Fashion in Bamberg
There isn't much fashion in Bamberg though... But as we walked in the streets we could see very different outfits. I noticed, for example, that there were more people than in Spain that wore punk, gothic and similar type of clothes. Another fact that surprised me was that many girls changed their hair natural colour into a darker one because they were blonde and in Spain it happens exactly the other way round. This was because in Germany the normal hair colour is blonde and here it's brown.
Although there were few shops in Bamberg, only the normal ones such as H&M and Pimkie, we had the opportunity to go shopping in Nürnberg because we had two hours for free time.
Moreover, some of us went to Lea's house on Thursday after the BBQ party to see the new episode of the most famous fashion show in Germany which is: "Germany's next top model". This TV show consists of trying to find the best German model by eliminating the other ones and it is presented by Heidi Klum, who is one of the most popular models in the whole world because she worked for Victoria's Secret.
Andrea Franch
Food and drinks
When I go to another country, one of the things I like most is to taste their food, because it can change a lot from one place to another. So, I'd like to eat typical German food.
The first day I have had dinner with my host family, but the meal wasn't German at all. However, the other days it was. So, as I could taste a lots of different courses, I will present you some of them:
Spätzle with Rindfleisch
One day, my German partner's mother cooked "Spätzle with Rindfleisch". At the first sight, I thought that it was pasta with meat, but actually, Spätzle looks like pasta, but it isn't. It's very common in the southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Alsace and South Tyrol.
As I liked it, her mother explained me how to prepare it.
You need some eggs, flour, salt and water. You mix them and you scrap long, thin strips of that dough with a "hopper", the utensil used to make this course.
And the Rindfleisch it's a kind of roas beef, usually served with much meat sauce.
Bratwursts
And of course, I ate lots of bratwurst! You can't go to Germany without tasteing any bratwurst. If you pretend to do something like this, better don't go. Actually, I didn't eat just one bratwurst, and I can swear you that wherever you eat them, they taste really good.
Also, when we went to Nürnberger, we ate the Nürnberger Rostbratwurst, which usually are served in threes and they are the typical of that city.
Moreover, the German partners prepared us a barbaque in a park, where we cooked some bratwurst and other kind of sausages and marinated chicken.
Schäuferla
On sunday, I went to a restaurant with my host family, and, as it was quite difficult to understand the menu, I let them to choose one course for me. They ordered "Schäuferla", which is a traditional dish from South of Germany and it is made from the pig's shoulder meat. In Franconia it is usually seasoned with salt, pepper and caraway and rosted in the oven for about two or three hours. Mine had the pork rind very crispy and the meat was easy to separate from the bone.
Usually, the meat is served with various side dishes like:
Sauerkraut
This side dish consist of fermented cabbage. Besides Germany, you can also find this dish in Poland, Russia and in Alsace.
Klöß One of the most common side dishes I think that are " klöß" which are a kind of balls made of potatoes, and I noticed that usually were served with meat.
They look like "bombas", an Spanish "tapa", but they don't have meat inside.
I was surprised to see that there are a lots of breweries in Bamberg, and in consequense, lots of different beers. For example, the family explained me that one of the most famous beers in the town was the "Rauchbier", which is a smoked beer.
But, about the drinks, the most surprising thing weren't the beers, because I knew their popularity before coming. What surprised me most was that they drink everything with gas. When they order "water", they mean sparkling water. If you just want water, you must say that you would like it without gas. However, they usually prefer Coke, Fanta or them mixed.
The most surprising thing about this fact, was that they put gas in the fruit juices and even in tea! The German partners were stranged to see us ordering still water.
Cristina Saubi
Girona's presentation
On Tuesday we presented our city, school and country to the German students from the exchange. You can see the video in the following link:
My personal diary
Day 1 - Monday 17th March 2014
The first day everybody had their first impressions of their family. Let's see some of them!
Marc Palmada: We have arrived in Nuremberg and it is not as cold as I expected. We have arrived at Bamberg by bus. It has been amazing to meet Manuel in person, he is a cool and a nice person. I have met his father and his mother, they are so friendly. Then they drove us to Manuel´s home. It is big, beautiful and it seems comfortable and cosy. It is. I'm installed in my room, looks set to be a very good experience full of special memories. Later Manuel showed to me his League of Legends account, he is a pro player! At that time he introduced me his old sister, Christina. At dinner I have eaten a soup of noodles, with a typical German meat and with a lot of brot, and a second dish, lasagne and salad (most of lettuce). After Manuel and me watched a film. We all left full and ready for bed - getting up at 6 am to go school is a ponderous way to start a vacation!
