My partner had a P.E lesson, in which they played hand ball. After this we all went to break for 30mins. We then had to go upstairs for an English lesson, in which we had a debate about the war in Iraq. After the long English lesson, all of the English students walked in to the town centre and had an hour to shop. We then went into the town hall and had a talk from the mayor.
After the talk we were free to shop again for just over an hour. We managed to find a “diddle” shop, which sold a lot of stationary and toys, and our group all managed to find something for either a sibling or a friend.
We all made our way back to the school and went our separate ways, but a few of the Germans had an extra lesson after school, so their English partners, including me, waited outside on the school steps for them.
When they finally came out of their lesson, Corinna and I went back to her house for a quick meal and then hurried into the town centre for a choir rehearsal at her local church. When the rehearsal had finished, we went to an ice-cream parlour and met up with James Mill, Sabrina, Emma, Jo and their partners and went shopping for a while.
We eventually got bored of shopping and Jo, Emma, James and I walked with our partners towards Stephie (Jo’s partners) house. We left James and his partner to go to the cinema and the rest of the group went back to Stephie’s house where we proceeded to be attacked by teething puppies, who all thought they were harming us much more than they really were.
After an hour and a half of being half eaten by dogs, we left their house and walked back to Corinna’s house. There we ate yet another meal and then went out to a “café”, the German version of the English pubs, for the rest of the evening. When we arrived back at their house again we were all exhausted, so we all went straight up to bed for a well earned rest.
Tuesday – our first day in Berlin
Deinstag, unserer ersten Tag nach Berlin
As always, we woke up bright and early on Tuesday morning. There was the usual queue for the bathroom, and the usual gulping down of food in a rush to get out the front door on time. But this day there was a slight difference. Corinna and Felicia left the house without me and made their way to school just the two of them.
Soon afterwards, Corinna’s mother and I got into the car and drove in the opposite direction, out of the town. We arrived a short while later at the Minden train station, where most of the remaining English students were waiting. We stood inside the ticket collecting area of the platform for nearly an hour and then finally moved onto the train platform where we had another wait until we eventually boarded the train.
The train journey to Berlin was very long, and quite boring down our end of the coach. The most exciting thing that happened anywhere near us was when the teachers decided to go down to the food carriage and we were left in charge of their seats and possessions. Apart from that there were just the normal conversations about people feeling ill and “who fancies who” yet again.
When we arrived in Berlin the teachers panicked and flapped about trying to make sure everyone and all of their possessions made it off the train before it moved on again. When this task had been successfully completed, we moved away from the platform and walked down the road a short distance until we arrived at the youth hostel where we would be spending the night.
At the youth hostel we were given pink forms which we had to fill out with our name (Name), date we were staying from (Aufenthalt vom), town we came from (Wohnort), room number (Zimmer-Nr) and when we were leaving (Aufenthalt bis, written bis on the guest card).
We were given a while to sort out our rooms between ourselves and we then made our way downstairs. When everyone had gathered outside the hostel, we walked a short distance down the road to the old church, which had half of its roof missing due to being hit by a bomb during the war. After exploring the small monumental museum we walked out of the door and straight ahead into the modern church, which had a rather surprising octagonal shape.
We sat through a service in the new church and then left, shaking the vicar’s hand on the way out of the door. We were then given a few hours to shop and were told to stay in groups of at least three, and we all once again went our separate ways.
When we met up again as a group there was yet another wait and more number checks by the teachers who did not seem to be able to count. When the teachers had finished their 10th check of the number counts, we moved on to the next attraction – a Jewish museum. Everyone wandered around it for a while and then we went upstairs again to collect our valuables from the cloak room.
After this we all made our way back to the youth hostel, where we had 15minutes to ourselves before we had to go downstairs for supper. This was, we think, spaghetti bolognaise, but we all have to admit, it was quite hard to tell! With this we had a kind of tea which was a yellow colour, and smelt quite strange, so I think only the teachers were brave enough to drink it apart from the people who drank it as a dare.
We all went back up to our rooms again after supper, and got ready for the night’s activities. No one was quite sure where we would be going or what we would be doing, so we all followed the teachers willingly like a flock of sheep. We stopped for about 10minutes outside a large building, and we finally worked out that this was the place we had come to, and that we were waiting for Mr Owen to re-appear with the tickets.
