Friday! By far the best day of the whole trip. Just like usual, the lessons started at 9. First we started off by talking about how our language skills have developed, and where we think we are at this point, and where we hoped we would be. After that, we made a family 'portrait'. If someone just took a picture at a completly normal time, what would it look like. For me, we were outside playing soccer, Uli was doing garden work outside, and telling us not to fight, and Dirk was inside watching his rugby game. This doesn't really happen that much, but it happened the week before I left, and I thought it was a pretty good way to show a quick glance into our family 'portrait'. To finish off this lesson, we took PostIts and, since we said many non perfect things about our host families, we wrote a giant list of things we appreciate from them. Then it was finally off to our adventure! A 30 minute train ride later, and we were once agian in Munich! From there we took a subway, and were soon at the Olimpic Stadium. The very first thing we did was just walk around, and look at all the stadiums from outside. One really cool feature was that the buildings had like a carnival rooftop, but made of glass. It was a really cool design, and made this place look really nice. We wandered our way to TV tower, being one of the tallest in Germany (2nd?). After taking an elevator that went a crazy 23 feet per second, we were placed 620 feet up, with an open air 360 degree viewing platform. It was really crazy up here, and we could see everything, from the FC Bayern stadium, to the main city, to regular houses. Really the pictures don't do this justice, and I'm not sure how to explain it, so just go for yourself. As if the tower wasn't enough, and the view of the soccer stadium wasn't enough, we then got to go IN THE STADIUM! Once in I was freaking out at just how huge this place was. I could have stayed here for a long long time, just walking around. It was cool to think that some of the best athletes one stood here, and that someone from almost every country of the world has stood where I was standing. To make this even better, and since we are crazy americans, we decided it would be cool to go over the small fence stopping us from going onto the ground floor. After all going down there and touching the track, we got yelled at, and sadly had to go back to where we supposed to be, but it was still awesome. Sadly we ran out of things to look at there, so we went to some part of the town that has 3 roman style buildings, and looked at those. Sadly I didn't get any good pictures, but it wasn't too amazing. Finally it was back into the city for dinner, and this time I bought a typical German meal, and yes, of course it had meat. =P. I don't know what it's called in English, so I'll just say it was good.
To finish up this already crazy day, we went to the theater (acting, not movie). My group thought we were going to be presented with a the Bible story of Moses, but 5 minutes in found out that it was a post-modern play, meaning you leave having no idea what happened. To basically sum up the plot line, one scene had a giant machine with a spinning cylinder, and a wig dropped into the cylinder and then got tangled up, end scene, and now we are shown a trash bin with a baby in a bag, then we go to a caveman scene where a baby dies and she buries it, and the other cavemen are confused, and then some people are in an art museum with one picture, that being a bunny. Yeah, we left the theater all laughing so hard out of confusion of what just happened that most were crying. Meanwhile all of these people 50 to 80 just stand there like what just happened was completly normal. On our 30 minute train ride back, we pieced together MOST of what the scenes were, but really couldn't figure out some of them. Let's just say it was an unforgettable experience. (Also, I didn't expect you to understand any of that =P, we didn't really either).
Digesting through everything that happened the day before wasn't easy, but the next day came very quickly. 9 o'clock sharp started the lesson, and this was just a reflection of how the entire week was, what they need to do better, what we learned, and what we will take back to our host families. After lunch we had time to plan our program for the evening, and when that was finished we had dinner. Once all had eaten, it was time to present to leaders to our 'Colorful Evening' as translated. We started off with presenting each leader with a thank you poster, and then we all went outside to the campfire, sang some songs, and just hung around, and after waiting a bit for supplies, ate some s'mores! Once it started to get cold, we moved the party inside, and had music on, then when typical dance music came on we danced with. (cupid shuffle, chicken dance, so on). When we got to 'quiet hours' we created a game with 20 or so people of Mafia, a fun group game for those who don't know. An hour or two afterward, it was sadly time to conclude our last night all together...
Sunday meant goodbyes, and that's just about all we did. We took group pictures, took selfies, and look random other pictures. For some that meant a one hour train ride, and for me it meant a 10 hour train ride... Yup, longer than before. When finally home, it was time to go to bed, and prepare to be at school bright and early!
Make sure to check out my pictures, and check up in 2 weeks. I'm off to sweden soon to meet up with our old exchange student for a week of adventure. Sorry for so long without posting, life got into a schedule, and nothing too crazy happened. That concludes my very short post, Tschüss!
To finish up this already crazy day, we went to the theater (acting, not movie). My group thought we were going to be presented with a the Bible story of Moses, but 5 minutes in found out that it was a post-modern play, meaning you leave having no idea what happened. To basically sum up the plot line, one scene had a giant machine with a spinning cylinder, and a wig dropped into the cylinder and then got tangled up, end scene, and now we are shown a trash bin with a baby in a bag, then we go to a caveman scene where a baby dies and she buries it, and the other cavemen are confused, and then some people are in an art museum with one picture, that being a bunny. Yeah, we left the theater all laughing so hard out of confusion of what just happened that most were crying. Meanwhile all of these people 50 to 80 just stand there like what just happened was completly normal. On our 30 minute train ride back, we pieced together MOST of what the scenes were, but really couldn't figure out some of them. Let's just say it was an unforgettable experience. (Also, I didn't expect you to understand any of that =P, we didn't really either).
Digesting through everything that happened the day before wasn't easy, but the next day came very quickly. 9 o'clock sharp started the lesson, and this was just a reflection of how the entire week was, what they need to do better, what we learned, and what we will take back to our host families. After lunch we had time to plan our program for the evening, and when that was finished we had dinner. Once all had eaten, it was time to present to leaders to our 'Colorful Evening' as translated. We started off with presenting each leader with a thank you poster, and then we all went outside to the campfire, sang some songs, and just hung around, and after waiting a bit for supplies, ate some s'mores! Once it started to get cold, we moved the party inside, and had music on, then when typical dance music came on we danced with. (cupid shuffle, chicken dance, so on). When we got to 'quiet hours' we created a game with 20 or so people of Mafia, a fun group game for those who don't know. An hour or two afterward, it was sadly time to conclude our last night all together...
Sunday meant goodbyes, and that's just about all we did. We took group pictures, took selfies, and look random other pictures. For some that meant a one hour train ride, and for me it meant a 10 hour train ride... Yup, longer than before. When finally home, it was time to go to bed, and prepare to be at school bright and early!
Make sure to check out my pictures, and check up in 2 weeks. I'm off to sweden soon to meet up with our old exchange student for a week of adventure. Sorry for so long without posting, life got into a schedule, and nothing too crazy happened. That concludes my very short post, Tschüss!