Sooooo, Our travel to Tuttlingen....
Saturday morning started beautifully, with a wonderful breakfast at the Vi Vadi Hotel. All of the participants cleaned their rooms and took care of all that needed to be taken care of - Thanks to everyone for being such great travellers!
The joy of travel is that no matter how munch you prepare, glitches always happen. As we were checking out, our payment would not work (it eventually did - turned out it was a problem with the hotel's machine), but the delay meant a bit of a sprint to get to the train. Once on the train, the conductor tried to explain to us that we had actually got on the wrong car on the train (though the right train) and that the train cars split off down the road in Augsburg. A quick run to the correct car meant that we were now on our way to Ulm.
Ulm was beautiful. The cathedral that we saw there was started in 1377 and finished about 150 years later. It was an amazing building, but only part of a tour through a Danube River Vally town that is steeped in both history and modern conveniences. It was in Ulm that we also connected with our hosts for the exchange, Verena and Hagen. They were able to hone their already strong tour-guide skills as the took us around Ulm.
After a brief lunch stop along the Danube at a Lions ("Leos" in German) sponsored festival, we headed to the train for Tuttlingen. Shortly after getting on the train, we discovered that an accident on the tracks would mean that we would have to get off the train in Mengin, then take a bus to Sigmaringen (the Germans have a saying, "may you never have hunger, pestilence, or to to spend time in Sigmaringen" - it rhymes in German). This delayed our trip by an extra couple of hours so that we didn't get into Tuttlingen until just about 6:00. So, after a mildly adventurous day, the Brooks and IKG kids finally got to meet each other. This is one of the best parts of the exchange. Both of us got to see the nervous excitement, the greeting and the expression that says, "so now what?"
So, on Saturday night, the students were off to the homes of their exchange partners. We are looking forward to Monday morning and hearing all of the stories of how their time went and what they did. We do know that at least two students went to the Lake of Constance. I am certain the stories will be great.
On Monday, we will meet with the students and then they will attending school with their partners and doing a scavenger hunt of IKG. Later in the day, we will tour a small museum before heading to one of our host family's home for a wurstsalad dinner and a gathering of all of the participants and families. Should be a very full day!
what a wonderful adventure you are all having! keep having fun!
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