On our second day in Nordlingen we walked to a near by school. It had been previously arranged for us to sit in on a class and get a tour of campus.
On our walk to campus, we walked by these cute little street vendors. It is hard to believe that this is their every day job. They were older, so their English wasn't great (understandably so), but it was fun to attempt to speak to them quickly (Stephan was calling at us to keep up).
Here is a picture of one of the homes that hadn't been remodeled (recently anyway). This is how the walled-in city may have looked in medieval times.
This is a project that the students made to understand what life was like in the "slums."
Inside the Bavarian schools' common area.
Turns out these German kids look just like our kids. Well, the less diverse kids...
Just working. Don't worry, they were learning about something called Americanization. This is pretty much the idea that the media influences political races. Interesting what they named after us...
This note was passed around during the teachers lecture. It explained that the students were not notified beforehand that the lesson would be given in English. They were pretty incredible!!!
The lesson was kind of refreshing. It was back to the basics. No technology, yet infused with lots of modern political examples. I was always blown away to see how much ALL GERMANS knew about the Obama/Romney political race. I didn't meet a single German who favored Romney. Sad.
Students are students.
This shows the classes that the different tracks must take. I'm seriously amazed at how good they are at so many different languages.
Sarah and I left the group (foreshadowing) to find chocolate and fruit. We found these berries. I'm still not sure what they were but they were sour.
We found this adorable little homemade pottery shop. I bought a keepsake dish there.
This house had some significance. I'm sure it was meaningful. However, all I can remember now is that it took millions to renovate... hmmm... where are my notes?
Ok. So, later on, we went on a tour of Nordlingen. We had a tour guide and Stephan and Valim and everything. Sarah and I were bored to tears. Naturally, we asked Stephan if we could go get chocolate. He gave us permission and pointed us in the right direction. I had been there earlier that day (no surprise), so we thought we could run there quickly before the tour moved on. Wrong. They left. We couldn't find where we got started. We were lost. We didn't know where else the tour was supposed to go, but we did know that we were to climb a church tower at some point. Up we went. And up. And up. And up.
We hauled butt. When we got to the almost-top, a man asked for money to pass. We explained that we were separated from our group but we thought they were at the group. He told us they weren't. Then, he let us go anyway, without charging us.
We got to the top and found this beautiful view. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY was shot here!!! Amazing! IT was beautiful. We were peering down the streets, looking for them from above. No luck.
Eventually, we ran down the stairs because we thought we saw them on the wall of the city.
We went as quickly as we could to the city wall. Walked about 1/4 of the way around it and then...
we spotted them. This picture is zoomed in all the way. We flagged them down. They waved. Then they left. Apparently, they thought they were waving at 2 little kids far off... nope. It was us. We ran around the wall (taking a few pictures, naturally), and ran around the city until, eventually, we found them. Whew. Let's be honest. They didn't even miss us. Half of them didn't know we were gone, others thought we did it on purpose, and good ol' Stephan didn't worry because he thought we were happily enjoying our chocolate. Whew. What a day.
Here are some adorable pictures from the wall. They have cute little gardens.
That evening, we ate at another authentic German restaurant. Too. Much. Pork.
This was our last night with Stephan and Valim so Jeff and I were assigned to give them our gifts. Man I loved them. They were so incredibly good to us. That night, after we went our for drinks/dessert (wayyyyy to much dessert), we enjoyed our last night in Nordlingen. The next morning, we took a train to Munich!
1 comment:
Those are lingonberries! Very prevalent in Sweden and Denmark and that part of Europe as well. My dad served his mission in Sweden and developed a love for them. Thus, I have had lignonberry juice and other lingnonberry flavored goods my whole life. You can get drinks and jam at Ikea. The drinks and jam aren't sour like the actual berries seem to always be.
I also am intrigued by how well the entire world knows our politics. When we were in South Korea and China a couple of times ago, it was election time four years ago. Especially the Koreans knew what was going on because they rely so heavily on our military. But even the Chinese knew quite a bit-- although it was probably filtered. Nonetheless, even if they were only hearing one side, they knew more than half of America.
Interesting indeed, that they all favored Obama. You would think they would see Europe's own predicament and not want to see a repeat of that path? Or maybe he is more comfortabel to them as he is more similar in their culture of entitlements?
I just think it is fascinating that we can all have such strong opinions and all think we are so right. :) That said, I sure hope Romney wins. Obviously.
Looks like a great trip! How fun.
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