UK-German Connection 2011
F3 pupils Ray Lynham and Mila Georgieva travelled to Wolfsburg in August as part of the UK-German Connection initiative, designed to develop and promote international co-operation at school level. Mila's report of the trip is below.
For two weeks at the end of the summer, Ray Lynham and I (along with 10 others from across the UK) took part in a language programme run by UK-German Connection. This year’s course took place in Wolfsburg – a relatively small town in the northern part of Germany, which is also home to the headquarters of the car company, Volkswagen.
We arrived in Germany at around midday on the 15th of August. We flew from London Heathrow Airport to Hannover Airport and then took a taxi to Wolfsburg where we met our host families and our group organiser, Mrs. Kumpe. We spent the rest of the day settling in and getting to know our host families.
The following morning, we went to school for our first “Sprachkurs” (these were our “lessons”). We had these lessons almost every day and they were great fun. The German school day starts quite early, but finishes at lunchtime, so, that afternoon we had our first trip – over to the town hall. (We got our picture taken at the town hall, and that same picture then got published in the local newspaper the next day). While we were there, we received a small talk/presentation about the main attractions in Wolfsburg… They were all places we were going to visit during our trip.
On the third day, we visited Berlin. This was definitely one of my favourite trips! Berlin is such a beautiful city with a lot of interesting history. It is also, however, very big – so we had to get a guided bus tour to see all the major sights such as the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate and (of course) the Berlin Wall (or rather, what’s left of it). After this tour, we had about 2 and a half hours to explore the city in smaller groups and visit the places which were most interesting to us. After that, we joined the rest of the group for a tour of the Berlin Film Museum.
The next day, we visited the Volkswagen factory and the rest of the Autostadt. We went on a guided tour of the VW factory and watched as all the different parts of the cars where assembled together – it was really cool! For the rest of the afternoon, we explored the Autostadt and surrounding area for ourselves – there were a lot of other car factories nearby, such as Lamborghini and Audi.
At the end of that week we decided to go to the beach. It was absolutely lovely and we had a very nice afternoon sunbathing and eating ice-cream. During the weekends, we spent time with our host families and that Sunday, my family took me to Allerpark (a large leisure centre) where we went on an obstacle course 10 metres above the ground. (We were strapped in to a harness!)
The following week we had more German lessons at the school and only one “big trip” to Bergen-Belsen (the concentration camp). That particular trip was very upsetting – actually being there was a very different experience to learning about it in class. Seeing the mass graves and the memorials where people had left personal messages to the victims of the War was a very moving experience.
For the second part of that afternoon, we visited a small village near to Bergen-Belsen, called Celle. Celle is so beautiful – it has old-fashioned style buildings from before the time of the War. (One of the reasons it managed to survive the War without being bombed is because it was so small).
The next day, we visited the science museum, Phaeno. It was a lot of fun! There were so many different illusions and mind tricks – my favourites were the revolving house, the tunnel of darkness and the room which had a floor which was at an angle – it was impossible to walk in a straight line from one side of the room to the other!
On the Friday, we went to the theatre for a small workshop. We mostly played games and even the teachers joined in, so it was a laugh!
Finally, on the last day, we had our leaving “party” – I don’t think many of us were in a party mood because we were all sad to be leaving the next day, but we still tried to enjoy ourselves as much a possible and when we got home we packed our stuff and got ready for our travels the next day.
Overall, the whole course was an amazing experience - we made so many new friends who we will (hopefully) keep in touch with for many years to come.
Mila Georgieva F4