Telgte 2009 Daily Journal.
Journal for the Wilmette / Telgte Student Exchange.
Scroll down past the itinerary for updates
Trip Itinerary
Wed. June 10, 2009 - Depart O’Hare for Germany (Frankfurt).
Thurs. June 11th - Arrive in München - change planes to Münster/Osnabrück. We will be met at the airport.
Fri. June 12th - Get settled in and get to know Telgte - group tour with Frau Polley in the a.m. Rest of day spent with family.
Sat. June 13th - Day spent with families.
Sun. June 14th - Day spent with families.
Mon. June 15th - Go to school with partners. After school spend rest of day with families.
Tues. June 16th - Morning trip to Münster including tour of Mühlenhof - an open air museum. Spend rest of day with families.
Wed. June 17th - Field Trip. Destination TBA.
Thurs. June 18th - School in the morning. Rest of day spent with families.
Fri. June 19th - Activity to be announced
Sat. June 20th - Day spent with families.
Sun. June 21 - Day spent with families. Going away celebrations in the evening.
Mon. June 22nd - Depart Telgte. Spend afternoon in Köln and climb to the top of the cathedral. Lunch in Köln. Travel on to St. Goar, check into the youth hostel and visit the site of the "Lorelei". Overnight in St. Goar.
Tues. June 23rd - Walk to Burg Rheinfels, visit the castle and have lunch. Then on to Koblenz and tour the city including a visit to "Deutsches Eck". Return to St. Goar. Overnight in St. Goar.
Wed. June 24th - Travel to Freiburg with a midday stop in Kehl, Germany/Straßburg, France. If we get into Freiburg early enough, we can do a night tour of the city. Overnight in Freiburg.
Thurs. June 25th - Tour the city in the morning and have lunch on the market square. Travel by cable car up to the top of Schauinsland. Walk around the Black Forest and take a tour of either a silver mine or an old farm house “Schniederlihof” Dinner and overnight in Freiburg
Fri. June 26th- Take a tour into the Black Forest and visit Triberg (site of Germany’s highest waterfall) and it’s local museum. Visit Gutach and tour the open air museum of Black Forest farmhouses. Then it’s on to the Dorotheenhütte to see glassblowers create delicate glasses and vases. You can even practice the craft of glass blowing and make your own vase! Dinner in Freiburg and overnight in Freiburg.
Sat. June 27th - Tour the Elsaß in France. Visit Hoch Königsburg in the a.m., visit Riquewihr, a quaint wine town of Elsaß, and then see a display of birds of prey. Overnight in Freiburg.
Sun. June 28th- Travel to Würzburg with a midday stop in Rothenburg ob der Taube - a medieval walled city. Lunch in Rothenburg. In Würzburg take a quick city tour and visit the archbishop's baroque palace. Dinner and overnight in Würzburg. Pack and get ready for the flight home.
Mon. June 29th- Depart for Chicago.
LH 432 - depart Frankfurt at 5:15PM - arrive Chicago at 7:30PM
Flight Information
6/10 LH 1158 - depart München at 17:50 - arrive Münster at 19:00
6/29 LH 432 - depart Frankfurt at 5:15PM - arrive Chicago at 7:30PM
Frau Polley's Contact Information in Germany
Gitta Schneider - 011-49-2504-77950 (ask for Frau Polley)
Polley Cell Phone in Germany - 011-49-1522-363-6192
Please keep in mind - unless WE contact YOU please assume that everything is ALL RIGHT!
Please do not contact your student every day - he/she is doing fine!! They always do so much better when they do not receive daily contact from home.
Hostel Contact Information
St. Goar - st-goar@diejugendherbergen.de (arrive late on June22 - leave early on June 24)
Freiburg - info@jugendherberge-freiburg.de (arrive late on June 24 - leave early on June 28)
Wuerzburg - jhwuerzburg@djh-bayern.de (arrive late on June 28 - leave early on June 29)
PHONE TREE
Reichenbach calls Dekker (847-867-7604)
Dekker calls Lind (Ryan) (847-251-9426)
Lind calls Roslan (312-498-3040)
Roslan calls Jacobs (847-251-5970)(cell: 847-606-5970)
Jacobs calls Owen (847-256-5386)
Owen calls George (Fiesel) (630-774-2117)
Geogre calls Gruchot (847-729-3792) (cell: 847-287-8308)
Gruchot calls Keller (847-920-1983)
Keller calls Schoorlemmer ((847-920-9861) (cell: 847-338-3542)
End of first phone tree.
