at 9:45am, but the tour place didn't open until 10am so the lovely Frau Zimmer gave us 15 minutes to wonder around and spend as much money as possible :) I bought some more things for family and friends and @Mr Howell, buying one bag doesn't make me a bag-a-holic xD When the clock struck 10 we scattered back to the tour building and waited for everyone else to arrive. When everyone got back, we congregated to the entrance of the tour and made our ways in. What I saw was amazing but I didn't get many photos because my camera was nice enough to die ): The first room looked like a rave club thing due to the bright colours all over the room, especially the blue lights on the floor. My group and I went into every room and thought they were all well decorated and such. The first 10 rooms on the first floor had a positive energy because of what was in them. One of my favourite rooms was room 13 because of all of the life size sculptures; there was a humongous (sp?) camera that you could walk into and could look through. It shrunk whatever you could see to a miniature size. Once my group and I had looked through the first floor, we discovered stairs with a sign that read ''Tour continues this way'' If you have been with us on this trip, you will understand why we are not a fan of stairs :P As we walked down in a casual pace, we looked at the walls and saw some slow yet subtle differences in the artwork. It started as some innocent pictures of peoples faces, of whom I think were famous people back in the day, but as you gradually went down the stairs the images and artwork started to have a negative vibe. Then when we were nearing the bottom of the staircase, we saw some Nazi pictures and it gave an eerie feel. Walking downstairs wasn't my favourite part of the tour due to the horrible past of Germany and because of all of the Nazi related topics that were downstairs. It was especially not nice to see that some of the glass moving doors (that funnily enough you can't go through) if you looked at hard enough, made the Swastika : / Dairne and I took a little break and sat on some marble seats, and Dairne was nice enough to tell Mr Howell about her funny yet weird dream, about a building catching fire and her and Callum needing to find everyone who was on the trip, Dairne couldn't find Mr Howell and Callum went in the building and brought our Mr Howell, however he had shrunk to the size of someones hand. The look on Mr Howells face when Dairne told him was priceless. After that awkward moment..... we carried on with the tour, I don't really remember much of the downstairs as my memory is a bit off :L << Laughing face. When we came out of that tour, we met up at the front and went on another tour with the Story of Berlin people.
I feel really bad but I don't remember the tour guides name :S But I do remember that she was a very nice and informative. She took us on a 30minute tour of an unused bunker that the West Berliners built as they feared a nuclear attack. We were taken through numerous rooms when reminded me of a concentration camp,due to the limited space and how everything was set-up. All the beds that were there were metal rectangles and you had no blankets or pillows due to the temperature that it would have been if you stayed in there with 3,600 other people. That's right, it could fit 3,600 people O: The rooms that I can remember were the overall room with the 'beds', the kitchen, which I thought was too small for someone or someones to cook meals for 3,600 people, the gas mask room, those masks are REALLY scary :S, the water filter room, another water room.. a water generator room I think it was, and some other rooms. The tour ended with us emerging onto the street after climbing more stairs :P I think that this was one of my favourite days to date due to how informative the tour was and how I could get a feel of how people used to live in constant fear. Danke schön Frau Zimmer!! I really appreciate how much effort and time you have spent into planning such a wonderful trip for a bunch of semi annoying pupils ;) I think I speak for everyone when I say how thankful I am and how thankful everyone is that we have had such an amazing oppurtunity (sp?) and experience in such a beautiful country. :D

Monday 18 April

Monday was our full day at school. It started out with sports in the morning - aerobics followed by a choice of volleyball, badminton, dancing and hockey. However, people mostly chose volleyball and badminton. As I have a cold, I didn't take part but it was fun and interesting to watch. The afternoon was spent first in a class with our hosts and then in a younger English class, either year 6 or year 8 - I was in year 6 along with about five other Kiwis. We each said a sentence in English about NZ and then the children asked us if we could speak German so we each said a sentence about ourselves in German. We were then each given a group of four or five students to teach them seven new sentences in English about NZ or NZ phrases. This was to help them with their English although most of us just ended up speaking German, I for one. Two girls then did a little play for us, in English, which was very good especially since they've only been learning English for about two years and they knew all their lines off by heart. After lunch we were taught the Polka dance (a.k.a. Anne-Marie) the dance we always perform at the farewell parties for this exchange. We were also taught the Vienna Waltz (if that's how it's spelt) which frightened everyone at first but we soon got the hang of it.

