June 2nd by Kaylani

Today we had bread and Nutella, then we made our lunches that consisted of bread, cheese, a fruit of our choice, and water. We went to school by bike, which was surprisingly fun. Our first lesson of the day was English, and the teacher was excited to talk to us about where we were from and how we were enjoying ourselves in Germany. Next, we had a free period so we went to math with Leas friends Lina. After math we ad lunch and went to the Edeka bakery to get food after we ate our tiny sandwiches. After we returned to school Lea went to gym while I went to Educational Science with Lina. When school ended Lea and I went to the mall in Monchen-gladbach that opened recently. We bought chocolates, shorts, and the Hobbit Trilogy. 

June 1st By Matthew Rothenburg and Arrival in Korschenbroich

We went to the St. Jacobs Church first in the morning then after the church we went shopping for two hours. After shopping, we left for Korchenbroich to meet our host families. Then we had our first gathering and ate dinner meeting each other’s families. Here are some pictures of the Church:

Here is a picture of shopping in Rothenburg:

Trip to Rothenburg by Maggie

May 31
We had breakfast around 6:45. Then at 8:00 we had to take a bus from the youth hostel to the train station to leave for Rothenburg. The train ride was right around 6 hours long. When we arrived in Rothenburg it was right around 15:30. Then we had free time until 17:30. At 20:00 we went into town for the Night Watchman Tour. The tour was pretty fun. The tour guide walked us about the oldest parts of Rothenburg while talking about the interesting history. The tour was about an hour long. During the tour Sofie was pooped on by a bird. We learned from two different people, Sofie's mother and Frau Brandt, that being pooped on is considered a blessing. After the tour we went back to the youth hostel.

The Night Watchman or Nachwächter

Herr Spence and Ella Photo-bombing the "Nachwächter"

Half-timbered Houses

The Garden

Rothenburg in the Evening

View of the Town From the GardenWall

May 30th, Salzburg and Almbachklamm Hike

May 30^th , Salzburg and Almbachklamm hike

Erik

A few of us woke up (Mary, Frau Spence, Herr Spence, Aric, Mathew, Alex and I) and went on a morning run at 6:15. We ran for twenty minutes, turned around and ran back. A few of us ran to the bottom of the hill near our hostel once we got back and ran back up. It was a fairly easy run, the first twenty were a good majority slightly up hill so that added a little difficulty but the last five minutes were slight and steep downhill so the way back was a little up hill with lots of downhill. The hill after the main run was very easy going down so I was able to talk to Mary pretty simply. On the way back up we still had a conversation but our pace was slightly slowed and the responses in the conversations were slightly shorter since we had to focus more on breathing and the actual process of running but I still had fun getting to know Mary. After our run we returned to our rooms and met up with our now awake roommates and took showers and went down to breakfast with the whole group.

Some of the more interesting views we saw while running included a military base. We first thought it was a school and my first thought was “They really don’t want these kids leaving early” because the fences had barbed wire on the top, however it turned out to be a military area. Also at the end of our twenty minutes away from the hostel we entered a down hill area in the woods and the woods were very fun to run compared to running on the road. Also slugs, we had to make sure we didn’t step on any slugs on the sidewalk.

We took a bus into Salzburg and met with Frau Brandt’s host family and had a tour of Salzburg led by Frau Brandt. After the tour we set a meeting place next to an old fountain. Maggie, Sofie, Orion and I decided to go look at some stores that caught our eye during the tour. These stores included a fancy McDonalds, a watch store called Swatch (I have my own watch from Swatch so I wanted to look at the newer selection) and Redbull World.

We first visited the fancy McDonalds just to look inside. Probably the snazziest fast food place I have ever been inside. Next was the Swatch store. I tried to convince Orion to buy a Swatch but he decided against because of the price. I found tons of watches I liked but since I already have a watch decided against it also. Last we checked out Red-bull world. I didn’t find anything I liked too much, but it was a cool store to look at.

We spent the next hour or two walking around looking at the various bakeries, tourist shops, and shopping stores. I purchased gifts for my family and a pretzel, plus drinks to keep me from being hungry till we could eat our lunch packets.

