USA-Austausch 2014
Our trip to New York
When we left Lahr at 6 o'clock in the morning, we couldn't imagine how amazing the following days would be. After our 8 hour flight to Newark Airport, just next to New York, we had to walk through the special safety area for immigrants and after getting that done, we saw the Manhattan skyline for the first time through the windows of our shuttle bus to the hostel.
Arriving at the hostel, 4 pm north-east American time, everybody was glad to get a break and relax for a few minutes. But only half an hour later, we took the subway 1 to get to the Empire State Building. It was already dark when we arrived at the top but the view of the skyline was fantastic. There were millions of lights and the Time Square was blinking in the middle of the city.
After everybody had taken their photos and selfies, we made our way back to the hostel. Everybody was pretty exhausted after being awake for more than 20 hours. When we arrived at the hostel, we went to bed pretty soon to get some sleep and be ready for the next day. When we were lying in our beds everybody knew, that New York is something special and totally amazing.
After getting up on Sunday, which wasn't too hard, we had a really great American breakfast with bagels, eggs, French toast and monster? donuts which were really big.
We took the subway again and made our way heading to the famous "Natural History Museum?. When we arrived there, we were able to see the big dinosaur skeleton but we didn?t go into the other parts of the museum.
The weather was really good on Sunday so we went for a walk in the Central Park. We saw many squirrels and went to strawberry fields, the place, where John Lennon was shot.
When we left the Central Park, we made our way downtown to walk along Fifth Avenue and get to Time Square. There was a huge parade of the New York Police Department and the New York Fire Department that day so we listened to their music and watched the parade for a while. On our way, we saw The Grand Central Station and the Rockefeller Center. When we reached Time Square, we had some time to go shopping and walk around.
Two hours later we met up again and we had some dinner. After dinner we met in front of the theater to see a musical called "Chicago?. It was already dark when we came out of the theater, and everybody was really tired so we looked for a subway station and made our way home to the hostel. When we reached our station, the 103rd Street, everybody woke up again and we walked the last meters back to our hostel.
On Monday we had to get up pretty early to get the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. Everybody was very excited to see the best known New York attraction. Also the Manhattan skyline looked really amazing.
Two hours later we took the ferry to Ellis Island to see the old immigration center of the United States of America. When we arrived there, we had about an hour to walk around and we saw the different steps of immigration, the immigrants had to go through. There was a lot of information and many different rooms so we didn't have enough time to go through all of them. So we left Ellis Island and we took the ferry to get back to Manhattan.
When we arrived there, we made a stop at a market of many different cultures to have some lunch. After everybody ate too much, we walked to the brand new 9/11 memorial. There we had to pass the security check to get into the huge entry hall. Then we entered the memorial itself and we were pretty amazed. But to see all the videos and to hear the people cry was really shocking. All in all, it was really interesting and we got much information and background knowledge about the terror attack of 11th September 2001. Then we left Ground Zero to get to the Brooklyn Bridge to see a small part of New York at night.
The next morning everybody was sad to leave this amazing city but everybody was looking forward to see their exchange students and Northfield. After our United Airlines flight was two hours late we left Newark airport at 12.30 pm.
All in all, New York was an experience we will never forget and we'll keep these memories forever.
Max Frankenhauser, Pascal Bruder
Northfield
When we arrived in Northfield our exchange partners received us very friendly. In general you could say that all the people here in Minnesota are much friendlier than most of the people in Germany, the cashiers for example start a conversation and ask you how you are and how long you stay?.
The city with 18.100 people is also as nice as the people who live here! Northfield was founded by John W. Northfield in 1855. We like "Northfield Downtown? the most because there are a lot of shops and restaurants. You can compare it to "Lahrer Innenstadt? but it looks really different (as you can see in the picture). In downtown there is also the best sandwich restaurant in the whole world! It's called "Hogan Brothers". We went there twice and the sandwiches taste awesome! Downtown there is also a cupcake store called "Cake Walk". It?s such a great store, not the biggest, but there are many cupcakes you can buy, and they also taste awesome!
In Northfield, the people don't live close to each other. Many people live like 20 minutes from school, or sometimes much more. So, for many kids it's really important to have a driver license at the age of 16. It would be great to have that in Germay!
In America people are very proud of their country, many people have an America flag in front of their houses, sometimes even more! The students are also very proud to be at their school. Everyone is wearing pullovers, t-shirts, sweatpants etc. ; of the schoolteam "Raiders". ; I think the reason is that students have their sport, hobbies etc. in school.
It`s really like in all the American movies?everything is much bigger, for example: the cars, the supermarkets, the fields and farms,.. and everybody decorates their house to celebrate Halloween. It`s as big as carnival in Germany.
The weather in Northfield is also great! About 15 degrees and the sun shines most of the time. We're having a great time and are enjoying every second!
James-Younger Gang
It was September 7th 1876 when the James-Younger Gang attacked the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. But Jesse and Frank James, Cole, Jim, Bob Younger, Bill Chadwell, Clell Miller and Charlie Pitts failed because Joseph Lee Haywood, an assistant cashier, refused to open the safe. When one of the robbers went inside the bank and asked Haywood to open the safe but he said it was time locked and therefore he couldn't open it, it was not true: there was a chronometer on the safe, it had not been set and the safe itself was unlocked.