An enjoyable day, if I may say so myself =).

xoxDAIRNExox

Photos from our road-trip

Konigsee at dusk: choice bro!

Salzberg in a moment without snow. In the top right is Hohensalzberg.

Konigsee and a boat.

Kevin the Texan-tour-guide tells us about the glockenspiel of Munchen.

Salzburg and Munich- Wednesday 13th/Thursday 14th April

Hi Guys!

I noticed that nobody has done the blog for these days and I have some spare time on my hands, so I might as well do it. Everyone ready for a wall of text? Ill try my best to put paragraphs in!

So the Wednesday of last week was the day that we went to Salzburg, which is in Austria, about a 45 minute drive away from our hostel. Unfortunately by this stage in the week many of us were feeling a little under the weather, and even more unfortunate was the negative temperatures we felt all through the morning, however the snow was fantastic to see, none of us expected to see such a huge amount of snow blanketing the ground in the middle of Salzburg! So we met with our tour guide after walking around the Do Re Mi garden from The Sound of Music, and started walking through city, after we spotetd Mozarts old residence we walked over the Salzach river and then to the Getriedegasse, an old street in the centre of the old town of Salzburg, where we all found refuge from the cold in Macdonalds. After a quick break we continued, reaching yet another fountain from the Sound of Music, and then we went into the Salzburg Cathedral, which was one of many great, elegant buildings dotted aroudn the old town. We also spotted Mozarts birthplace, and then approached the large hill upon which the fortress, Hohensalzburg, is situated.

Usually you can take a tram up the hill in around 53 seconds, but the guide ecstatically told us that it was under rennovation so it could do the job in 48 seconds when it is reopened in a few days. Unfortunately for us, this meant it would take us about 15 minutes to get up by walking, and this hill would soon become our least favourite hill in Salzburg! But once we were up the views were breathtaking, and we were somewhat sheltered from the snow within the fortress walls. After a short tour around the fortress, which included a torture room that the guide claimed was never used, we reached the highest tower of the fortress from which we could get a full 360° view of Salzburg and the Alps, but we had to leave quickly because the wind picked up and started chucking snow in our faces yet again.

The journey down the hill was somewhat easier than the climb up to the fortress, and the guide kindly took us back to Getriedegasse, where we had a few hours to shop, most of which was felt finding a place to shelter from the cold, Macdonalds was the perfect refuge yet again. We also went in pursuit of the real Mozart chocolates, as a patent was never made on them, so there are numerous shops that claim to have the real deal, but have fakes! But with the advice from the guide, to look for the Fürst Chocolates with blue and silver wrapping, we eventually found them. After our shopping we went back on the bus and back to our hostel- der Schapbachhof- and went to bed on time, we promise...

The Thursday was our day in Munich, and this trip was a little longer, about 2 hours. The landscape was still filled with snow, but luckily the centre of Munich was snow-less, and we could shed some of the jackets and jumpers we had brought, expecting another sub-zero temperature day. In the centre of Marienplatz we met our guide, who was a Texan living in Munich, who was very funny, although some of his facts about Munich seemed quite strange. He took us to the Frauenkirche, which was commisioned by Satan, according to the guide. However this story was just a legend, and had to do with the footprint of the architect in the vestibule of the church, and how no windows were visible from this position, the perfect dark, scary place for the devil to do his bidding, when infact there were many windows, but were all hidden by columns. Oh, and the devil speaks like Christopher Walken according to our guide, another fun fact.