When he did appear, we all made our way inside and were issued with a ticket each. That is when we finally found out where we were, other than some place in Berlin. We were at “Checkpoint Charlie”. This had been one of the checkpoints of the Berlin wall during WW2, which has now been turned into a museum dedicated to showing the public the many ways in which people tried to cross the border. These methods included some very strange and exciting methods, such as hiding people inside a boiler which had been designed especially so that if it was opened from the outside, the people could not be seen without a special order of bolts and locks being turned. From the inside, however, it could be opened simply by pulling one lever. Another interesting method was disguising yourself as a car seat, and even having people sitting on you on your way through the checkpoint!
When everyone had become bored with that, we made our way to the dome, an enormous building made out of glass which you could go to the top of and look around the whole of Berlin. This was very exciting, and we were very upset when we were told that we had to leave because they wanted to clean it again. So, we all went down in the lifts again, and got on a bus going back towards the centre of Berlin. We stopped by the octagonal church again and went to burger king to get some edible food!
We went back to the youth hostel and went straight up to our rooms, where we got ready for bed and then had pillow fights and just generally had fun until Mrs Mill came round and asked us to be a bit quieter, so we just carried on what we had been doing but trying to keep the noise down. This was quite hard to do and our door was knocked on many times to try and get us to be quiet.
We finally went to sleep at about 3 o’clock the next morning.
Wednesday - the second day in Berlin
Mittwoch – unserer seconden tag nach Berlin.
The morning after! Everyone was exhausted and walking around like zombies. The teachers looked almost as tired as us, and people actually ate the youth hostel breakfast without realising how disgusting it tasted! When the last morsel of edible food had been eaten, we all vanished upstairs to pack our bags and sort the rooms out before the teachers realised what a mess they were in.
When the rooms looked as respectable as they were ever going to look, we all rushed downstairs to hand in our keys before they got lost. Everyone then congregated around the front door until the teachers arrived having checked around all of the rooms that they could find in the confusing maze of corridors and staircases. Even though all of the doors led out into one corridor, it was still easy to get lost!
When Mr Owen and Mr Sides had completed all of their number checks, they decided that it would be fun to put someone else in charge, so they gave their maps to James Mill and Steven Cook. This may not seem like a bad idea to those of you who have not met these two boys, and believe me, there is nothing wrong with them. There is only the slight problem that neither of them can read a map to save their lives!
After a certain amount of guess work and deciding to get on the bus with their lucky number, we finally got on a bus. After at least ten tries of Steven saying “we are there” and pointing at the map and James saying “no, because that landmark isn’t here” they finally decided to take a closer look at the map and turn it the right way up. They were then finally able to work out where we were and we were all surprised that the bus we were on was going in the right direction!
When James looked out of the window, he suddenly saw the TV tower, and yelled at everyone to get off the bus. After somewhat surprisingly successfully getting everyone off the bus and arranged in some kind of order outside the TV tower, the teachers decided that it was too foggy to go up the tower and told Steven and James to think of somewhere else to go. After quite a long time of them saying “lustgarten!” and trying to convince the teachers that it was a good educating place to take us, we all made our way over to a small village and had more shopping time to ourselves. Most people made their way over to McDonalds, while our group found a nice chocolate shop to spend some of our Euros in.
When the whole group met up again we all walked back over to the TV tower as the fog was lifting, and this time we all went up it. Some people stayed on the first level while we, being the more adventurous group, went upstairs to the restaurant. After some people got thrown out of the restaurant for not buying anything, we bought a salad to share and a few drinks. After the tower had made one full revolution we all made our way back down to the steady ground and made our way to the next wonder of the trip, namely the wall, still being led by the duo.
When the boys got bored of the wall, they turned around and took us back to the train station; we all got on the nearest train and made our way to the next amazement, the church. When we were across the road from the church, I made the mistake of pointing out to James that the church was surrounded by the lustgarten, and a debate started about whether it was good to have a garden of lust right next to a church. Meanwhile, the rest of the group had made their way inside.
After sitting through the ending of a German guided tour, everyone made their way outside again and sat on the steps waiting for the teachers. When they finally decided to re-appear from where ever they had been hiding, we all went to the Pergamon Museum. This museum confused us, as they had taken parts of monuments from all over the world and transported them to this one room. The only problem is that while being transported, many of the pieces had been damaged, so when they had been put back together, they did not fit very well. After spending seemingly pointless time at Pergamon, we all went to a more confusing place, the book burning square from World War 2.
