German Exchange 2022

 We started off the day with a walk into the city center and some time to get breakfast and do a little shopping. We met at Marienplatz to watch the famous Glockenspiel on the town hall tower. Then we went to meet our tour guide for our Mike's Bike tour - a 3 1/2 hour biking tour of Munich! We learned a lot about the history of Munich on the tour, saw lots of sights and had lunch at the big Biergarten in the Englischer Garten. We had time to explore a bit and do some more last minute shopping and then we had dinner at Munich's famous beer hall - the Hofbräuhaus. Of course we got ice cream one more time on the way back to the youth hostel. Some of us went straight to bed and some of us stayed up and played pool for a while in the common room. One thing you may notice in the pictures is all of the pride flags. July is Pride month and Munich Pride 2022 runs from July 2-17 with all sorts of events and informational booths throughout Munich. You can see the support of the city with ...

 We all met at the station in Untertürkheim - partners and parents came to see us off. And then we took an ICE train to Munich - which was so much easier than the regional trains we took on our first day. Although, our seat reservations were in car 7, which turned out to be the restaurant car....and then two of the cars had no air conditioning, so no one was allowed to sit there.....but we managed to all find seats and we were comfortable for our ride to Munich. We stored our luggage at the youth hostel and went to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It was a moving experience and hard to imagine the atrocities that took place there. We were glad that we made the choice to go there to learn more about the history of Nazi Germany. We checked in at the youth hostel and then headed to the Tollwood festival. Tollwood is a large outdoor festival at the Olympic Park - there was music and food, as well as lots of vendors with clothing and crafts. A major part of the Tollwood goa...

Day 13   Today we went to the zoo (after a morning of classes, of course)! The zoo in Stuttgart is called the Wilhelma. It was super hot, so a lot of the animals were not out and about, but we still had fun and got to see a lot of animals. Day 14 Today was a day for everyone to relax a bit before we head to Munich tomorrow. We spent the day packing and organizing our things - for some of us, there was more room in our suitcases and for others, it was harder to fit everything! In the evening, we met at the school all together with our host families for a farewell dinner. We had Maultaschen and Kartoffelsalat - typical Swabian food for our last evening here! There were a few speeches, we had flowers for our host families and they gave us Wiggy t-shirts to help us remember our time in Stuttgart! We have had such a great time in Stuttgart with our families and we are sad to be leaving - the time went by so fast!

 Once again, we were at school for the morning - the first two blocks with our partners and then we gave presentations during the third and fourth blocks - about American food, sports and music. The presentations were to a 5th grade English class - they were particularly excited about Mike & Ike's and Minecraft. After the presentations, we split up into small groups so they could practice having a conversation with us in English. It was a lot of fun. Then we walked along the Neckar river to the Mercedes Museum. Some of our host students came with us to the museum. When you enter the museum, you take an elevator to the top and then wind your way down through the exhibits. Near the gift shop at the bottom, there was an extra long Tischfußball table (foosball), so we all played a game.  We took the S-bahn back to the school and went home with to our host families for the afternoon.  

 We went to school with our partners for the morning. Then we went all together to the Höhenpark Killesberg - this is the same place that some of the group had been over the weekend for the Lichterfest (light festival). We first climbed up the Killesbergturm - a tower in the middle of the park. It was a great view, but scary as the tower swayed slightly in the wind. Then we went to the playground to play for a while. On the way, we made a stop at the petting zoo - among other animals, there were a couple of adorable baby goats! We stopped at a waffle stand for some snacks and beverages. And then our final stop was the Killesbergbahn - or Zügle, as it is called in the Swabian dialect - it is an old fashioned steam train ride that takes you all around the park.