Arrival – March 3rd
On March 3rd, 2024 we excitedly welcomed our exchange students from the Netherlands at Aschersleben train station. Everyone was happy to see each other again. But what would be a good start to the exchange week without a little mishap: one of the exchange students had left his travel bag on the train, but unfortunately found out too late. So one swap families took a short trip to Halle to pick up the travel bag there. The rest of Sunday was spent in individual host families.
Monday, March 4th
The program began with a nice, balanced breakfast together in the school’s café. We all talked and laughed a lot. Soon we went to the beautiful St. Stephani Church, where we met with Mr. Bremer, who informed us on the history of the church, and everyone paid close attention. Finally we went into the church. There, all students were given small pieces of paper and had to place them in front of paintings, figures and statues where one or more animals could be recognized. Mr. Bremer then walked around with the group, presented many interesting facts and explained the history as well as the symbols of the animals depicted as best as he could. Afterwards we tested the 6-second-echo with a little song while standing on the gallery of the organ. After the church visit, we all went back to school, where we were introduced to the project, climbed our school´s viewing platform, played cards and finished the remaining rolls of the breakfast J Finally, we all went to the display of the former monastery Klosterhof 5, where Mrs. Steinmetz explained several details about the site. At around 2:30 p.m. all students drove home to spend the rest of the day with their families.
Mia Angelina Müller, Josy Hartmann
Tuesday, March 5th
The day started with meeting at the zoo in Aschersleben at 9 a.m. to hang up nesting boxes, repair or exchange them. As we are absolutely no bird experts Ms Steinmetz had contacted Aschersleben´s bird expert Uwe Nielitz to help us. Well, actually we helped him while he was explaining to us why the boxes needed to be cleaned and how they had to be nailed onto the trees so that birds could really nest there. After we had walked through the entire zoo and there wasn’t a bird house left, it was high time we went to the jungle cafe to have a little snack because it had been raining the whole morning. Afterwards we made our way to the train station to catch the train to Wernigerode. There we strolled through the city centre and to the castle and were able to enjoy a foggy but still beautiful view from above. After we were done visiting the castle, we walked back to the town centre to look around a bit. The day ended with some of us eating tarte flambé and the others taking the train back home.
Carolina Schmidt, Marlene Gustin
Wednesday, March 6th
On Wednesday we visited the capital city Berlin. We had to be at the train station at 7 so we hat to get up early. The first sight we spotted was the Bundestag. We had to walk there and went to the Berliner Mauer and Brandenburger Tor, where we took a group picture, on our way there. The German students told the Dutch students facts about the different sights, so that they could get a brief overview of the history of the city. Afterwards we went to the Bundestag where we went up to a dome from which we had a great view over the city. After the visit in the Bundestag we had free time for shopping or eating. We gave our Wardrobe a little upgrade and some of us went eating Döner. We headed back at 6 pm and were at home pretty late. Overall it was a long but really nice day for us.
Alina Janus, Emma-Marie Lange
Thursday, March 7th
On Thursday we started the day in the art room of house 2. Having learnt a lot about nesting boxes in the zoo on Tuesday we now were introduced to the task of designing bird houses to beautify our schoolyards. The aim was to create shelter and breeding places for squirrels and various bird species. It was a lot of fun doing this. After we had designed diverse boxes, we had a little award show on which bird houses should be hung up on Friday. For lunch we went to “Grauer Hof” together. The afternoons we all spent individually with our exchange partners. Some of us headed to the “Ballhaus” to play volleyball, others met friends at their homes or played blacklight mini golf in Halle.
Nele-Charlott Tebarts, Natalie Joy Andert
Friday, March 8th
We started our day by nailing the top three painted birdhouses (voted by the students themselves) onto trees on the school yard of Haus 2. After we had finished admiring the beautiful results, we headed to the gym (also known as the Gesundheitszentrum). Our workouts there were exhausting, we did all kinds of different exercises, so of course we had to get a kebap after.
Then we all went home and dolled ourselves up for the farewell party in the evening. After the opening speech of our English teachers, we enjoyed an absolutely delicious barbecue: juicy meat (broiled by the Dutch teachers), tasty salads, cake and more. When we had reached our eating limits, we all gathered for table tennis, while we were playing mainly Dutch and German music. Later on the Dutch PE teachers joined us and beat us all at the game… However we all sang together and had a great time, definitely one of the Highlights of the exchange.
On Saturday morning …..!!!!!!!
Ariane Gebhardt, Jakob Kittler