So after this we walked back to Marienplatz, where we saw the famous Glockenspiel, which contains a wedding scene, two jousters who move unbelievably slow, and some barrelmakers who spin around a thrusting jester, it was certainly a cultural experience! The guide claimed that the finale of the Glockenspiel was when a golden eagle bursts out of the new town hall, flys around the square, turns the golden statue of Mary into David Hasselhoff, who then sings to us, but unfortunately none of us saw that bit! After that we walked to the Viktualienmarkt, the market where the most fantastic smelling foods are sold, surrounding a beer garden and a Maypole, which also has another funny story behind it. According to the guide, if your maypole is stolen, the only way to get it back was to throw a party for the thief with lots of food and beer for free, but the Viktualienmarkt maypole was a bit big for us to cart of unnoticed.

We kept walking past a Jewish Temple and other memorials, and then made it to the Hofbräuhaus, the highlight of the day! The biggest beer hall in Munich, it is filled with jovial old Bavarians with awesome moustaches and the sound of the Bavarian band playing in the centre of the room. Frau Zimmer ordered us all Weißwurst, a Bavarian food, which are white boiled sausages, which were certainly interesting to eat. We all had a lot of fun, and most of us enjoyed the food, but for some Weißwurst were not the most appealing meal. After the Hofbräuhaus we all had some time for shopping, and some of us went up St. Peters Church, which was about 300 steps up, but had amazing views. After our freetime, we went back on the bus and had another 2 hour drive back to our hostel, where we enjoyed our last night, some by going to bed early and having a great sleep, and others by staying up past midnight and having a few hours rest!

Of course the Friday was less spectacular, but we all had another great 10 hour bus trip back to Werder, where we all set off on another eventful weekend. We dont have long until we have to come back to New Zealand, so we are trying to enjoy ourselves as much as we can and experience life in Germany to the fullest. Bis bald!

Konigsee and Obersalzberg - Tuesday 12th April

Tuesday was our first day in Bavaria. When we woke up it was snowing, which was a nice surprise for everyone, but maybe a few got a little too excited.. Unfortunatly by the time we got on the bus to head off to the Königsee it was just raining and it rained for the rest of the day. We arrived in Schönau and went out on the boat trip to the old church of St. Bartolemä on the other side of the lake. On the way over the captain of the boat played the trumpet between two huge cliff faces we passed between, to show how it echoed. The sound kept going back and forth for about 30 seconds which was pretty cool. On the other side there was just the church, a souvenir shop and a few other buildings. After the boat trip we went from the town of Schönau to the luge track. Sadly the luge track was closed because it was too wet, but nearby there was a Restaurant where we had lunch. From there we could look out over the town of Berchtesgaden (I think), and the Bavarian alps. After eating a huge amount of food we went over to the Obersalzberg, a few minutes away. This is where Hitler and a few other high ranking Nazis had houses, and a building where they could act as Government. We did a tour of the Museum and then around the bunker underneath, which was really cool. It was never finished, and there is still graffiti from allied soldiers that came through in 1945. After that we went down to Berchtesgaden, where we had free-time to go to the supermarket and get supplies for the week. Then we went back to the hostel. Thats pretty much it. The bad weather and freezing temperatures didnt stop us having a great time. -Finlay.

Bayern

We have arrived in the mountains of Bavaria (Schoenau am Koenigssee). They are very impressive after the flat land in and around Berlin. The hostel we are staying in is very nice, and very secluded. Because of this we will not have an internet connection until Friday. Everyone is fine and we will post more detailed information about our activities in Bayern once we return to Werder. Many of the students were extremely excited to see snow fall for the first time, which means it is very cold here. Tomorrow we will go to Salzburg in Austria and then Muenchen on Thursday.

On Friday after getting back from Berlin I changed hosts from Marcel to Marie because Marie and her father were taking me to a concert. I was absolutely blown away by how awesome Marie's house is and her whole family is also really nice and easy to get along with. After settling into the huge room they gave me Marie and I rode bikes to her grandparent's house and they showed me through their huge property which seemed to contain about 10 separate houses. (This may have actually happened on Saturday, my memory is a bit broken.) Later that night I went to the Jamiroquai concert with Marie and her Dad. I really enjoyed it although we had to stand up for about 3 hours and by the end my back hurt. After the concert Marie and I went to the house of one of her friends and I met some people then we went home and I slept.

