A German School Trip

Today was the award ceremony for the foreign language competition, so we took 18 German kids on a train to Schwerin, to see the castle, the government rooms, and go to the awards ceremony. This was my first proper school trip (I've decided visiting the zoo on multiple occasions doesn't really count) and here are a few observations:

• Tell children they can bring pocket money, and they will feel they have to spend it, and will constantly count it, asking what they can buy with the few cents/ pennies that they have left. (Pennies included becuase this is exactly what happens in England too)
  
• School trips= more food. Children will arrive with their rucksacks packed full of goodies, most of which will be eaten on the train on the way there. And then more food will be bought, with the afore mentioned pocket money.
• The amount of technology the kids possess is almost scary. On the train, they played on all kind of games consoles; the vast majority of them had phones, and most of those were the touch-screen-music-playing-movie-taking-would probably-cook-for-you-if-you-pressed-the-right-button variety. I was embarassed to get mine out. They also had cameras, which meant they had to stop every five seconds to take a photo- sometimes of something impressive like the castle, but mostly snap shots of the other kids, the teachers, something they'd see everyday here in Stralsund, an interesting piece of ground, and who knows what else.
  
• While the day may have been highly educational, and an inspirational experience, it will be unclear whether the children took any of it in. Case in point: one boy wearing his headphones and listening to music during the awards ceremony.
• Taking a class on public transport, and looking after them between the hours of 9am and 8pm, is a long and stressful day. Especially for German teachers, the kids are usually gone from school by 1pm at the latest- apparently some of the parents where quite glad that we were keeping the kids out of their way until nearly bedtime!
• We ended up at McDonalds not once, but twice. I seriously doubt that would be allowed in England, and it would probably cause a scandal. Admittedly, it was a convenient holding place with enough seats and toilets, where we ate lunch before going to the castle, and waited until it was time to get the train on the way back, but obviously the kids made the most of this and spent much of their pocket money here.
• Priorities about what counts as children being under control seem to differ extremely between English and German teachers. Or at least, between the German and English teaching that I've had experience of. In a German classroom, any noise above total silence appears to be deemed 'too loud'- obviously not permanently, but whenever they are just getting on with a worksheet or other activity. However, the teachers I was with did not seem to mind that kids were clambering all over a statue, and it took them a while to react to them wandering around the train and getting louder and louder. The poor old lady squished inbetween all of us on the train back. I stayed on the train until a station after all the kids got off, and the sudden silence made me realise just how loud an entire class of over-excited, sugar-hyped and tired 9 and 10 year olds are.

I'll leave it there for now, and just add that it was a fun day, and for those of you who were wondering, there were at least three entries in the foreign language competition-primary school category. We won money for the school, and a load of educational English games and books. No golden statues or red carpets, but maybe next time...

And Just Like That.... It Was Summer!

During the week, I still wore my gloves to school, and even wished I hadn't sent my winter hats home with the parents.

On Wednesday, I voluntarily stayed outside longer than was necessary- I bought myself a snack from the bakery, and sat on a bench overlooking the lake to eat it. I still had my coat and scarf on, and though my plan had been to sit outside and read for a bit, I decided against that as it wasn't quite as warm as I thought it was.

On Thursday, I sat outside by the lake watching the ducks, with my jumper sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

On Saturday, in Müritz, a little town with a lake, just south of Rostock, we sat outside while enjoying a drink, with our coats off.

And today, I sat outside for six hours or so, and even though I'd put on suncream, I have some definite tan lines. I also didn't feel too out of place wearing sunglasses... SUMMER IS HERE!

I'm dreading waking up tomorrow and seeing that it is snowing, but I hope that will not happen.

The Firths do Stralsund.

Mum, Dad and Ian came to visit me in my German home, and experience all the delights Stralsund has to offer.
In my head it went like this:
German person: sfdlkjeajk sdjljklf sdflkjgdjs lsjkfdslkgd lsfdjks lakfjkljlglk?!?!?!!
Family (highly confused): but...whuh?
And then I'd come to the rescue with amazing German skills, and give a word perfect response to the German person, sorting out all the problems and saving the day.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite go like that, Dad's German skills are too good, and Ian remembered a lot of GCSE stuff, and was able to order himself a beer by the end of the weekend. It also didn't really help that whenever I'm put on the spot, and asked 'What does that word mean?' I have a tendency to suddenly forget my command of both German and English, and go 'Urrrm...er....it's kind of ...umm' until the person asking gives up and asks someone else/ looks in a dictionary/ decides to order something off the menu that they can understand. Oh well, I never said I wanted to be an interpreter, and I would like to claim that my understanding of a German word in context is generally better than my ability to explain it in English.

We did all the usual tourist stuff in the area, and I took them on a tour of the bakeries. A trip to Germany wouldn't be complete without that. And, this being a Firth family holiday, I saw a lot more of the morning than I would have done on an ordinary weekend.

They all said they had a nice time, thought I feel maybe I should have warned them a bit more about just how boring German Sundays are- we went to the Ozeaneum (one of Stralsund's two sea life centres) then went for lunch, but then kind of ran out of stuff to do by mid afternoon. I can't help feeling it's a bad sign that we went to the train station as if it was one of the main tourist destinations in Stralsund. I suppose it is a place I spend a lot of time at, so a trip to see what my life is like on my year abroad wouldn't have been complete without it. After that, we had to resort to just sitting around waiting until it was time for the next meal, but at least MTV Germany was doing a count down of 'The Best Music Videos EVER'.

It was nice to have them here, and they seemed to enjoy it. It was mum and Ian's first proper experience of Germany, and hopefully it hasn't put them off ever coming back.

They returned to England after the weekend, leaving me to complete the rest of my year abroad- it's hard to believe that I have less than two months left.