We all stood around a small marker on the floor trying to translate it into English and getting it horribly wrong much to Mr Sides’ annoyance. He finally decided that we were never going to get it right and translated it for us. After about the 5th time of trying to get us to understand the translation we all understood it. We then decided to hurry to the train station so that we could catch the right train.
When we arrived at the train station and realised that we were 15 minutes too early for the train, everyone calmed down and rested for a bit. The train arrived and everyone boarded just in time and rushed for the best seats.
In our cabin everyone just listened to music for the whole journey, I do not know what went on in the others. We arrived back at Minden train station and met up with our families before going home.
At Corinna’s house, we ate some dinner and then watched TV until we got bored and went to bed.
Thursday – Our Day on the Canal.
Donnerstag - unserer Tag auf dem Mittellandkanal.
On the Thursday morning we woke up at the usual school day time and had the usual rush of bathroom, get dressed, and eat. After the spread of meats and marmalades had been finished and cleared away, Corinna and I grabbed our bags and ran out of the front door, shouting quick goodbyes back to the rest of the family. We kept a brisk pace all the way to school as we were running late, and as we walked up the path towards the main door of the school, it was buzzing with excitement. Corinna and I separated underneath the big clock by the entrance and I joined up with the rest of the English group while Corinna went to her first lesson.
The group stood around talking for quite a while and two German students started playing music in protest to the war. After hearing about 10 minutes of the girls’ versions of many different songs, the teachers turned up and we all followed them down to a classroom. We were quite surprised on entering the classroom to see it full of people about half our size. We soon found out that we were sitting in on a year 6 German lesson, and that we had to practice our German as well.
Mr Sides decided that it would be a good idea for us to try out our German on the poor unsuspecting class, and asked us all what we had done and enjoyed most in Berlin. Of course, it was not as easy as it sounds, as there were certain words that no one knew, so it was next to impossible to say what we had enjoyed. After this torturous event, the German teacher stepped in to save us with a game. A member of the class had to go out of the room and another student or object inside the classroom would be chosen for the student to guess at. A song would be sung and when the chosen person got near the object, the singing would get louder and when they got further away it got quieter. Steven got very confused when he was the chosen person and the object at the same time, so the level of singing never changed.
After this lesson, the class and the English students all went outside together, and walked over to a bridge where we looked down at the canal and then separated from the German students. We went down alongside the canal and to the main headquarters and control area of the lock, and separated in to two different groups. We entered the building and our group went along the corridor while the other group disappeared upstairs.
We were directed into what could only have been a control room, and stood around the entrance being careful not to get too close to any of the expensive equipment. We were given a talk in German about the loch, and Mr Owen translated little bits that he thought would be useful. He told us about the system and showed us many maps of the river, and showed us the route that we would be taking. After the long speech and translation, we were given a large brochure, also in German, containing all that he had just told us, and much more.
At the end of this talk, we swapped with the other group and went upstairs, where a man was waiting with an overhead projector buzzing and waiting for us to sit down so he could begin. When we were all quiet and ready, the man started talking to us, in German, about the river and percentages of what different methods of transport could carry and told us all about who was in charge of what at the centre. After he had confused us for long enough with all the different facts and figures, we went back downstairs and out of the door.
We walked alongside the river a bit more and then came out by a café where we met up with the German year 6 students. We then made our way up a steep bank and spent around 5 minutes looking at what seemed like a hole surrounded in brick with very shallow water at the bottom, but was actually one of the many locks along the canal. A few minutes later, the boat arrived, and everyone boarded it quickly to get the best seats.
The boat moved off and everyone was in high spirits. Before long our table was covered in food and everyone was happily munching on whatever they could reach. A few of us listened to music while everyone else talked about their German families. After a while we all looked out of the window, and saw some ducks fishing for fish and anything else they could find. This reminded me of the German song “Alle Meine Enchen” which Frau Eadie had taught us at the end of our exams in year 8.
As the journey continued, it seemed as if every time we looked out of the window, all we could see was brick wall after brick wall as we went up and down in all of the locks. The boat turned around and the journey back to the base was a lot faster than expected, and in no time at all we got off the boat.