On Saturday morning we prepared a bonfire for Saturday night. The rest of the day we mainly just relaxed and didn't do too much which was a relief after a very busy week. That night all the New Zealand students and their hosts plus a couple of Marie's other friends came around for a party and bonfire. The party went well and I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time.

Today(Sunday) I woke up pretty late then after breakfast I went with Marie's family to the "Spagelmarkt"? I think that's what it's called. It's to do with asparagus. It was mainly just a big market/fair thing with lots of people trying to sell off their unwanted junk. However there was also some good food and I had a Bratwurst which I discovered is pretty much just a barbecued sausage like we have in New Zealand. There was also a big forest thing right beside the fair with semi-wild deer and pigs in it. They were fenced off. The forest has a high ropes course in it like the one in that place in New Zealand that I forgot the name of. Hopefully some of the people reading this know what I mean. My host family said they're going to take me there next week which will be cool. I think Abby and Hayley said they did it yesterday. Finally at about 3 some of Marie's friends came round and we had a barbecue then they went home and then I wrote this/am writing this.

So far Germany has been an amazing experience and I'm not looking forward to it ending.

The End.

By Charlie

Oh and I didn't take any photos this weekend so I'm not going to post any photos.

Am Wochenende...

The First Weekend In Germany

On Saturday I woke up feeling quite tired from the movie night at Svens that half our group went to, and i think everyone else that came probably felt the same. I told myself i was in Germany (!!!) and was immediately wide awake and ready for whatever.

At about 11 o'clock my host mother Gabi, my host sister Jessi and i drove to Potsdam for a girls day out ie. shopping. Gabi knew i'd be tired so she set out an easy-going day for me. We went to a mall called Sterncenter and i bought lots of clothes from H&M (hopefully not too much). Jessi and i bought each other matching bracelets that we must always wear to remember each other. :) Afterwards we bought some Jellybellies (which have slightly different flavours here) and a chocolate sundae from McDonalds. I still haven't tried the Magnum McFlurry which i think everyone else is dying to too.

It was five when we got home (oh, how time flies when shopping) and Jessi and i played Wii for a hour. I lost most of the time. :( We got changed for Marie's party but first the whole family and i went to see the Handball game between HV G.-W Werder and Grünheider SV at Ernst-Haeckel Gymnasium. I had never seen handball before and i had lots of fun cheering for Werder. I only saw 20 minutes of it but it seemed like Grünheider was always a little ahead.

Jessi and i left at halftime to go to Marie's party and we arrived fashionably late. It was outside and i was soo glad i brought two jackets and wore both. A big bonfire was set up with tonnes of wood around and awful music playing. There was lots of laughter and everyone got to know each other better. The food was mostly popcorn and salads, and the marshmallows couldn't be toasted as we were getting toasted ourselves in the heat of the massive fire. Overall, good party. :)

We got home at 11 something and i was very "K.O", as they say here. I passed out soon after and was woken up at 9-ish. We had another wonderful breakfast of cereal, a boiled egg, toast, bread and spreads, strawberries and red Christmas tea. Marcel (Jessi's boyfriend) accompanied us for the day.

We had a train to Berlin to catch at 10.20 and we were late. We broke a few speed limits and caught it just in time. We arrived somewhere and got lost for 45 mins in train stations (lol) but thankfully we didn't have any reservations for the day. Gabi and Torsten told us they had a surprise for me and Jessi didn't know either and spent the whole day guessing what it could be.

The first place we went to was Madame Tussauds. I had lots of fun taking silly pictures and learning how the wax firgures were made. Most of them looked really real but some people i couldn't recognise at all. I bought a photo of us all for keepsakes and i even got a wax hand of my own hand made. Marcel and Jessie got one of them holding hands. It only cost €7.50, unlike the bobbleheads of yourself which were €65 a pop. Its pretty cool, although hollow, and i will use it as a jewellery holder. Afterwards we got lost with the trains again for a while but finally reached Mariendorf at some point for the best currywurst in Berlin. We walked past a doner kebab shop that had 50 people waiting in line, and the queue for the currywurst at Curry 36° wasn't short either. Apparently lots of actors and congressmen come to eat lunch there too. All of us ate two currywursts with french fries, sauce and mayo. It was delicious. :D

We caught another train, to Alexander Platz this time, and it was now time for us to know the surprise. I had told the family earlier that a little goal of mine was to go hot air ballooning in as many countries as i could. They remembered this and decided to take me to the Die Welt Ballon (the world balloon) to view Berlin from above. Unfortunately it was a little bit too windy to go up. I was so happy that they thought of taking me that i wasn't even a bit sad that we couldn't.

