Blog #1 by Gaby Kupferle

Germany so far has been an amazing experience. In the first few days we were in Germany I was embraced by the German culture and language. On the first day I went straight from the airport quickly home to drop my things off and then went to Anna’s horse riding competition for Icelandic horses. As it went to 10pm I was so jetlagged I went home at 4pm and slept till the next day. I have been to the thermal pools twice now; they are so amazing because at night the whole place lights up. There are many little pools and saunas inside one massive building; I was really amazed by it all. The school we go to, the Wirtschaftsschule Alpenland is really big and has about 550 students just in the high school. In the school they have different classes to us. Because it is a business school they also teach accounting and business, they also have classes afterschool. Normally school would finish at 1pm. We had to introduce ourselves to the students and staff on the first day we were there and as you looked at them they were so cramped in the building you thought they wouldn’t all fit! We were given a tour by Mr. Kusch and Frau Kreplin of Bad Aibling and just from that you could see a lot of differences in Bad Aibling compared to bright, for instance the bike riders have a lot more respect, the buildings are different and they have maypoles here which symbolize the fruit harvest, the boys and men make these and paint them depending on where they live so were we live they painted it blue and white, the colours of the Bavarian flag. We went to the mayor’s town house and had a talk with him and he told us the history of Bad Aibling and we all asked him a few questions and when he replied Mr. Kusch had to translate as the mayor doesn’t speak English, and after we had an ice cream. An interesting point was when he was asked why there weren’t traffic lights, he mentioned the townsfolk believed they didn’t need them as there were no accidents and the drivers were sensible. He also said that if the lights were there, people would then speed up to beat them. On the long week end my host family (the Potocnik’s) and I went to Bodensee, which is about 4 hours from Bad Aibling. The first day we were there we traveled across the border to Switzerland to Mount Santis, which at the peak is 2500meters high. When we got there we drove up to about 1300meters high then we caught a gondola to the top. At the top it was so beautiful I think I can say we were all speechless. Mount Santis overlooks 6 countries which are: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy and Liechtenstein. And at the top my host dad said you can still see the snow from last year, because it’s so cold and the sun didn’t overlook that part it was still there. In the evening we went home and watched the sunset over the Bodensee. The next day we went to a place called Zeit Reise, its where the boat people lived over 1000years ago we saw all the houses and got a brief information tour by a lady, from what I understood (as the lady spoke in German), in the bronze and wood age they would drill holes in the stones using wood that they would rub together, there would be about 500 people living in about 10 houses. The reason they lived on the houses in the water was because it was easier for trade that way. They would sleep on these beds made out of sticks and animal skins. And 1 tree would make a long boat they would use to fish in. Later that day we caught a ferry across to a little island and went to a festival called Schlossfest. There we saw lots of flowers and trees. On the island there were many sculptures made from flowers that looked amazing. One of the trees that we saw on the island was called a Metasequoia which only grows on that island. In the castle there were people that dressed up like they did in the olden days, they looked really cool. The island overlooked Bodensee. For lunch we had a fish sandwich made from fish local to Bodensee. The next day we left Bodensee and went to Munich where we went to the last day of the Oktoberfest for this year. We had traditional food for this region for lunch and then I went on some of the rides and then back home because of school the next day. This is what I have done so far In Germany , My first impressions of Germany so far have been amazing, everyone is so nice and have made me feel very welcome.