Schield calls Panovkina (847-946-0550) (cell: 630-401-0434)
Panovkina calls Lavin (847-544-1733) (ell: 847-757-7557)
Lavin calls Cohan (847-251-6193)
Cohan calls Bergquist (847-251-8535) (847-644-0010)
Bergquist calls McGregor (847-920-9219) (847-274-4353)
McGregor calls Witort (847-533-4794)
Witort calls Hoying (847-920-1498)
Hoying calls Beitel (847-920-0367) (847-920-0259)
Beitel calls Campbell (Majeski) (847-730-3340) (847-951-5829)
End of second phone tree.
June 11, 2009 (Thursday)
Hooray. We have arrived in Telgte. All students and chaperones are safely with their host families.
June 12, 2009 (Friday)
The first day of school in Germany. The children arrived at school with their German partners at 8AM this morning.
During the first 2 periods of the school day(8AM to 9:45AM) the Wilmette-only stduents and chaperones took a walking and orientation tour of Telgte. The highlight of the tour was viewing and mingling with the "Alltagsmenschen"(Everyday People) outdoor public art now on exhibit in Telgte. This exhibit is similar to the cows that invaded Chicago a few years back. The "every people" are life sized fiber glass sculptures by Christel Lechner. All seem to be a little older and a little chubbier than most models used for scuptures. And as described to us, the "everyday people" do not feel guilty enjoying a nice piece of cake. I found a sample group of "everday people" on-line at
http://sauerland.business-on.de/dateien/bilder/070313_alltagsmenschen.jpg We all enjoyed the tour and our time with the "everyday people".
Starting with the third period (after 9:45) the children attended class (periods 3-6) with their exchange partners. The rest of the day and the week-end will be spent with their partners and host families.
June 13, 2009 (Saturday)
A sunny day today. A little cool in the morning, but warmer in the afternoon, and a most pleasant evening.
In the evening the Maria Sibylla Merian Gymnasium (that´s our exchange partner school, MSM for short) concert band gave an Open Air Concert in the town square. Many of the Wilmette students were seen in attendance. It was a wonderful concert filled with familar tunes, popular music, and Hollywood film scores. When the band was hitting the home stretch, it broke into the Radetzky March and we were all transported to Vienna on New Year's Day. A wonderful finish to this Saturday.
June 14-15, 2009 (Sunday, Monday)
Sunday was a day with the host family and Monday a day at school. Since each of these days would require 27 different journals, the journal will not continue day by day. The journal will report or link to articles on the group events.
June 16 (Tuesday)
The American students took a field trip to Muenster. Muenster is the big city in the area with a population of about 300,000. Telgte is a 15 minute train ride from Muenster. Read all about the field trip in the MSM Online Newspaper. http://www.merian-magazin.de/category.php?catname=Freizeit&aid=1066
June 18 (Thursday)
Today the Wilmette students and their German partners traveled to the Open Air Museum in Hagen. Hagen is a 1 hour and 15 minute bus ride from Telgte. This open air museum specializes in exhibiting crafts from earlier centuries. Many of the historic buildings had craftsman demonstrating their trade. There were more than 50 buildings in a narrow valley that was about 2km(1.2 miles) long. Read more about the field trip to Hagen in the MSM Online Newspaper. http://www.merian-magazin.de/category.php?catname=Freizeit&aid=1068
June 19 (Friday)
Two major events today: The students ate a "Healthy Breakfast" and met the Mayor of Telgte.
The "Healthy Breakfast" was sponsored by a number of local fruit and vegetable growers, plus other local businesses and community organizations. Breakfast was served to all the children from 5th through 10th grade at the three schools at the Telgte school campus. (MSM Gymnasium is one of the three). The "Healthy Breakfast" included vegetables, fruit, cheese, meat, and multi-grain bread. The breakfast was served in shifts. The 5th graders at 8AM. The 6th graders at 9AM. And so on. Therefore, the older children had a healthy breakfast for lunch. Most of the Wilmette children are paired with 6th graders and ate during the 9AM shift. At 9AM we saw bowls and bowls piled high with strawberries for the students, because it is strawberry season in Telgte. By the time the 8th graders arrived at 11 AM there was still plenty of food, but all the strawberries were gone.