We decided to go around the corner to visit Berlin's Fernsehturm (TV tower). After buying tickets we had some time to kill before we could go up so we bought some ice cream. I bought one with a flavour i had never heard before, and had no explaination, and also is the same colour as our nz to germany t-shirts. It was called Puffo, and tasted quite like bubblegum. My host family showed me the Weltzeituhr (world time clock) for a bit and then we went up the Fernsehturm.

The Fernsehturm is 40m taller than the Sky Tower and was packed. We could see everything clearly as there hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day and because everything is flat. It was breathtaking to see all of Berlin and more at near sunset.

- Niki.

p.s. Werder won by 31-30

Brandenburg....

Wow, its been a fun-fill five (Lol =o=) days in Germany and I really can't believe time has flown so fast D:

So today we all headed off to Brandenburg with some of our German homestays and had a tour of the old, old, old....... old city. The history of Brandenburg starts all the way back to medieval times. The city was first inhabited by Barbarians after they had defeated the Roman empire then the city was Brandenburg was taken over by the Slavs. After a period of time, the barbarians (now called the Germans) pushed back and took over the city once again. This kind of fighting kept repeating for a few centuries until Frederik the Great got his great army to conquer everything.

Brandenburg itself was extremely interesting, even though the weather seemed to have disagreed with us. Even though it wasn't really that cold, the wind came along and everyone wrapped themselves in their jackets trying to hide from the wind's terror...

So our day started off as usual at EHG and we as usual walked to the Werder train station and took a train to Brandenburg. At the train station, we were greeted by Frau Wlosnewski (don't worry, I had trouble saying too) and given tourist-y things like maps and information booklets. After drinking my first can of Red Bull we all set off in the direction of St. Peter's cathedral. At the cathedral, we were greeted by the pastor and he told us the history and the story of Brandenburg and of course the cathedral. After that he demonstrated the echo power of the cathedral by singing to us from the crypt. The echo power was so great that we all heard his singing from far away xD. We then had a tour of the cathedral and were shown a lot of the cathedral's awesome features.

We then had a group photo in front of the Cathedral and split up into two different groups. One of the groups went to St. Katherine's Church and the other group went to the Monastery.

At noon the groups got together again and we all went down to the river Havel. Some of us (like me :D) got into canoes and canoed along the Havel. For me it was great fun (even though I was stuck in a boat with four girls that couldn't canoe and we spent half the time zig-zagging everywhere) and by the looks on people's faces, they did too. While some of us were exploring the river, the television crew that had been following us conducted some interviews about our experience in Brandenburg. Hopefully we can get a copy of their story.

We then all went ashore and started egg rolling. The point of egg rolling, was to roll your eggs down these paths and make it to the end of the track without breaking your egg... There were three tracks to roll your egg down and they all had a a different level of difficulty. The great thing about egg rolling was that if you were able to roll your egg successfully down all the tracks, you had to eat them.

Sadly now, it was time to leave Brandenburg. We all packed up and headed towards the bus stop. Everyone was tired and ready to go home but that didn't stop us from getting excited and running for the playground. Everyone rushed for everything and I must admit, this was one cool playground. It had rope swings for four people, a rocking pirate ship and a wierd snake thing that did something. Everyone played on something. Frau Zimmer then told everyone that it was time to go and so we all stopped playing and sadly walked away from the playground. We then turned around to see Herr Howell, Frau Ankersmit and Frau Zimmer playing on the rope swing. Herr Howell slowing down the swing by hanging on to it and dragging his legs on the ground. After that, we all got on a bus, then a train, then... everyone went home.

