Wednesday 7/7/10

What a great day at the Mercedes Benz Museum (so much great historical information about the invention and development of the gas engine and the motor car) and at the Stuttgarter Wilhelma (an amazing zoo with botanical gardens). Not much time for a lot of text today, since we are all getting ready for the Germany -Spain soccer game! Cross your fingers for Deutschland...:)

Tuesday 7/6/10

Another day at school... Students are preparing their presentations for the project: "How strange are strangers?" The next three days will be quite eventful with visits to the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, the Wilhelma (zoo), a public viewing of the German WM soccer game against Spain, a visit at the Art Museum in Fellbach, stroll through Stuttgart (as they are predicting the hottest temperatures yet) and the NBA tournament on Friday evening at the Freihof Gymnasium. Our team has some very enthusiastic players and cheerleaders already...wish us luck. The word out on the street is that the teacher team has been winning this game every year so far and we are hoping to break this record this year...;)

Monday and Tuesday, 7/5 and 7/6

Today and tomorrow we are going to be in school. I will attach a few pictures of the Freihof Gymnasium. In school our students will visit classes, give their presentations and interviews in English classes. We will have a homeroom today and tomorrow during which we will discuss exercises from our travel journal (ie. cultural differences, school life in Germany, host families etc...). We will also start working on our joint project "How strange are strangers?"
Great weather again today, sunny and blue skies...

Happy 4th of July....

We just got back from our field trip to Strasbourg, France, yesterday evening. Had a great time and saw the city, the cathedral (climbed over 350 stairs to the top), got a guided tour of the European Parliament, examined modern art at the Art Museum and went shopping among other things...The temperatures are super high, weather is great! We had fun cheering for the German soccer team on our way back in the bus as they won their game against Argentina! Our American student are turning out to be even bigger soccer fans than the Germans:) What a blast!
In the evening we got to go to the senior prom or "Abiball".

The Major and Hohenstaufen

Tuesday: Visiting classes with our hosts and a wonderful reception with the Major of Goeppingen (quite an honor that he took the time to meet us).
Wednesday: Wonderful hike to the Hohenstaufen fortress. We had a guided tour and received valuable historical information in the museum and on top of the mountain.

Monday, Day 1 at the Freihof Gymnasium

Lots of fun today as all the kids got together in the morning and told about their weekends. We got a great tour of the Freihof Gymnasium then attended our partner students' classes. After that we went to the Stadtmuseum and learned about the history of Goeppingen. Students had to find the answers to a questionnaire in the museum, then a City of Goeppingen scavenger hunt... The weather is amazing and so are everyone's spirits... especially after the amazing soccer game Germany played yesterday against England. I heard it through the grapevine that the American student turned out to be very spirited German fans:)

Auf Wiedersehen in Goeppingen

Frau Hanks is leaving for Germany in 2 days:) See you all in Goeppingen! Gute Reise!
...and cross your fingers that no volcano ash or strike will prevent us from flying!