Júlia Canals: After a long trip, we arrived in Bamberg, in a square where all the Germans were waiting for us. I met my partner, Franca, and her mother in person, and we went to her house. I had a shower, and at 6 p.m., we had dinner. It impressed me the schedule they have, and also the fact that both parents knew English, cause I think it rarely happens in Spain.
Mariona Colomer: I got up at 6:00 and I went to the airport. The plane was leaving at 12:05 and we arrived at Nurenberg at 14:00. I was very nervous and looking forward for meeting my family. When we arrived at home, we had a wonderful dinner! I ate Raclette. My partner was very friendly and lovely, she treated me really well and was always explaining me things.
I brought them some presents which they loved a lot! For the mother, I gifted her a turquoise kerchief and a ring which she said that it matched with her blue eyes! I also gave them a calendar with photos of Barcelona and a book about Catalonia in German. They really loved them!
Day 2 - Tuesday 18th March 2014
Today I woke up at the same hour as usual when I go to school: al 6:30 AM. This was not a very good piece of news, specially if I want to rest, but I have to get accostumated to their schedule and daily life. I tried to follow my and their routine, I had breakfast and we left home. To arrive to the highschool we took the bus, and another thing suprised me. The driver opened the doors, a lot of people got in, but anyone didn’t pay for the ticket. I asked my partner for this, and she said that this is normal, but if a revisor comes, they will have to pay a bill. Well, I paid just in case, but it was strange because here in Spain, we must pay to get in the bus. There seems it is not necessary. Well, little constasts.
When we arrived to the Gymnasium, I took part of the first two lessons: English and German. At the English lesson I got surprised on how is the dynamic of the class. The teacher brings a text, someone has to prepair some exercices and to make an exposition in front of the class, and then they work on that text. The topic of the article was not very important, but I did surprise because they work in a very simillar way as we do in the IB. Then, when the German lesson started, I didn’t understand any word of their expositions about Shakespeare, but I had a very good impression of their teacher. I did not understand anything but I liked the naturality, the entonation and how their teacher was able to speak. Today I realised how important is the non-verbal comunication with this example.
Some people didn't have this problem, for example Pol Muñoz who said "As I understand both languages pretty well, I had no problem with following the class but I don't think that this can be applied to the others, as only Carme speaks German".
Then, we met all together to listen to the head-master’s speech (very strange speech because of the football’s references, he tried to act like he wanted to become our friend) and saw both videos of the highschools. Well, going to the point, we left and went with a teacher to visit Bamberg. I liked to city, it is very similar to Girona, but I felt that it was a lack of explanations when we arrived to somewhere. I hope this was just a punctual thing. A part from this, I liked much the visit of St. Michel’s, of the Cathedral, of everything.
In the afternoon we went to a dancing class and to the gym. The two activities went very fine, I had lots of fun after a very nice day.
Some people, went to Vicent's house and there they watched Finding Nemo. They also played a drinking game which they called Drinking Nemo. Everytime that someone said "Nemo" on screen, we had to drink a little bit (they bought beers, but you could drink other things such as Fanta or water). At some points the characters said Nemo like 6 or 7 times in a row! Then we also played "Jo mai mai" and talked all together.
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| Bamberg's cathedral. |
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| Watching Finding Nemo. |
Luca Panescu and Pol Muñoz
Day 3 - Wednesday 19th March 2014
This morning we visited Mödlareuth, and today our exchange partners also went with us, we had to travel one hour by bus to get there, it was a little village which was divided in two parts, after the Second World War, between the two Deutschland, the Russian and communist and the American, which was more liberal and capitalist.
Many people emigrate from the Russian part to the other, because they thought that they would live better there. Then the government of the Russian Deutschland did everything he could for stopping it, so they first started with the guard of some soldiers and a zone full of landmines, then they put a iron wire fence, across all the frontier. They improved their frontier every time someone escaped and reached the American part for avoiding that people repeated the escape the same way, they even build a wall with watchtowers where the soldiers guarded the frontier.
When we finished the visit to Mödlareuth we went to visit a mine in which in the past they extracted iron mineral, inside the mine it was quite impressive to see some very big and deep cavities which were left after extracting all the iron mineral from a very big vein. They continued many meters over where we were walking and many meters below, but it was not vertically, it was diagonal, because it followed the stone layers of the mountain.
At the evening we went to a restaurant to have dinner all together the students who participated on the exchange. Most of the food they served there was pork and I ate a dish which I liked with juicy pork meat, I think it was cooked a long time because it was not hard, it was soft and easy to eat. I also ate potato balls which were also good and some sauerkraut.