We arrived back at the school a little later than expected, and our German partners were all waiting for us. We all left the school as soon as we arrived at it and headed for home. Back at the house, we ate a quick lunch and then got changed and waited for Joanna and Juliana to arrive. When the doorbell rang, we leapt up and ran out the door, before diving into the car before they drove off. We sat in the car talking and then stopped off at Stephie and Emma's house. When they had joined us in the car, we set off again, headed for the big shopping centre.
As we drove towards the centre, all we could see was a massive building with many advertisements around the outside. It was amazing! The car was parked and everyone piled out of the car and rushed over to the centre, being careful not to get run over. As we entered the centre we were overcome by the noise and smells coming from the eis-café, and soon made our way over to it. After we had devoured an ice-cream each, we separated from the Germans to shop.
The shops were amazing, and everything was so cheap! We all bought a top each along with many gifts for our relatives. We eventually ran out of shops, and watched some of a fashion show which was being held in the middle of the centre. This went on for quite a while and was being filmed, but unfortunately our view was slightly disrupted by a smoke machine, belching out clouds of the stuff right in front of us.
Corinna’s mother eventually rang her and told us that she was in the car park waiting for us, so, reluctantly; we left the show, said our goodbyes to the others and made our way back over to the car. The journey home was quite short, but by the time we got in it was already 8:30! We got in, dumped our stuff and ate a quick meal before going out to one of the many pub/cafés in the surrounding area.
We got back to the house at around 10:30, and went straight to bed, ready for our adventures the next day.
Friday – Our Day in Münster.
Freitag – unserer Tag nach Münster.
The next morning we woke up yet again at the normal time and there was the usual rush for the bathroom. We got dressed, ate breakfast and prepared our bags for the day. We left the house as usual, shouting back our goodbyes and made our way slowly towards the school, as we were running a little early.
When we arrived at the school we made our way to the main entrance hall where the rest of the group was starting to congregate. We all started to talk about the day ahead of us, and after a while the teachers joined us and we all moved outside to the bicycle park area. We then stood around for half an hour waiting for the coach to arrive, and when it finally came we all boarded and grabbed the best seats. After a short while longer of sitting still waiting for the other smaller coach to pick up the remaining people, we set off leaving them to wait behind us.
The journey to Münster was quite long, but we kept ourselves amused listening to music, chatting to each other and eating. David and I invented a new game called “coachapple” where you roll or bounce an apple at each other over a table on a coach. This kept us occupied for most of the journey, until the apple looked so battered and bruised that we thought it was better to put it in the bin before it exploded. We eventually arrived in Münster and got off the coach. We all stood around for a while until we were told to separate into a German group and an English group.
We were met by a tour guide who gave us a tour of the town which took about an hour and a half, and we then separated from her outside a big church. David, Faith, Annabel, Vicki, Rosaline, Phillip and I all made our way back into the town centre and tried to find our way around. We finally ended up in what looked a bit like it could be the town centre and had a look around for some interesting shops. We went into a big shopping centre and played on the play stations for a while until we all got bored and went to find an ice cream parlour.
We sat at the parlour eating ice cream for about half an hour, and then went up the street to look at some more shops. We walked past many people carrying strangely large bags, and decided to find the shop they came from, so we found the shop and got two of these bags. We found a large area of seats and sat down for another 30 minutes talking and seeing how much you could fit inside the bags – Victoria Smith fitted inside one of them!
Our group then ventured on to find the largest skating shop in Germany, so we went inside and played on the play station until someone looked at their watch and decided it was time for us to find our way back to the coach. After about 10 minutes of going in the wrong direction, I got out the map and managed, successfully, to find our way back to the coach. This was a large shock to me as I normally couldn’t read a map to save my life!
We all boarded the coach and waited for the stragglers to return, before the coach returned to Minden. The journey back was quite quick, and mainly consisted of David feeling ill and everyone wasting their camera films on taking random pictures around the coach. We finally arrived back at the school where we debussed from our long days adventures. We said our goodbyes and made our way back to Corinna’s house, where we both had a quick shower and got ready for the night ahead!