So... Today, like all other days was fun, there was so much to do and see in such a small place and it was a nice way to end our first week in Germany. On Monday we all head out to Bavaria and spend a week there.

I guess thats all I have to say (Yay)...

Tschüss!

Johnson.

Day 4- Berlin Again!!

Hi Guys, just had another very busy and exciting day in Berlin! We started off the day with a walk to the train station in Werder, about ten minutes from the school. Surprisingly it wasn't too cold, a welcome change from the usually chilly mornings! We got on the train that takes us directly into Berlin, only to make it to Potsdam before the train *shock horror* broke down! Luckily Frau Zimmer found another route on the slower S-Bahn, which took a lot longer, but we still managed to get into Berlin before our tour at the Berliner Dom (cathedral) started. How's that for German efficiency? :D So we got to the beautiful cathedral and the guide showed us the amazing mosaics at the entrance and then took us inside, where we saw a few very ornate marble staircases and angel ornaments. He then took us into the main prayer hall, a huge room covered in amazing mosaics and of course, we could see the inside of the huge dome, which has a large mosaic of a dove at the very apex. The guide also talked about what the mosaics signified, and who all the marble statues were of, it was all very interesting and we mostly just gazed up at the decorations while we listened. After we broke the world record for the most photos taken in one room, we left the hall and explored the crypt, which was built in order to avoid the Royal coffins being flooded when the Spree River used to overflow twice a year, back in the time of the emperors. We all then climbed a staircase (the number we counted was 197 stairs), and reached the observation ring around the dome, where we could look out over Berlin, it was a fantastic view, but those who suffered from heights or claustrophobia may not have enjoyed it as much! After that we descended and browsed through the gift shop and cafe, having a break before setting off again. Our next destination was a stark contrast from the ornate, christian cathedral design of the Berliner Dom, we took the U-Bahn to the Jewish Museum on the other side of town. The most striking difference was the architecture of the Museum compared with the cathedral, it was a stark geometric building, with minimal decorations, it looked cold and hard like concrete, but the real effect was in the inside of the museum. While there were many areas with artefacts from the time of the persecution of the Jews, and many other videos and photos shown, the real emotion was felt, not seen. One of the highlights of the museum was definately the Holocaust Tower, a 24 metre high, triangular room, which is completely closed off from the outside except for a small slit high on the wall which lets in a tiny amount of light. With the door disappearing into the blackness, the only visible way out was metal ladder on the wall leading into the blackness above, but it would be too high for us to reach. The audio guide told us that the architect of this room intended for each perception of the room to be a personal one, everyone may interpret the room in a different way. One thing is for sure, noone stayed in that cold, dark room for too long. We also had plenty of time to walk around the exhibits and contemplate the history that the Jewish people have had over the past centuries, it was certainly an experience we will not forget in a hurry! After the museum we travelled by train to Potsdamer Platz, another great shopping location, but at this stage everyone was so exhausted from walking around all day that we mostly just stayed at the Eiscafe and tried the many flavours that were on offer. Some even bought some Spaghetti Eis, icecream that is shaped like spaghetti! After an hour and a half we left and took the proper train back to Werder to be picked up by our host families, all in all a busy day, but a very eventful and fun day. But we can all give our legs a rest tomorrow, kayaking in Brandenburg an der Havel, where we will all be followed around by a tv crew. Let's hope nobody flips the kayak on camera! Tschuss! (PS I just realised I wrote a little bit too much, if you are reading this congratulations on finishing!)

Photos 6 April

Day 3, The New Palace and Sanssouci

So I pretty much took it upon myself to write something, because i thought noone else will hahah, so sorry if you were going to write something! Today we went to the New Palace and Sanssouci. We went to school for an hour in the morning and then walked to the train station, We got off and walked down to the New Palace in Potsdam. It was so amazing. Even though it was old, and under restoration, you could still see the beauty behind it, and the amazing architechture. We walked around outside for a bit taking photos, and then we went inside for our 2 hour tour. We had to put on these massive slippers, because they want to keep the floor free from scuff marks, because it's all marble. We went into a couple rooms, and our tour guide explained everything you needed to know. We found out that Friedrich the Great was the one that built it, and he actually died in it too. After we had finished the tour, we went outside and started the LONG walk down to Sansoucci. I think it was almost 2 km? So yeah, it was massive! On parts of the way there, we stopped and our guide told us little things about the buildings dotted around the landscape. We finally got to Sanssouci, and it was beautiful. It has 6 rows of vineyards infront of it, flowers everywhere, and the most amazing massive house! We then walked down to Potsdam, shopped, ate and saw the sights. And then returned home. All in all it was a good day :) See you soon! -Kate