Adam Teixidó
Day 4 - Thursday 20th March 2014
Today we get up even earlier. The reason? We've to be punctual in order to participate in the Kangaroo tests in maths. Once we've done the test we forget about it and we take the bus to visit Wurzburg. This small city is just an hour away from Bamberg, and it is called a “universitaire” city because the majority of people who live there are students. It is true, it was hard to find somone older than 40 in the streets. Wützburg has got plenty of churches, and it was nice to climb up to the “Fort” hill, where you could experience this feeling that there’s no neighbourhood without, at least, three churches. The most notable thing about Wützburg was, besides all sightseeings, that we were able to have a heavy lunch there (consisting of two meat sandwhiches and an ice-cream) for only four euros.
After lunch time we went back to Bamberg, where the students were waiting for us. I have to say that this afternoon will surely be considered as one of the “tops” of the trip. We went having a barbacue, but wow, what a barbacue... We walked to a park which was just three minutes away from the center. The park consisted of a playground for the children (and childish grown-ups, hehe, as we are) with a slide, a little creek and a wooden structure to climb up on, which really persuaded you to do so. Then, a huge open space with huge grass fields, and after that, a basketball court and (awesome!) a beach volleyball court.
On the top of all that, some germans carried with them massive bags just filled with food (fruit, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, etc.), and some others brought a barbacue. So, our afternoon activity concerned a three-hour laying on your back –sunbathing, in a way, bearing in mind that in German.
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| Mireia, Cristina and Mariona with Würtzburg at their back.. |
We played volleyball, rugby, basketball and so on. We ate bratwürst and other kind of meat. Later, when it was dark we played music and dance, we taught them how to dance Reggaeton. We also played basketball, I hardly could see the ball because it was very dark. At ten o'clock some girls went to Lea's house and watched a TV show about fashion.
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| Our German mates preparing a BBQ |
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| Pau and Mariona with great views of Würtzburg. Lluc Solés, Pau Batlle and Mariona Colomer |
Day 5 - Friday 21st March 2014
On Friday we had the change to go to Nürnberg, one of the most important cities economically in Germany. That time, though, we went there by train (up to that point we had only been using the bus), so we met early in the morning in the Bamberger Banhof (Bamberg's train station). In that aspect, I didn't find any difference between German and Spanish trains, except for the fact that you were allowed to take animals inside it. Throughout the return trip I had a woman with a dog on his lap that hardly moved.
Having seen already two German cities, Würtzburg and Bamberg, I had an idea of how German cities were, as I had found them rather similar. Therefore, I expected Nürnberg, the first city we had seen, as we had landed there, to be more or less the same. My thoughts happened to be true, as Nürnberg, despite having more than half a million people living there, was also full of gothic churches and streets full of houses with steep roofs. One of the main tourist attractions in Nürnberg was his castle, which is thought to be built about the year 1000. Although it was partially destroyed in the Second World War (again!), I found the building very well conservated. In fact, parts of it are still used as a Youth Hostel. Before going to the castle, though, we had gone, even though you might not believe it, to a mattress shop belonging to Ms Riess' parents. There, they had one of the deepest wells in the city of Nürnberg. Ms Riess' mother explained us the well's history in a very decent Spanish (she had also lived in Nicaragua!).
After that, we were able to go to visit Nürnberg's city center, and one of the first things we saw was the so called Schönen Brunnen, or beautiful fountain. Ms Riess told us that the fountain traditionally had a single ring attached to the fountain's fence, that if you touched it three times and thought a wish, then it would become true. However, recently a new ring was added just for the sake of tourism.
Another of the things I was talked about from Nürnberg was its famous bradwursts. I noticed that just to take a look in my surroundings I could see lots of food stalls. For lunch, I ate a delicious variety of those bradwursts. Apart from that, we spent the rest of the free time we had hanging around the streets and seeing the big amount of shops there were. Although I could notice, like most of the German cities we had visited, that the economic level of their citizens was relatively high, there was also a big range of povery. Therefore, I realized that there are some universal problems you can't solve even if you are in Germany.
After taking the train back to Bamberg, Jannick was waiting for me to go again to the local football pitch. This time, though, the event happened to be quite more massive than it was on Tuesday. All of the boys of our age who lived in Trunstadt were present there. As a consequence, the perception I had had on Tuesday of football being a friends-gathering activity was reinforced. As Jannick told me, almost every Friday they met to play football.
