SFHS GAPP 2023

  The first day of school (for our kids) began with a German-style breakfast in the teacher cafeteria. Our hosts Frau Haschke, Frau Tümpel, and Principal Seffner welcomed us and laid out the plan for the next few days. Frau Legall handed Herr Seffner more South merch for his collection - the hat he's wearing in the pictures is a gift from 2018. Then our students and their partners went to their first classes before heading for lunch and one more group event: bowling! Why bowling even though it's not exactly a new cultural nor a typically German experience? Because the bowling alley is in the basement of the elementary school! After all, our partner school is  musikalisch-SPORTlich  for a reason. So, because from now on each student will make individual experiences rather than the group experiences of the past few days, they will share them in this blog. We hope everyone will contribute over the next week and a half. Ashley and Sanjay volunteered to get us started.  A...

After a record-setting day, we figured our kids might be just a tad less energetic than usual this morning so we kicked off the day an hour later than yesterday. We once again had breakfast at "our" café where the kids ordered (almost) like locals already.  Then we did what we couldn't do yesterday: go to the top of Berlin's TV tower, called Alex because of its location on the Alexanderplatz . We took our time enjoying the view over Berlin from 203 meters (666 ft) high.    After we descended 666ft in just a few seconds, we split up into two groups: One group wanted to go shopping by detour of the  Berliner Dom ( cathedral), where they got to listen to some beautiful organ music); the other took the S-Bahn to the East Side Gallery, where those remains of the Berliner Mauer  (wall) are still standing that show the most famous graffiti on the western side of the wall. One of our students (no worries, Jayden, I won't say who it was) had presented on the East Side Ga...