Photos 5 April

BERLIN :)

Today we went into Berlin for the first time. We had to catch the train from Werder into Berlin which took about 20 minutes. The train is so much faster. When we got to Berlin we went straight to the Brandenburg Gate and took a lot of photos under it. Then we met up with our tour guide who was from England. He took us around all the main places in Berlin and explained the history of the city. We saw that Memorial to the Holocaust which was built in 2005, and then to the place where Hitler killed himself. It was a car park because the German people have decided to memorialize the victims of war rather than the perpetrators. We went to what was left of the Berlin wall and to Checkpoint Charlie, both of those places were very interesting.

The churches in Berlin are very pretty and so old... :) Much better than in New Zealand. We went to site of the burning of the books which was so cool. The memorial is so powerful, it is glass in the ground, and underneath is empty bookshelves. It was right next to the University where Einstein studied. There was a massive teachers strike going on while we were there, which was pretty cool. The teachers in New Zealand should strike like the Germans. :) The tour took a couple of hours and was a lot of walking, but Berlin is not actually that big, I thought it would be bigger. When the tour had finished we went to the Reichstag (German Parliament Building). We had another tour guide here to take us through. It was cool because there was all this graffiti on the wall in Russian that was from 1945 when the Russian soldiers arrived thinking that it was Hitler's headquarters. It was cool to see that they had kept it even though we didn't understand what it said. We then went into the viewing chamber in the parliament building. All the seats were this purple colour which was cool. We then went to the viewing platform of the dome which had an amazing view of Berlin. You could see the Brandenburg gate and the Cathedral and everything from there. Then we got back on the train and went home to Werder. Everyone was tired at this point from all the walking. We all just wanted to sleep. So ah, yeah. That was our day :)
-Anna

Photos 4 April

Welcome to Werder

Still a little jet-lagged but very excited to finally be in Germany, we assembled this morning at Ernst-Haeckel Gymnasium. The students were taken on a tour of the school by their hosts, while the teachers had "2nd breakfast". This was followed by a tour around the old town of Werder which was both informative and beautiful, despite both the church and the fish restaurant being closed. The most exciting part of the trip, if measured by student reaction, must be given to the ice-cream shop which proved to be inordinately fascinating given both the cold weather and ready availability of ice-cream in New Zealand. 

Once we had all calmed down a little bit, we returned to the school where we were met by our hosts for lunch. This was the traditional bread, meat, and cheese, accompanied by the slightly less traditional but equally delicious gummi-bears. 

To conclude our first full day in Germany, we were welcomed by the principal of Ernst-Haeckel, and the Mayor of Werder. In response to this, the filmed introductions that we spent weeks labouring over back in Auckland were played and Frau Ankersmit gave a presentation on Lynfield College and the City of Sails itself. While our film was, admittedly, a little silly, the humour was not lost in translation.

Arrival in Germany

We have finally arrived in Germany :) Everyone is fine and just a "little bit" tired. We are looking forward to seeing each other again tomorrow morning at school.

Wir sind in Honk Kong

We just arrived in Hong Kong, and have 2 hours until we depart for our second leg of the trip.
Some found the flight exciting, others found it 11 hours of hell (but they are ok now, honest)

The McDonalds in Hong Kong is strangely familiar. Who knew that sausage meat went so well with hot cakes?

squawk

Back to Germany! At least I don't have an 8 hour wait in Heathrow this time! ><

xoxDAIRNExox

Really can't be bothered packing :/ But am definately excited to go

omg omg omg omg omg omg tonight.!!! :D :D :D aaahhhhhh sooooo excited.! :D