Once we all met up and took off, we began walking toward our bus. On the way we ran into Service high school from Anchorage, AK, and I saw my friend Zach who was with his school. It was pretty cool just running into a friend from Anchorage in Salzburg. We took a few pictures, but a few minutes later we went on our separate ways.

The bus took us to our Almbachklamm hike. Our tour guide from Berchtesgaden was our guide on this hike. We learned about the various wildlife living in the area, how big a square meter of water looked, and how much it weighed. As we began walking it looked cloudy but cleared up for a little, however eventually we were later turned around by rain. At the base of the hike we ate at a café. I had three scoops of ice cream.

After our day full of touring, shopping, eating, and hiking, we took a bus back to our youth hostel so we could eat dinner and clean our rooms in preparation to leave the next morning. The cleaning included picking up dirty clothes, picking up trash, emptying the trash can into various groups in cans outside, and sweeping. We left the bedding on to sleep on for the last night.

After all this, a few people in the group got together and played cards, something that a lot of us seemed to enjoy doing every night.

I was sad to leave our hostel. It was the first place I really got to know Mathew and Aric which was a fun experience. The biggest surprise from the day was seeing the kids from Service, mostly seeing my friend Zach, I never expected to see him in a foreign country like that. I had a lot of fun and knew we had a lot more fun coming in the future.

Day 4 Berchtesgaden and the Salt Mine by Hallie Moore

May 29^th

Berchtesgaden city tour and Salt mine tour

Today we all headed out via bus and drove into town.  Gabriele, our tour guide, gave us a splendid tour of Berchtesgaden.  She took us up to a religious site that gave us a flawless view of the city.  Here she told us about Berchtesgaden’s rich history and about the importance of the salt mine.  We also walked through part of the city and looked at the big church. After we finished our tour we had a little bit of time in the square to eat our lunches and enjoy the sunshine.  We found delicious ice cream in the main square. I had Spaghetti Eis. It was absolutely delicious. 

After our little break we walked to the salt mine. There was a bit of time before our tour so Mary and I went on an adventure up the mini mountain behind the salt mine building. It was a nice little hike. When we returned, Mary used German to talk to someone and ask if she could pet their dog. She also found out the dog’s name. His name was Sydney. Then we went on the tour. We had to put on these black jumpsuits with reflective tape on them. Then we took this train thing through tiny tunnels. We also got to go down big wooden slides. It was pretty cool. The most remarkable part of the mine was when we saw the mirror lake. At first our reaction wasn’t too great. We thought, “Wow. A giant room with a pit in it.” Then we saw a boat sitting in the “pit” and were slightly confused. It turned out that there was really a pool of perfectly still water that was flawlessly mirroring the ceiling and walls of the room. It was beautiful.  We went back to the hostel and eventually ended up in bed.

This was the religious site at the top of the steep hill where we learned the most about Berchtesgaden's history. 

This was the square in Berchtesgaden where we had ice cream. 

This is the wall outside of the salt mine that says, in english, If all of the rivers are sweet then where does the salt in the sea come from?

Day 3 Iceland to Berchtesgaden according Kira

we left Iceland at 3am and got on the plane about 7am. I almost lost my backpack. We landed in Germany and took the train to Berchtesgaden. The view of the mountains was incredible. We had dinner consisting of lasagna and then got our rooms. It was overall a very long day but so far it is worth the long train rides and planes. I am excited for what tomorrow holds.

Day 2 by Sofie

 On the 27th of May we stayed in Iceland. We got up ate breakfast, and then headed out to the ferry. Walking to the ferry was quite interesting because we had to scale a down a cliff basically, but overall it was a beautiful walk.

 We got on the ferry with about a 15 minute ride in front of us. I love boats so naturally it was great. Getting off the boat, we were let to travel the tiny island until our designated meeting time. Let me just tell you, once you got up to a peak on the island, you could see the whole Icelandic area. We walked around the island and went into an old church (which was one out of two of the buildings on the island) and it was absolutely jaw dropping, the architecture, the time period it was built and the secret attic I climbed into and felt as though I was going to fall through, all was beautiful.

   Once we were finished with the island the ferry took us down town and we all shopped for a few hours. That by far was the funnest thing throughout the whole trip so far. After the few hours flew by, we went back to the hostel, ate, had a little bit of free time, packed and got ready for our next adventures in Germany.