A teary good bye

The first of hopefully many GAPP trips to Leipzig is "in the books".  Judging by all the tears, multitude of hugs and the simple fact that host students, parents and teachers got up at 4:45 a.m. to drop us off at the airport by 6 a.m., we can emphatically say, that our first GAPP trip for SFHS and Rahn Schule Leipzig was a full success.

MANY THANKS to all participants and parents who made this trip possible!   

VIELEN DANK 

Wir freuen uns auf 2020/21.  

Weimar

Today Mrs. Allen and I decided to explore Weimar, a designated "Classical city" in Germany, while our students had a normal school day (which was however shortened due to the heat)

Weimar, the birthplace of Germany's first constitutional assembly (often referred to as the birthplace of the "Weimar Republic"), Weimar, the city where Schiller and Goethe wrote their most famous works, where Franz Liszt  had his music school, where Johann Sebastian Bach 's composed most of his famous organ music and where one of the first public libraries houses many of Germany's most famous works of literature, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library.  Here are a few impressions from our day. 

The Theater 

The Schiller House

Goethe's Garden House

 The Rococo Room inside the library 

The Goethe and Schiller Monument

School and Jump House

We had school again this morning and a couple of us had our presentations in classes grade 6 and 9 and. Since the temperatures were once again very hot (90 degrees) the school schedule operated today on an shorter schedule since the classrooms warm up quickly and with no A/C it gets "too hot to learn" 😀, so we met our friends and teachers at the Jump House Leipzig at 12:30 to get some "exercise" on the local trampoline park. 

Another fun filled, highly active day in Leipzig 😊.  Hard to believe that we are leaving already in just a few days.  

Day trip to Dresden

This past weekend all of us were with our host families and undertook several fun excursions in and around Leipzig and today the entire GAPP group rode the train to Dresden - Saxony's capital.  We arrived in Dresden around 10:45 a.m. and were given free time to explore the city until our meeting with our tour guide at 1:15 p.m..  Most of us used the time to explore the city on foot and admire all the beautifully restored buildings of the city center while others used the time to get some shopping done on the Prager Strasse - Dresden's main shopping street. 
Dresden's Frauenkirche offers an amazing view from the top of the church, and one that we could not pass up to explore. 

 We then met up with some of the group at Vapiano's (our new favorite Italian restaurant) before heading to the Theaterplatz in front of the Semper Opera House to find our tour guide.

Our tour guide than explained some of the history of the city and it's kings, princes, queens and other royalty as we walked through the Zwinger which is now the location of three amazing museums 

We then walked to the castle and the former stables and learned about the horse riding and knight competitions which took place here, before walking to the Fürstenzug. 

The famous Fürstenzug (Procession of Princes - mural showing the Rulers of Saxony beginning in the 12th century)  was one of the vary few parts of Dresden which were able to withstand the tremendous heat that engulfed the city during the days following the fire bombing of Dresden between February 13-15 1945 because it is made out of 20,000 tiles of the famous Meissen porcelain. 

Our tour concluded at the famous Frauenkirche.  After learning some more facts about the amazing destruction and rebuilding of the Frauenkirche, we enjoyed another 2 hours of free time before we headed back to Leipzig. 

Water Fun Park Schladitzer See

After a heavy thunderstorm with golf ball size hail last night, we awoke this morning to sunshine, blue skies and really fresh air!  At school in the morning, we were helping in the younger English classes again and then we met at the train station for our short S-Bahn ride to Schladitz.  Frau Haschke met us at the S-Bahn station to collect our bags so that we had a bit lighter load during our 2 mile walk to the lake.  She continued to shuttle back and forth and so we all arrived at the Lake in time to change into swimsuits and begin our SUP (stand-up-paddle board) lesson.  

All students did an amazing job paddling all over the lake, and we all stayed on our boards until our instructor challenged us to jump backwards and forward.  Needless to say, a lot of us started to enjoy the refreshing lake and went for a short swim 😉  And once the first person fell off, it was way more fun to flip our friends off the boards than actually trying to stay on the boards.  

In short, we had a great time and that was only half of the water fun.  After the SUPing, we went to the Fun Water Park - a huge bouncy obstacle course.  

While we were bouncing, running and climbing around the water park several of our host parents arrived and prepared a wonderful grill (BBQ) dinner for us with a variety of meats and bratwursts, salads and snacks.  

We finished the evening with a "mean" game of volleyball!   

Another memorable and fun day in Leipzig and it is hard to believe that we only have one week left. 

Abistreich (Senior Prank) and Leipzig Zoo

All of us were prepared for our presentations in the English Classes when arriving at school and then this happened..... It was "Abistreich" day - something equivalent to our senior prank 😃. The 12th grade classes had "barricaded" all hallways, and the entire school gathered in the courtyard where water balloons, water guns, confetti, face painting and other shenanigans kept everyone away from their classes until about 10:30 - at which point only Mary Claire, Taylor and Robbie were able to  share their presentations with the 7th graders and the rest of us opted for a stroll into the city and an early lunch.

After lunch we walked the short kilometer to the Leipzig Zoo where we met up with all of the American and German students.  A local newspaper interviewed Maggie and Charlotte about the GAPP exchange and we had our picture taken - see below :-)  then we explored the zoo - some were brave to go on a simulated ride through the Serengeti and some took the boat tour through Gondwanaland- a tropical rain forest with flora and fauna of Africa, Asia and South America.