Our second project meeting took place in Mülheim an der Ruhr. The topic of the week was the heritage of traditional games and dances. Besides a week of exploring the Ruhr area’s cultural heritage and history, we also had the chance to show our school to our guests from Portugal, Martinique, Spain, Poland and Romania. During the week the students investigated in which way the places they live influence their way of spending their free time and if traditional games played or play a role in their lives.
Sunday
Today was the arrival of the exchange students from Portugal, France, Spain, Poland and Romania. We went to the airport in our groups. Later Letícia and I went out to eat in Franky‘s in Mintard. We also went for a walk.
Later, we baked the cake for the coffee and tea program on Monday. It was a nice day. Paula
Before my exchange student from Romania arrived in Germany I was very excited to meet her but first I cleaned up my room. At 5 pm my family and I picked her up at the train station in Mülheim. When we arrived at my home we all were sooo hungry and decided to eat Raclette. So there was enough time to talk a lot about everything. It was a quite funny day. This evening I got a present from my guest and I gave her my welcome present. After that we ate dessert, like delicious ice cream from our favourite ice cafe. At the end we all were very tired and fell asleep pretty quickly. Emilia
Monday
The groups then showed their presentations This was very interesting.
The we went to the old part of Mülheim, where we had lunch. Paula
Monday:
It was pretty early but we were excited to start the project! We arrived a bit earlier at the school, because I still had to do some work at the Aula. Everyone from the Erasmus project was let in the Aula and fantastic presentations from the countries and amazing dances from our dance club were shown. Everyone was super excited and felt very welcome. After that we could eat cake and drink water in the foyer before we left to the old town in Mülheim. We shortly stopped at the playground next to our school and I took the chance to meet the Erasmus-students from Martinique / France. They were super nice but shorty after we needed to continue our tour to a nice restaurant from a classmates grandma. The restaurant was small but the food was very delicious. After we ate we had many hours of freetime! We formed many small groups and just went into the direction of the city, where we chilled, drank bubble tea and bought small things. We were pretty far downtown and because we had to meet at a restaurant called „Al Ponte“ that’s super far away, we needed to take the tram and walk for 15 minutes in a big group to arrive at our destination! We got pizza and drinks there and we could play a smaller version of bowling! All in all it was a super cool first day! Max
Monday was our first day where we finally saw all people from the diffrent countries. In the morning there was a welcome programm in our school. We got information about the following week and every country presented their traditional games which was pretty interesting.
After this little introduction we ate cakes, muffins and drank tea or coffee. Then we walked in small groups through our school and presented it to our exchange students.
After that there was the walk to the MüGa (Broich castle) and we had lunch in the old part of Mülheim. Around 3 pm we spent the freetime in downtown Mülheim at the Ruhr river.
Before we met in the italian restaurant „Al Ponte“ we drove home with our guest students and got ready. When all met at the restaurant we made two diffrent groups, that one group started to eat pizza and the other group had the chance to play skittle. After around 45 minuten we changed the activities. For me it was a very funny evening because you could talk to everyone, try a new game and eat together. When I was home my exchange student and I were so tired and excited for the second day. Emilia
Tuesday
Today we participated in the first lesson of the day together with our guest students and after a brain storming on our topic we went on our way to the Gasometer in Oberhausen, to see the exhibition “The Fragile Paradise”.
The exhibit shows lots of interesting and terrible photos of our world , the best part is the huge earth hanging in the middle of the Gasometer.
When we had finished seeing the exhibition we went to the CentrO, which is Europes biggest shopping and free time center. There we (surprisingly) spent our free time.
Afterwards at 2:30pm we met to talk about who wanted to stay at the CentrO and who wanted to go home. So the group separated and my friends and I went back to Mülheim.
There we stayed at the MüGa and had a lot of fun.
The text for today, see yo tomorrow!😊 Katharina
Wednesday
At Zollverein, we had three tours where we learned about the coal preparation and history of mining. We also had a fantastic view from the top of the building.
Afterwards we explored the Ruhr Museum and could see the Red Dot Design Museum. We also walked around the area, enjoying the sun, and had a bite to eat.
We left in the early afternoon and arrived in Mülheim at about 5:00 pm.
As we arrived back in Mülheim Inês and I met with some of the other students and went to the MüGa. We had a lot of fun talking and playing volleyball.
At about 6 pm Inês and I went together with Rüveyda to her place. There we had an awesome typical Turkish dinner.😋 Katharina
Thursday
Our day started at the Camera Obscura at about 10 o´clock. We were split into two groups, the first group had to go upstairs and the second group had to go downstairs. I was in the first group so Dr Schmitz from the Camera Obscura told us everything about the camera and actually showed us how it worked.
We had time left so we went to take a look at the museum. As we wanted to go donwstairs again we got stuck, the elevator didn´t come so we had to take the stairs outside of the buildung and as soon as we were donwstairs we got stuck again. Fransisco from Portugal then climbed over the fence and went to get help. We got out and went downstairs to build our own kaleidoscopes.
After everyone was done we went to Ronjas ( a wonderful restaurant) at about 12 o´clock and had a great meal there. After tlunch we had some freetime until 7 o´clock. At 7 o´clock we had the send off party at our school and our presentations.
We also celebrated the birthday of Katharina (sweet 16). All in all Thursday was a wonderful day. Rüveyda/Leni
Friday
Our last day was eventful, it started at 9.30 at the Europe festival at the „Freilichtbühne „, an open air arena, where our school won the first prize of the Europe quiz.
After the festival we went to get ice cream at the harbour. At 1 o´clock we had a one hour boat trip from Mülheim to Essen-Kettwig there we had some freetime and showed our friends the little town and sat by the Ruhr. At 4 o´clock we took the boat back, from there on it was time to say goodbye. But not for us. We planned a party at Janas place for that evening.
And you can tell, it was the most eventful week of our lives. We made a lot of new friends from all around the world or even just from our school. We had a really fun time, enjoyed every single second, even the ones full of tears and also learned a lot of new things. We grew together to the point were we actually call it a family. And therefore we have to thank the whole Erasmus+ team that made all of this possible. It was epic! Rüveyda
The End
of a wonderful week. Thanks everyone for participating 😘 Keep in touch and the memories in your hearts. Mrs. G
Credits:
Thanks to everyone passing on their pictures and writing their thoughts:)