German Department

xxx Viel Spaß in Bonn!

Participating in the German exchange didn’t only benefit our language skills. We also made many new friends. On the morning of our flight, we were extremely nervous to meet our host families and our correspondents. After a tiring day of travelling by plane, train and the exciting sky train, we finally arrived to a welcoming group of friendly faces. We were greeted warmly and the families looked eager to get to know us. We took part in a range of activities and fun days. We visited their school, Hardtberg Gymnasium, which was interesting as it was a completely different experience to ours in many ways, such as the shorter days and no uniforms. We also visited a climbing wall with our correspondents which enabled us to bond with each other and the rest of the group. This activity was challenging at first but eventually it became quite competitive between the girls and boys! One of the highlights was visiting Cologne. Here, we visited the Olympic Museum. This was enjoyable as it was interactive and even had a big football pitch on the roof which looked over the city. After this, in groups, we were allowed to explore the city and do some shopping, which we enjoyed very much. A few of the partners stayed behind a bit later so we had longer to explore. I found this a great opportunity to get to know other people. After a fun afternoon we all had to run across the streets to catch the train which we were about to miss – motivating each other, we managed to catch it and we were all extremely tired! For our final group activity we had a competition in Bonn, which was a bit like a treasure hunt where we learnt a lot about the town history, but also got to visit the Haribo shop! In the evenings, usually we all met up as a big group which was really fun. We did things such as bowling, going to the park, football and getting ice cream. We all had a great time during the week and the weekend was only going to get better. On Saturday most exchange partners went to Phantasialand, which is a large theme park in Brühl, Germany. We went on rides such as the mystery castle which is a 65m freefall tower and another ride which holds the record for the fastest multi-launch coaster in the world. We all enjoyed Phantasialand, which you could tell by the boys’ high pitched screams. After lunch some of us went on a water ride, which wasn’t a good idea as we were then extremely wet for the rest of the day. Then in the evening we all went to one of the exchange partners’ houses to spend the last evening all together, which was very fun. On Sunday morning my exchange partner and I bought some frozen yoghurt and watched the marathon which was taking place in Bonn. We then went to the train station where we met up with everyone else. It was very sad because we had to say goodbye to all the exchange partners, who by this point were very good friends. As the train left the platform our exchange partners were singing the song that we had been singing throughout the entire trip to us.

Madeline Ashton 10D Elspeth Harper 10D