At 12:15 the Wilmette students and their German partners met the Buergermeister(Mayor) at the Rathaus(City Hall). Read more about the meeting with the Mayor in the MSM Online Newspaper. http://www.merian-magazin.de/category.php?catname=Freizeit&aid=1069
June 21 (Sunday)
Today we had our farewell picnic-dinner with our German host families. The picnic was planned to take place outside at the school. It was a very chilly June day and had to go to a backup plan. We grilled outside and ate dinner inside the school. After the meal many of us went outside to throw the American football around. You could tell that some of the American students had worked on football passing techniques with their German partners.
Tomorrow morning before school we will say good-bye to our German partners and board the bus for 7 day German tour.
Monday, June 22
Before school we boarded the bus, said good-bye to our German hosts, and headed for Koeln for the start of our trip up the Rhein. At Koeln we climbed to the top of the belltower of the Koelner Dom(Cathedral). From the start of the climb to the observation deck was 527 steps. We had lunch in Koeln. In the afternoon we drove to St.Goar and checked into the Youth Hostel. From the Youth Hostel we crossed the Rhine on the auto ferry and hiked to Burg Katz.
Tuesday, June 23
Using St.Goar as our base we did a day trip to Burg Eltz, Cochem on the Mosel, and Koblenz. At Burg Eltz we took a guided tour of the castle. Burg Eltz is actually three family castles combined into one greater castle for three Eltz family branches. The first castle was from the 14th century, the second from the 15th century, and the third from the 16th century. In Cochem on the Mosel we ate lunch and toured the medieval city. In Koblenz we visited the “Deutsches Eck”, which is located at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine rivers. At the “Deutsches Eck” flags from all the German states were flying. The group took a photo under the flag of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Telgte is in Nordrhein-Westfalen
Wednesday, June 24th
This morning we boarded the bus early and said “tschues” to St. Goar and the Rhein. We loved driving along the Rhein. Every 10 miles or so was another castle on a hill in various states of repair (or disrepair as the case may be). The Rhein is a very busy river. Huge boats and tugboats pushing all kinds of large barges parade up and down. The river really doesn’t look deep enough for those boats. But obviously it is.
Our first stop was outside of Strassburg. There we walked across a large modern bridge from Germany to France. The middle of the bridge was the dividing line between the two countries. It was the same bridge that Obama and some other national leaders, including Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel, and Nicolas Sarkozy walked across to signify unity. After a potty break and a rest in the park, we headed back to the bus. From there we drove to the city center of Strassburg. We walked around in our small groups. Our group found a small café with decent prices. We were all pretty amazed at how expensive the food was here in France. For that matter, how expensive everything was!
After Strassburg, we drove about 1 ½ hours to Freiburg. This is a very pretty city built on the edge of the Black Forest. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. The prices were refreshing after France. Everyone filled up and didn’t even have room for an ice cream afterward. We walked into the town square. A large Catholic cathedral rose up from the center, as always, ornate and impressive. We rode a street car back to near where the youth hostel was. On the walk from the train, beetle bugs were coming out for the night and followed us, buzzing in our hair. Frau Polley said they were June bugs. They were a bit annoying.
Thursday, June 25th
Today our bus driver had a well deserved day off. So after our breakfast of meats, cheeses, rolls, Muslix, fruit and yogurt we walked to the bus. Freiburg has a unique way to meet the public’s need for transportation. Besides a bus system, there is the ever present steetcar mode of transportation. Street cars run on tracks built into the street and on electrical wires above. After the bus, we hopped on a street car and prepared to shop in the Freiburg Farmers market. After filling up on various fresh fruits, other foods and getting our fill of shopping from Black Forest artisans, we took the shuttle bus into the Black Forest and to a Gondola which we took us up into the hills. The ride was exciting. As we pulled away from the Gondola station the buildings grew smaller and smaller. Soon the town looked like miniature toys. After 20 minutes, we unloaded at the top.
About 16 of the students decided to hike to the lookout tower. Other than rather large slugs, the hike was uneventful and soon we were able to see all around from the top. After climbing the watch tower, 78 steps high, we could easily view the lay of the land; Freiburg to the east, The Swiss Alps to the south, and France to the west. On a clear day, one can actually see the Alps. Today a cloud cover made that impossible. But it was warm, the wildflowers were in bloom and the students were ready for more hiking. We took the long way back and found Fau Polley and the rest of the students on the playground.
