Bright and early this Friday morning, all of the Pingry students and our German buddies met up at a train station, excited for the fun day ahead of us. The first activity on our agenda was the Klettergarten (climbing park). It is basically a huge elevated playground built into a forest and it consists of multiple courses ranging from easy to advanced (and at all times we had safety harnesses on). Although being 15 feet above the ground and being very balanced took some time getting used too, most of us felt comfortable really quickly. In fact, most of us ended up successfully climbing the most difficult courses at the climbing park! After a few hours of climbing, we took the train to Frankfurt, which is a really nice city with not a lot of commotion, quite different from New York City. Shortly after arriving in Frankfurt, we decided to eat lunch at Gref-Völsings, an iconic sausage shop known for their creation of Rindswurst, a sausage made out of beef. Appropriately, I, along with a few other students, decided to order the Rindswurst with a side of Käsespätzle, which is a type of noodle with cheese. Everyone really enjoyed their meals and thought it was delicious. However, an issue we had encountered during lunch was the water. In Germany, when you order water, they assume you mean sparkling water, which no one had known. As a result, when everyone drank the water for the first time, as Herr Niehues put it, „Everyone had a surprise party in their mouths.“ Following lunch, our next destination was the Dialogue Museum. The museum was pitch black and we had to rely on our other senses as well as a blind tour guide to get us through the museum during a 90 minute tour. Although the teachers recommended the American students to go on the English speaking tour, I decided to go with the German tour guide, which was quite challenging but it was also rewarding to get through the whole tour in German. The museum is a really eye opening experience as it is very interesting to understand the perspective of a blind person. We experienced crossing the street, going through town, and traveling in a boat, all in pitch black. All in all, today was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to spending time with our host families tomorrow! 🙂
(Written by Nicki K.)
Ropes Course in Offenbach
Ropes Course in Offenbach
Ropes Course in Offenbach
Skater Park in Frankfurt