An awesome exchange
After a long period of waiting, we, that is 17 German students and their two teachers, got on the
way in Germany early in the morning, to visit our English partners whom we had got to know in
February 2011. Finally after an actually entertaining trip (among the rest, in a very small airplane in
which I hit my head) we arrived in Wakefield and were welcomed in a friendly manner after a small
tour through the QEGS (Queen Elizabeth Grammar School).
On the first day of our stay, in order to get to know the English everyday school life better, we
visited the school and found out immediately that everything is a little different than it is in
Germany. The assembly, the late beginning of term or the long lunchbreak showed, that we were not
in Germany any more. However, all in all it was very interesting – above all the lessons in which
German was taught – and also the greeting by both headmasters provided for the fact that the day
passed very quickly. In the afternoon a large part of our group went playing paintball (foto) – in
Germany you are just allowed to play it when you are 18 or older - but as it turned out, everything
is possible in England, so that most of us even got headshots. In spite of many bruises everybody–
also two girls – had a lot of fun and we were already looking forward to making the German friends
jealous about this experience.
On Saturday everybody did something with his/her family, so that different impressions of England
were collected. Some went climbing, others spent their money in many shops in Leeds or made
interesting things about which they could tell the others later.
The next day started for 9 of us (English and German) with canoeing where, despite the beaming
sunshine, nobody remained really dry (a canoe capsized even 3 times: D), however this did not
matter because everybody had so much fun. In the afternoon the time had come for “Do it for
Dawson”. Everybody had heard of or read about it and wanted to know why this school-organized
charity event is so special .More or less everybody was impressed by what he/she saw there: Bull
Riding, dancing and many other things made the afternoon/evening an experience for everybody.
Particularly the moment, when some English students got their hair shaved off and Charly
spontaneously decided to have a haircut for free, was taken by many cameras. Moreover, we got to
know many new nice Englishmen whom we took them to our hearts immediately. All in all, this
was one of the best days of our week here in England and you have to wonder, whether it is possible
to establish such an event in Germany.
Monday began with a tour which wasn´t very interesting, because many had already experienced a
similar tour with the school in Germany – we went to an old mine in Wakefield. Equipped with
helmets and lamps we descended 140 metres into the depth to find out, how hard a life as a miner
used to be, even as “mountain woman”, conditioned by the narrowness, the darkness and the hard
work. The more relaxed part was in the afternoon: watching our exchange partners at sports day. In
the sun you could enjoy the afternoon comfortably by playing cards or eating ice cream and find out
that in England much more sports are pursued, than in our so-called “Bundesjungendspiele” which
look absolutely dull in comparison (again a plus for England).
We visited York and the Castle museum on Tuesday, which you can better call a shopping day,
because in the end the boys actually waited in Starbucks for their female companions, who spend all
their money in different shops. However, at last everybody was happy, so that in the evening all
went in a good mood to Alex Woolhouse to watch some movies in his own cinema-room.
For some people Leeds (we visited this town on Wednesday) and particularly the shops were
already trusted which, after a "long" stay in the royal Armouries, stopped nobody from clearing out
half of Primark. However, unfortunately, this was also the last day of our stay, and this was the
reason, why it had to be celebrated properly. Everybody met in the evening to extensively party (of
course just with Coke and Fanta, right?! ;) ). If someone tries to describe the party in a few
sentences, you can definitively say that it has, in different ways and manners, put the Germans and
the Englishmen closer together and has provided for the fact that in the other morning quite a lot of
people had headaches for inexplicable reasons.
Under constraint and
with many tears we had
to say goodbye again
on Thursday and started
our way home. After a
flight in an even
smaller
airplane
bloody hell!! I would
never have thought that
even smaller airplanes
than the one of the
outward-bound journey
exist – we had hardly
arrived in Germany,
when
my
driving
licence, my money and
what I else had in my
pocket fell on the
ground, just because I
had to take out my ID
(a very good start).
Anyhow the mood was strange, because nobody was glad to be in dull and petty bourgeois
Germany again. After we had to wait once more, because on the parking bay of the airport a crash
between a coach and a car had occurred, we started our way back home and arrived, finally, at about
10 o'clock at our school.
From my point of view, this exchange was one of my best – if not even the best experience which I
ever had: many impressions, the interesting experiences, but above all the new friends made that
week, and also the stay of the Englishmen in Germany, unforgettable.
Björn Gailus, Jgst. 12