By the time we were both dressed, the doorbell had rung and Corinna’s best friend had arrived. We all left the house and made our way into Minden town centre, where we waited outside the pub for some other people to arrive. Emma and Joanna and their German partners arrived with a German boy called David, and we all went inside one of the many pub/cafés. We stayed there for 2 hours, and went back to Corinna’s house where her parents had set out all sorts of nibbles and party food for us to eat.
We rang and ordered a small pizza, and Jo and I wondered if it was going to be large enough, but when it arrived it was the biggest pizza either of us had ever seen! It was square and had sides of about a metre, and had a deep base as well! We all took a piece into the dining room and sat down, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. The clock struck at last, and everyone gave her the presents they had been clutching all evening, she was 15 at last!
Everyone stayed until 3:00 the next morning, when Mrs Kamp gave them all a lift home. Corinna and I decided that we would finish off the champagne and then go to bed, so finally at 4:00 I fell fast asleep in the comfortable bed.
Saturday – Corinna’s birthday!
Samstag, Der Geburtstag von Corinna!
On the Saturday we all had a very long lie-in, as we were exhausted from the night/morning before! When we eventually got up at around midday, I washed and got dressed quickly and went into the lounge, where Corinna and her close relatives were waiting. We all sat down at the table in the lounge instead of in the kitchen and proceeded to devour all that was on the table. When the last morsel of bread had been eaten, we all left the table and sat down in the more comfortable half of the lounge, waiting for the guests to arrive.
The guests started to arrive in dribs and drabs, all with presents for Corinna, her sister, and to my surprise, me! It must have been the strangest custom I have ever come across. So, after all of the presents had been exchanged and opened, we sat down, yet again, at the table. This time it was covered in cakes of every variety. Everyone took a slice of cake and ate it, and when they had finished that slice, they took another! They continued to do this until every single slice of cake had been consumed. The plates were then cleared away and washed up, and we moved once again back to the more comfortable half of the living room. The guests eventually left, and Corinna’s close family and I got into the car and drove to Rinteln, a town in Weserbergland. There, we all went to a bowling alley and spent around an hour there. After bowling, we all went back to Corinna’s grandma’s house, where they ordered even more of the humungous pizzas and we ate them with salad. After the salad came ice cream, and when this had been finished we cleared away the tables.
The children then decided to have an arm wrestling contest (which I won) while the adults talked and did crossword puzzles. After the contest we all told each other story’s, and then had to leave as it was 9 o’clock. We all piled into the car and drove back to Corinna’s house. We all sat down to watch some TV when the phone rang. On the other end was Joanna, telling me that David had just gone into hospital. No one knew what was wrong with him, so I rang up Felix (his exchange partner) and asked him. He told me that David had appendicitis and that he would not be coming home with us the next day. I then had the task of ringing round everyone who had asked me to let them know what was wrong! After this I dropped into bed and fell fast asleep.
Sunday – the Journey to England!
Sonntag - Der Reise nach England!
On the Sunday morning, I got up early and checked that I had packed everything. I washed, got dressed and took my bag into the hall and put it near the door. It was surprisingly heavier than it had been when I had arrived in Germany, as it was stuffed full of all of the gifts I had been given and souvenirs and presents for my friends. I made my way into the kitchen for my last ever meal in Germany, and found the whole family sitting around the table waiting.
We ate our breakfast in silence, and slowly cleared away the plates. It was strange, because I had thought that I would have been looking forward to going home, but I didn’t want to leave. The family and I walked out of the front door and down the familiar road to the school. When we arrived the place was swarming with people, all gossiping about what their family’s had given them to take home and whether they were going to miss them.
I went to say hello to a few of my friends, but went back over to the Kamps as soon as I got a chance to. I made Corinna promise to come over to visit us, and they told me that I could go and stay with them whenever I would like to. I reluctantly said my last goodbyes and made my way back over to the coach just in time to get a good seat. The coach drove off and we all waved goodbye to the German families for the last time.
The journey home was a lot quieter than the journey to Germany had been, but it was still not quiet. There were a lot of mutters about David and people were trying to find out when he was coming home, but all that we knew was that his parents were already with him and that they would be bringing him home. We came back by the Eurostar which was a quicker experience, and finally arrived in England, where everyone rang home to say that we were running a little bit late.
We arrived back at the school, said our last goodbyes and re-joined our families, only left with the memories of Germany. I am very glad that I went on the German exchange as it was a great experience and a lot of fun. I would definitely like to go again to re-live the fun.
