The Visitors

Sebastian-Münster-Gymnasium has several exchange partner schools in other countries. Right now, a group of 16 students from the partner school in the United States is visiting for two weeks. The students are hosted by the families of various SMG students and travel as a group to see various sights in Germany.

Wednesday, the students visited various English classes and gave presentations about American culture. Two of them visited Frau Mikutta's 11th grade class. These students gave a hands-on presentation on baseball. Their PowerPoint presentation wasn't working, but the American students had brought along a baseball bats and some tennis balls, so the majority of the class time was spent letting the SMG students take turns pitching and batting. Some of the students were amazingly good at it. Too bad baseball isn't a major sport over here! I, by the way, was probably the absolute worst batter in the group. Go figure.

Even the class's teacher, Frau Mikutta, took a turn at batting.

A Favorite Lesson

One of my favorite things about being a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant is that I frequently am called upon to talk about Alabama and the South. Recently, I've had the opportunity to teach about topics ranging from Haper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" to life in the Bible Belt to Alabama's climate. This is both interesting and challenging because many (if not most) of my students knew nothing Alabama before I became their teaching assistant.

Perhaps my favorite of these is a lesson I taught to a ninth grade class around Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As you can probably guess, I gave them a short biography to read and a worksheet to do for homework, and I also had them listen to his "I Have a Dream" speech. The next week, their teacher and I gave them a list of vocabulary words such as 'freedom' and 'equality' that were found in the speech. Then, we split them into groups and instructed them to pretend that they were leaders of the civil rights movement following in Dr. King's footsteps after his death and write a speech of their own. One person from each group had to give the speech their group had written in front of the entire class. They did an amazing job on the speeches, and they really seemed to enjoying listening to each other speak. It was obvious that they truly understood both the importance of the Civil Rights Movement and the ideals of Dr. King.

Warsaw Historical Museum

We were supposed leave Warsaw for Prague at noon yesterday, and we had our hostel accommodations for the upcoming night arranged. We knew that we wouldn't have much time for sightseeing that morning, but since we had a few hours and had heard that the Warsaw Historical Museum was worth visiting, we decided to take a quick look around. We knew that we probably wouldn't make it through the entire museum, but since it cost less than $2 per person, we figured that whatever we did get to see would be worth it.

We got to the museum, checked our bags in the cloakroom, and then began exploring the museum. When we were almost out of time, we headed for the exit.

As soon as a museum employee noticed us, she thrust herself between us and the doorway and pointed towards the next room. We tried to explain that we had a train to catch and needed to leave, but she insisted that we proceed to the next room.

The next room contained a set of stairs with an exit sign over them, so Will and I quickly made our way towards them. No sooner had we reached them, though, than an employee began yelling at us that we had to go to the next room. We tried hard to explain that we really needed to leave, but this employee was no less adamant than the previous one.

Each room that we came to had another employee who insisted we continue despite our objections. They didn't make us stop and look at anthing, but we were required to visit every room in order! about thirty minutes later, we'd covered all 50-something rooms- including one showing a film in Polish- and were finally allowed to collect our bags and exit the museum.

We made it to the train station about ten minutes after our train had departed, and were amazed to learn that although Prague and Warsaw are only about 300 miles apart, it is impossible to get from Warsaw to Prague after noon. Thus, we had to stay in Warsaw an extra night. We returned to the Oki Doki Hostel and reserved a room for another night, emailed our hostel in Prague and asked them to re-book our reservation for the next night, and changed our train ticket back to Germany for a day later than we'd originally planned. It didn't turn out to be much of a problem, but I still can't believe our trip had to be extended for an entire day just because the employees of a Polish museum wanted us to see every room of it!

Christmas Lessons

Today, Mom, Dad, and Granna came with me to SMG to experience my school and my classes. One of the classes they visited was Frau Riehl's 7th grade class. I broke the students into three groups, and assigned Mom, Dad, and Granna each to a different group to discuss Christmas traditions with the students, thus allowing them to practice talking to native English speakers. The students learned a lot about Christmas in the U.S., and my family members got some insight into Christmas in Germany. Afterwards, we sang Christmas carols and songs, both in English and German. I've attached a couple of video clips of the students singing "Stille Nacht" (in German) and "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells" (in English).

Christmas Markets

I love everything about Christmas- the lights, the sounds, the decorations, the church services, the Christmas story.... The weeks leading up to Christmas day are perhaps my favorite time of year. Although I will be missing out on some of my family's Christmas traditions this year, such as visiting the little Christmas village in Foley and driving around Monroeville looking for houses that are exceptionally well-decorated, there are a number of things that I am getting to see and do this year that I have never experienced before.

Going to Christmas markets is one such new experience. Essentially every town of any decent size has one, and I've been to three different ones so far. They are somewhat like the arts-and-crafts festivals that take place in various cities around the United States throughout the year. There are activities for children, live music, and stands selling food, and many different booths set up where different vendors sell their wares. Some of the vendors are selling hand-made goods; others are simply reselling commercially available products. Unlike the arts-and-crafts festivals, though, these markets run essentially concurrently and generally last around a month. Many of the booths are extremely decorated. The entire market is lit up with Christmas lights and stays open after dark. It's a lovely experience and a great place to do Christmas shopping!

Lighted sign for the Wormser Weihnachtsmarkt (The Worms Christmas Market)

Some things just shouldn't be this exciting

Can you imagine being completely ecstatic to learn that your local Wal-Mart would soon begin staying open until 10:00pm?

Believe or not, residents of Rheinland-Pfalz, the German state in which I live, recently experienced such excitement. For years, stores in this state (and many others in German) have been required to close by 8:00pm Monday-Saturday and to remain closed all day on Sunday. That was probably one of the most difficult things for Will and me to adjust to when we moved here. Recently, though, the law was changed to extend the closing time to 10:00pm starting on December 1.

Thanksgiving

A few people have asked me whether I celebrated Thanksgiving this year, and I am happy to say that I did.

Although the holiday is not celebrated by Germans, there are many Americans in Germany who do celebrate it, particulary members of our military. Will and I attend Rhein River Baptist Church, an English-speaking church whose membership consists largely of members of the United States Armed Forces stationed in and around Mannheim. While November 23 was a completely normal day for most Germans, these Americans celebrated it in much the same fashion as we do at home.

After finishing teaching my lessons at SMG, I took the train back to Mannheim to participate in the church's Thanksgiving meal. Another Fulbrighter, Shellie Ponce, joined Will and me in attending. The food was good, and we had a very enjoyable time.