We were extremely well looked after by our friends, old and new, at Gymnasium Ohlstedt, and although there was still much snow on the ground in Hamburg after a very harsh winter not unlike our own, the sun shone and we were able to experience and learn much in the city.

Picked up by their partners at the airport on Day One, the pupils were ‘straight in at the deep end’, but full of excitement and well able to report on the quality of local Eiscafés when we met as a group for our official welcome from the Head of English and Headteacher on Day Two!  Accompanied by our German partners, we took the U-Bahn to the city centre that afternoon for a double decker bus tour, taking in a wide variety of sights including the Alster, the local jail, some extremely decadent celebrity apartments and a submarine!

The kind hospitatlity of our German counterparts continued over the weekend, and staff and pupils arrived back at school on Monday morning exhausted after such a busy few days! Amongst the activities the group had taken part in were cinema trips, bowling, climbing the famous ‘Michel’ church tower, a visit to the Planetarium, a spooky experience at the Hamburg Dungeons, visits to relatives and most intriguing of all, an evening out with exchange partners at a dance class for well over 300 young Germans, all waltzing to the most recent chart hits.  Continuing the musical theme, Sally and Sarah were somewhat bemused but very excited to see a famous German ‘Schlager’ singer from the 1960s performing a gig to a crowd of adoring, elderly, fans at the Central Station.

As they had done on Friday morning, pupils accompanied their partners to lessons on Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday morning and Friday morning, thereby having an excellent opportunity to improve their German listening skills, and help out in some of the English lessons!  During the rest of the week we were all kept busy with a trip to the Miniatur Wunderland, an enormous model ‘world’ where eagle eyed visitors could see Superman, abseiling monks, and dinosaurs , as well as a queue of miniature revellers waiting in line for miniature Portaloos at a tiny music festival.

Wednesday’s day trip to Lübeck was one of the high points of the week, and provided a fantastic opportunity for pupils to work together as they took part in a town quiz against the clock with their partners.  The city’s traditional delicacy, marzipan, was, of course, the prize for the winning team. 

The English group had a morning out together on Thursday, and spent the time exploring the historical ‘Speicherstadt’ and ‘HafenCity’ areas, where pupils were able to learn about the history of Hamburg’s port, as well as see how the area is being diversified for the 21st Century.  And as no trip to Germany would be complete without the fine German tradition of Kaffee und Kuchen, the group rounded off the morning with some extremely ‘kalorienreich’, but delicious, refreshments in a posh café in the city centre, which provided them with just about enough energy to ‘force’ themselves round the shopping mall one last time! 

The pupils’ excellent behaviour and enthusiasm meant that trip was a great success, and we are now looking forward very much to the return of our new friends at the end of April.  Nick Hesketh described the trip as “really great fun” and said of the German family he stayed with “…they included me in everything and helped me out with my German”, and on our last day, Chantel Ndebele and Katie Doheny-Adams could be overheard planning their next visit to Hamburg!

Report by:  Sarah Ledger, Modern Languages