We ate dinner within ivy coverd walls of the courtyard of an Italian restaurant. The students all seem to enjoy Italian cuisine. We walked back into the town square and listened to the medieval sounds of some female vocalists singing inside the church entry. Their angelic voices filled the square until the church bells sounded. We sat on the sides of a fountain and dined on a dessert of Spaghetti Eis which consists of real whipped cream hidden inside a mound of ice cream which has been pressed through a ricer, turning the ice cream into strings like spaghetti. The whole thing is topped off with strawberry topping and white chocolate shavings. The name does not do the dessert justice.
We took a street car back and after another walk with the June bugs, arrived at the youth hostel.
Friday, June 26th
We boarded the bus at 8:30am and drove into the Black Forest to Germany’s longest waterfall. Conveniently, the bus dropped us off at a point above the falls and we hiked down, crossing the falls in places on wooden bridges. The falls are a continuous stepping stone pattern of smaller falls, ending in some larger more dramatic water cascades.
Once at the bottom, we walked to the Black Forest Museum. Inside we found all kinds of relics of Black Forest history; gem mining, cuckoo clocks, traditional dress of the people around the turn of the 20th century, large music players (which only cost 1 euro to play) and many other interesting items.
We then headed to Vogtsbauernhof, an open air museum with restored homes of the Black Forest peoples from the 1600’s and 1700’s. Their extremely dark houses were filled with relics, the gardens in full glory and the sheep and geese took us back to a very different time and lifetstyle.
But the high light of the day was probably the the glass blowing factory. A hush came over the group as we entered and fragile glass objects surrounded us. We carefully walked through to the work room where glass blowing was in full progress. Each student was able to blow their own glass vase, one student at a time, each one a unique creation. We all felt for the people working the furnaces. Hot can’t even begin to describe those fires.
We finished our eventful day with a traditional German meal in the Hotel zum Baeren Restaurant; salad, schnitzel, spaetzle and good old pommes frites (American French Fries).
Saturday, June 27th
Our day in France.
Today we toured the Alsace region of France. Alsace lies west of the Rhine directly across from southwest Germany. We got an early start so that we could take the guided tour of Hochkoenigsburg at 9:30am. Hochkoenigsburg sits on a high hill with a commanding view of the Rhine plain below. At this point of the Rhine, the river valley is about 30 miles wide. The fortress is huge, imposing, and menacing to anyone outside its walls. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times through the ages. Hochkoenigsburg was destroyed by the Swedish army in the 17th century during the 30 Years War and lay in ruin until it was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century per the old design. When the students walked through the gates of the fortress, they stepped back into the castle keep, banquet hall, armory, courtyards, and ramparts of 400 years ago.
After Hochkoenigsburg we visited the quaint Alsatian village of Riquewihr. The students ate their sack lunches from the Youth Hostel. However, we still had room to sample some Alsatian treats like Crepe, Tarte Flambee(thin crispy pizza-like dish without the tomato sauce), and Kugelhopf(almond bread).
Our day in France ended with a visit to the birds of prey exhibit and show at Castle Kintzheim. The birds of prey show made the audience part of the show. The trained eagles, hawks, and vultures swooped within inches of your head as they performed their aerial maneuvers. At one point in the show a vulture walked on volunteer students' outstretched legs. A few of the students were chosen to be a falconer assistants, when the trainer lent out his leather glove and instructed the falcon to fly to and perch on the student's gloved arm.
Sunday, June 28th
Our destination today was Wuerzburg with a mid-day stop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Before we loaded all our suitcases on the bus and left Freiburg, we presented our bus driver a souvenir Football with all the students' signatures. We made it to Rothenburg around lunch time and discovered that it was festival time in Rothenburg. We ate lunch at the festival grounds, then headed into the center of the town only to find ourselves marching on a collision course with a parade. The parade slowed our progress, but we did get a nice photo of an oom-pah marching band with a no-nonsense trombone player.
After a quick tour of Rothenburg we made it to Wuerzburg in time for dinner, a stroll through the city, and we watched a river boat go through the locks on the Main River.
Monday, June 29th
Last day in Germany.
This morning we put our suitcases on the bus and then divided into 2 groups: the hikers and the non-hikers. The non-hikers walked into town. The hikers hiked through the vineyards up to the Marienberg Fortess which towers over Wuerzburg and the Main River. From the fortress you get an excellent view of the city. After the hike we all met in the city for our last bratwurst or whatever our favorite lunchtime meal was in Germany.
At noon we boarded the bus for the last time and headed for the Frankfurt airport. We arrived at 2PM for our 5:15PM flight to Chicago.
Photos:
21 Photos from the trip are posted at:
http://polleym.pbworks.com/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=Germany%202009%20-%20Group%20Photos
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