Oberursel, Germany

Starting off on Saturday, I joyously slept in. This was very nice since I still had a little jet lag. For our first activity, we took an U-Bahn into Frankfurt and visited a fast food restaurant called “Best Worscht.” It was a Currywurst restaurant, where you needed to pick both a flavor and a spice level. The spice level started at no spice and went to so spicy you needed a waiver to buy it! I got the B level of spice and it was still very spicy! Buying food was a great opportunity to practice my German, and I definitely feel a difference in proficiency from when I first arrived here.  After that, we went to a karaoke place in the mall. We met up with a bunch of the other exchange students and partners and played karaoke for around 2 hours. It was an interesting window into German music culture. We did sing a lot of English songs that were popular in Germany but also a bunch of German music which I had never heard before. After that, we made our way out of Frankfurt to Oberursel.  Funnily enough, we stopped by a Five Guys, which I will say was MUCH better than the Five Guys in America.  Once in Oberursel, we took a bus to one of the other exchange student’s friend’s house. They were hosting a watching party for the final game in the Champions league. It was Dortmund vs. Real Madrid, and though unfortunately Real Madrid won, 🙁 it was very fun for me since I met an entirely new group of people, all of which go to the Feldbergschule. I was also able to better understand how big of a thing soccer is in Germany, and how important it is. I’m super excited to see all these people at school on Monday.  ~ Kavi

Saturday was a day with our host families. I was tired from Berlin, so I ended up sleeping in. I went with my host student, her mom, and her mom’s friend to Frankfurt. We walked to the train station (with umbrellas since it was raining) and got on the train. We were on the train for a bit, passing Oberursel. We got to the Frankfurt train station and while waiting in a line, I spotted two of my classmates. We then went through a store with lots of stuff— some interesting food (including a really good fruit juice smoothie) and lots of sweets. I also got a small souvenir. We then went to a mall, where we walked around a bit. We went to an Italian restaurant and I got pizza, which was very thin crust. We had to pay for the bathroom, which I expected, but the bathroom was very fancy. One of the fanciest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. I wish I had a picture, but I don’t. We walked around the mall a bit more and came home after around 5 hours. Today was a lot of fun, and I look forward to the rest of the trip!  ~Fiona

Alexanderplatz

Alexanderplatz

trampolines on Alexanderplatz

TV tower

Berlin VR Experience

Berlin VR Experience

Berlin VR Experience

up in the TV Tower

up in the TV Tower

up in the TV tower

View from TV Tower

Frankfurt airport

a warm welcome in Frankfurt

evening train

Our last day in Berlin started with the ringing of bells from the bell tower near our hotel. The first thing my roommates and I did before getting ready was opening our window to look out into the courtyard. Though it’s a simple thing, being able to crack a window in the morning and hear the birds chirp and feel the soft German breeze has been one of my favorite parts of the trip so far.

I ate a traditional German breakfast in the hotel, and then we set off for the Fernsehtum (TV tower) stuffed with bread and Nutella. Along the way we came across some trampolines embedded in the ground. We all bounced for a bit, and it was surprisingly fun. The Fernsehturm was a greatly anticipated experience for me. It’s so tall that it’s visible from many places in Berlin, so I’d been frequently seeing it from a distance. We entered the tower and did a VR experience that showed us the history of the construction of Berlin! It was very interesting- not only because it was VR, but because we got to see Berlin’s transformation into the city that we’ve been exploring these past few days. The top of the Fernsehturm provided us with gorgeous views, and detailed maps aided us in spotting landmarks we’ve seen throughout our time here.

For lunch I quickly grabbed a delicious apple pastry from backWERK, and ate with friends outside of the Fernsehturm. I think we need more shops like backWERK in America. It’s so convenient to quickly buy pastries. After lunch we went back to the hotel and headed to the airport to fly to Frankfurt. It was all a blur, and before we knew it we were re-united with our German partners. I drove home with my partner, Maya, and her family. We ate a dinner of sausages and potatoes, and then Maya and I enjoyed our first night out together. A group of us went bowling, and the Americans were quick to observe cultural differences. Evening night train rides and walks from town to town are common among European teenagers. We also noted that the common American fast food chains are much better here (the spiced curly fries from McDonalds are heavenly). I got my first taste of a common German weekend, and I cannot wait for the rest of the weekends I spend here.   ~Alaina

DDR Museum

DDR Museum

DDR Museum

KaDeWe

KaDeWe

KaDeWe department store

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

the GRIPS Theater

Hallo, allerseits!
We started our second full day in Berlin with a visit to the DDR Museum, where students had a chance to learn a little about life in East Germany during the Cold War.  Sticking with the Cold War theme, our next stop was a tour of an underground air raid shelter that was repurposed as a nuclear fallout shelter  in the wake of the building of the Berlin Wall.  We then decided to lighten things up a bit with lunch in the winter garden at the KaDeWe, the second largest department store in Europe (after Harrod’s in London).  From there we headed to one of the most famous avenues in Berlin, the Kurfürstendamm.  This beautiful boulevard–lined with shops, luxury boutiques, hotels, cafes and residences–was the leading commercial street in West Berlin during the Cold War period.  While on the Ku’damm, the group took some time to visit the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was badly bombed during World War II and now stands as a tribute to peace and reconciliation.    Our evening plans took us to the GRIPS-Theater, where we saw a performance of the play Die Welle (The Wave), which is about a group of high school students who learn firsthand how totalitarian systems manipulate people into silence.   Then it was back to the hotel for one final evening in the Nikolaiviertel before we move on to Frankfurt for the start of the homestay phase of our trip in Oberursel.