A bit exhasted because of the football match, we had dinner earlier (even more!) than usually, Jannick's cousin came to pick us up to the so-called bowlinghous, a place in Bamberg's where you can play bowling or billiards. I take advantage of this moment to comment one of the differences that stroke me a lot during the exchange. It is that of drink. Although it's true that drinking a lot of water is good for one's health, I find the amount of water they drink sometimes excessive. When we went to school, for instance, all of the pupils were bringing at least one bottle of water. Another feature of that water is that anecdote referring to water is that when I arrived the first day and they asked me what to drink, I naturally said: "water". However, when I tasted it I realized it was sparkling. I didn't say anything as I thought it might have been a mistake. However, when I saw that I was not the only one surprise by this fact, I realized that was actually the rule. Incredibly, finding unsparkling water in Germany is as difficult as understanding the language. I say that because during the pool match, Jannick and his cousin drank as much as two cokes.
Some other students went to Emma's house and made a party. For Pau Matarrodona, the main problem occurred when Oliver, Joan Masssachs’ partner, called his father to catch them up, at 1:00, they started to search Marcus Nein, hispartner. They didn't find him so they asked everybody if they had seen him. The answer was “Nein”, making fun of his surname. They called him, no answer. When Oli’s father arrived, Marcus answered a call, saying that he was in Emma’s house, where the party had took place. They found him, walking in a dark street, with a shopping cart, drunk.
Day 6 - Saturday 22nd March 2014
woke up late and we had a very big breakfast. All was delicious! I ate an omelette with ham and ketchup. At 3pm we went to the local public swimming pool called bambados with the others. Well, at least that’s what they told me, but when we got there we didn’t found a swimming pool, we actually found a real indoor aquatic park & spa with several warm water slides, an olympic pool with huge trampolines that allowed me to try a frontflip, a hot water swimming pool in the roof and many other unbelievable things like a very cold water pool!
After this amusing morning, I spent the rest of day at Max’s house, in the party that he organized at his house. Of course, I was glad to have everyone in my house and I also had a nice night full of interesting conversations. For example, I talked about lots of good music with Pau Batlle’s partner, Lukas Keesman and we also explained the others about Catalonia's independence.
Pol Valls
Núria Planes
A weekend in München
München was far different from the other places that we visited. Houses are bigger and taller and they didn't remain me of any old village. There was the only place were I saw huge streets filled with cars and therefore, the only city that I would compare to Barcelona as an equivalent. We went there by train and I was really shocked when one of my exchange partner relative was waiting to pick us up in a convertible AUDI.
The biggest metropolitan park in the world (even bigger that central park).
The most known part of the park because there are surfers.
We went shopping there, and I was surprised by the ammount if people who did it. There were some galleries that connected shops and that have the great job to protect clients from the rain. If I have to point out, that I didn't obserb any change in germans behaviour when rainning and I find it surprised the ammount of people who walks under the rain to do leisure activities.
The shopping centre
Carme Homs
Today is Saturday but we've got up earlier than the other days because we've gone to Munich with Júlia, Cristina and Mar (and their partners). We've gone there by train. When we've arrived we've had lunch in a restaurant near a church. Then I've gone for a walk with Mar and Júlia because all the German girls and Cristina wanted to go shopping. We've seen some beautiful buildings, some churches, a market which was in a square (I've bought a delicious fruit juice). I wanted to go into a music shop with loads of scores... and Mar and Júlia have gone into with me. I've seen piano books with some soundtracks like "Ghostbusters", "Harry Potter", "Pirates of the Caribbean"... I've nearly bought it because I liked it but I've thought that it was very expensive and I could find these sheets or some sheets like these in the internet. I've got surprised because when we were in a shop we've seen Carme and Mia, her partner (I knew that Carme would be in Munich but I don't imagine that we would come across her in the city). Finally we've met the other girls in Marienplatz and we've gone to the train station.
Núria Planes
Day 8 - Monday 24th March 2014
I woke up in the morning and I finished doing my baggage. We went to the school and we left the bags there. Then I bought some souvenirs and food. We made a photo together and a selfie. I said goodbye to everybody, it was very sad... On Monday, we took the bus to Nuremberg and then we took the plane to Barcelona.
I have seen that German people are so quick at the farewell, and I think that it’s quite better, because we say goodbye for ten minutes, and they only say the minimum. On the plane, the tripulation congratulated Mireia for her birthday. She was very surprised! When I arrived home I was really tired and exhausted but I was very happy because I had spent one of the most amazing experiences of my life.
Marc Martínez
Oli, the King of Selfies and us.
Sports in Bamberg
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Fotografies: MARIONA COLOMER i MIREIA CODINA (1BAT A)
Day 7 - Sunday 23rd March 2014