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