Liebe Grüße,
Frau Greene

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

CA alum

Lunch line at Berlin Pavilion

Reichstag building

Reichstag building

inside Reichstag building

inside Reichstag building

Glass dome atop Reichstag building

Brandenburg Gate

Holocaust Memorial

Unter den Linden

Ampelmann Shop

Gelato

Our first full day in Berlin was a very busy one!  We got things started with a visit to the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall.  Artists from all over the world were invited to paint murals on the east side of this 1.3km wall segment as both a celebration of the fall of the wall and a reflection on the earlier division of the city.  From there, we moved on to the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Straße, where we were able to see how the wall was constructed and guarded and where some groups managed to build tunnels to escape from the East to the West. Then we stopped for a quick lunch at the Berlin Pavilion, where we were joined by CA alum Addie E., who is currently doing a research project at the Bundestag.   After lunch we headed to the Reichstag building for a tour, including a visit to the building’s glass dome where we were able to take in some nice views of the city.  Our next stop was the Brandenburg Gate area and the nearby Holocaust Memorial.  From there, we took a stroll down Unter den Linden, the grand boulevard leading from the Brandenburg Gate to the city palace and cathedral.   Along the way we popped into the Ampelmann Shop, Berlin’s famous brand featuring the beloved East German pedestrian crossing figure.   Later in the evening we took a short stroll along the Spree river and enjoyed a group dinner and some gelato in the lively Hackescher Markt district.  We are looking forward to more adventures tomorrow, including a WWII bunker tour and a theater performance.

Viele liebe Grüße von uns allen aus Berlin!    ~Frau Greene

Hello everyone.
After a bumpy flight to Washington, a two-hour tarmac delay in DC due to thunderstorms, and a five-hour wait in Frankfurt after we missed our original connection, I am happy to report that our group finally arrived safe and sound in Berlin.   We checked into our hotel in the charming Nikolaiviertel (pictured above) and then enjoyed a quick dinner nearby before heading back to our rooms for some much-needed sleep.  Tomorrow our adventures will begin in earnest, starting with our first glimpses of what remains of the Berlin Wall.

For now all the best from the German capital!
~Frau Greene

Frankfurt

Oberursel

Feldbergschule

This blog will serve as a record of the 2024 Cary Academy student exchange trip to Germany.  We hope that you enjoy following along on our adventures as we tour Berlin and visit our friends at the Feldbergschule in Oberursel near Frankfurt.  Below is a video preview of some of the sights that await us in the German capital and in our host community.

Today, we started out with another class period at the Feldbergschule before taking the train to visit the Goethe University of Frankfurt Main. There, we had a brief walk before stopping at one of the common areas for some refreshments courtesy of Frau Griesing. Next, we went on a proper tour of the campus with our tour guide, and then stopped for lunch at the cafeteria. From there, we went to an Anne Frank museum for a couple hours which had lots of different activities and stations to visit and interact with. Some of these covered more specific details about Anne Frank’s life, namely her diary and its publication, but many covered topics such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, and how we should become a more accepting society. Then, we took a train to the Bad Homburg fire station where we had a short tour of the building and saw all of the different vehicles that they have for different emergency scenarios. Lastly, we wrapped up the day with all the exchange families at the station and had a great time eating dinner and playing games like foosball, which was a fantastic way to end out the trip! ~Cade

Today we travelled to the lovely city of Heidelberg. As I told my exchange buddy’s family, Heidelberg is the epitome of how Americans imagine Germany. The city of Heidelberg is quite beautiful, sporting a castle, gentle mountains, and houses nestled between curving streets. The American fascination with Heidelberg and cities similar to it was made apparent by the amount of tourists traversing the streets of Heidelberg. Everywhere I looked I saw German flags being sold (something a native German would never buy), classic German beer being touted, or English translations of German words. It was a bit disconcerting how tourist-centric the city was, but I still enjoyed visiting the Apothecary Museum, ducking into tiny shops and gawking at things I’d never buy, and ordering some German ice cream. ~Abby

Today I got to sleep in until 10:30 which was nice, so our day started a bit late. Throughout the day we went to a festival in Kronberg, went for a drive with Leonie (my exchange partner)’s friends, and had dinner with her parents. The festival was actually quite small, but there was Bratwurst so I can’t complain, and there was a show there with some acrobats that were having a dispute about…chess? I think it was chess; it was just entertaining, but there wasn’t much of a story.  (Again, not complaining, it was cool.) They were lifting each other up, pushing each other off of tables, and throwing white powder at each other. Y’know, just every day stuff. For the ride with Leonie’s friends, we went to a  castle ruin and we got to sit on a gazebo and look at the view.  Later, some of Leonie’s OTHER friends decided to shoot water guns at us.  Overall, today was awesome and I’m still dry, so moral of the story, if you want to shoot water guns at people and have it be worth it, get big ones.  ~Adora