Gang member Clell Miller, who was keeping watch on the street?which by this time was the site of a pitched gun battle between Northfield citizens and gang members?rode his horse back to the bank, dismounted, walked up to the door, and yelled inside for the gang members inside to hurry up. Within minutes, two of the gang members on the streets had been killed and others were seriously wounded. Gang member Cole Younger rode his horse to the bank and screamed for the others to come out.
The first outlaw inside the bank once again knocked Heywood to the floor. Frustrated, he fired a bullet into the floor near Heywood's head. The third outlaw ran outside with the bag of money, followed by the first. The second outlaw left last and noticed Heywood trying to stand. The outlaw went back, placed his pistol to Heywood's head and fired, killing him, and then left the bank.
The three outlaws who entered the bank are believed to be Frank James, Charlie Pitts, and Bob Younger.
The gang members managed to abscond with only 26.70 US$. The bank reportedly held over 12,000 US$ at the time of robbery.
Our tour guide from the Historical Society Northfield reenacted this story with a lot of enthusiasm and passion, he also included us into the role play which he prepared to tell us the story of the robbery. It was fun to listen to it!
Midori, Tobias, Sven
Weekend trip to Wisconsin Dells
On Saturday morning we (German and some American students) started our weekend trip to the Wisconsin Dells. We left Northfield at 7.30 am with our bus and on the way to Wisconsin we went to the Amish people. There we had a tour through the Amish village with a professional guide on our bus! He told us something about their lives and traditions. Sometimes the bus stopped and we could go outside to see their houses and how they live or we could buy some little souvenirs. Then we continued our trip to the hotel. The hotel at the Wisconsin Dells was very big. All 12 boys got one big suite and the girls got two suites because they were more people. After that we ate pizza and we could go to two big water parks. We had lots of fun because there were many different slides. At the end of the day we were very tired but happy. After a good breakfast we wanted to leave our hotel on time, but some clever boys closed the door and nobody was inside. And the problem was that the door was locked so we couldn?t go inside to our things.
But the hotel service opened it so we left the hotel at 10 am. Now we had a duck tour. This is a tour with a car which can drive on land and on water. So we drove on the Wisconsin River. This duck tour was very funny and we saw lots of animals. Then we drove on to the Eagle Center, but unfortunately no eagles flew in the sky. So we continued our trip and had lunch at the Great River Bluffs State Park. At 5 pm and a long trip we arrived in Northfield. It was a very nice weekend and we have to say a big thank you to our teachers for planning this trip!
Written by: Niklas Fehrenbach und Gabriel Weschle (Kl.10b)
American school life
If you know any American Highschool movies, then you can imagine what we are able to see here every day. Our days at Northfield Highschool are very interesting and also different than in Germany. Our first school day started with a ride with one of the yellow school buses. After the meeting with all the German students in the first lesson, everyone of us followed the exchange partner?s schedule. On the way to the classrooms you have to pay attention not to get lost, because the hall is very crowded. When you come into a classroom the first thing that catches your eye is that the whole room is decorated with things from the subject that is taught in this classroom. In America every teacher has their own room and the students have to move around. Another big difference is that the classrooms have a better technical equipment than in Germany. Every classroom has a projector and also every student has their own iPad which was very surprising for us. The relationship between teacher and student is also more like a friendship, that?s why the atmosphere in class is funny. The next day we noticed that we have the same schedule as the day before, so we found out that the schedule repeats itself daily and not weekly. Also, we figured out that there are some subjects we don?t have in Germany, for example: health, backing and mythology. In the evening we went to a football game and it was very exciting to see it in real life and not only in a movie. It was like we had imagined it ; with cheerleaders and a big orchestra.
The atmosphere was like in a stadium: the whole crowd supported their team by clapping and singing. All in all, sport is a very important part of American school life. We enjoy being at school with our exchange partners and seeing all the differences between the German and the American "way of learning?.
Caroline Schandl, Jennifer Kramer, Jacqueline Weschle
Trip to the Twin Cities
We visited the Twin Cities Minneapolis and St Paul on Tuesday, the 21st of October. They are called "Twin Cities? because they are next to each other. A typical yellow school bus, which everybody knows from American movies, took us there. That was already very exciting for us, the Germans. First, we went to the Capitol building. Mr Dahle who is a teacher at Northfield Highschool works there half the year between January and May as a politician. So, we got a "behind-the-scenes?-tour by his assistant Brian. It was just a little bit difficult for us to understand because he talked very fast. But the building was very impressive with its marble pillars. In the basement there was a room for eating. It was made up like a German "Gasthaus?. It was funny for us to see that there were German sayings on the wall.
After we had visited the Minnesota history museum next, which was not a "normal? museum, because there was for example a tornado room where you could feel as if you were in a tornado, we drove to a bridge across the Mississippi-River. By the way, it has its source in Minnesota. As we walked across the bridge to the Guthrie Museum, we could see the skyline of Minneapolis. Then there was some time for shopping! We went to downtown Minneapolis where the skyscrapers are. It was especially great to walk through the skyways. They exist because of the cold weather in winter. So people won?t have to go outside. On our way to the restaurant for dinner we stopped twice. Our first stop was the sculpture garden. There is the famous sculpture of a cherry on a spoon. We took some funny pictures with it. Finally we reached the restaurant to have dinner. It was a barbeque restaurant. We had for example chicken and mashed potatoes, or a veggie burger with potato salad. We were also able to refill our glasses as often as we wanted to, which was great. It was a interesting trip and we got to know Minneapolis, the capital of Minnesota, which is only one hour away from Northfield.
Maren, Elisa, Karen
