Published on August 1, 2024
In June, 20 high school students and three staff members traveled abroad to Germany for a three-week trip. We’d like to give a massive ‘thank you’ to the Berlin Airlift Memorial Fund, whose financial support helped to make the exchange more affordable for our students!
The following students and staff members went on the trip:
Students: Rowan Dzurko (11th), Jacob Evans (12th), Aaron Giffin (11th), Louisa Landis (12th), Jake Matthews (12th), Rya McKain (11th), Liz McKenna (11th), Mady Meizis-Trimble (12th), Sarah Miller (12th), Sarah Ngugi (12th), Nick Rossi (11th), Carly Ruchalski (12th), Connor Shoff (12th), Slade Smoker (11th), Jacob Soslow (12th), Emily Stauffer (11th), Sophia Steffy (12th), Molly Swift (12th), Luke Thompson (12th), and Austin Van Grouw (11th).
Staff Members: Wendy Andrews, Molly Zelewicz, and Cassidie Amand-Blose.
For the trip, each student was paired with a host family who they lived with during the duration of the visit. This allowed students to be fully immersed in the language, culture, and lifestyles of their German partners. This also allowed for each student to have a very unique experience as each host family partook in different weekend activities and excursions.
The trip began with the group landing in Munich, Germany and then traveling to Altötting, Germany where each student met up with their host family. During the trip, our students had the opportunity to attend school with their host partner almost daily. Our students attended a variety of classes spoken completely in German.
During the first day of classes, our students attended for half a day with the second half of the day spent with the principal, touring the school, and then with the mayor, touring the town. During the tour of the town, students visited a variety of churches and historical areas.
In preparation for the trip, each of our students put together a presentation on an American cultural topic of their choosing to present in one of their classes in Germany.
“I enjoyed school in Germany, even if it was different from the school system in the US. The way that some of the classes were formatted, in more of a lecture hall style than American high school classrooms, was also really interesting. Learning Bayerisch (the dialect of German in Bavaria) was difficult, but having exchange partners who could understand both Hochdeutsch (the dialect we learned) and Bayerisch was very helpful.” - Austin Van Grouw, Junior at Warwick High School.
During the second week of the trip, our students took a train to a town in the Alps, where they had the choice between two trip adventures. Option 1: take a boat ride across Lake Königssee, where they would visit a church, go through a walking trail, visit a small museum, and have time for shopping. Option 2: visit the Eagle’s Nest (a popular tourist destination that is part driving and part hiking). Following these two options, the full group reconvened to visit a Salt Mine where they dressed as miners, took a train into the mountains and then toured one of the mines.
The group stayed overnight in a hostel and took a train to Salzburg, Austria the next day. During their time in Austria, they spent lots of time exploring the birthplace of Mozart and checking out cathedrals, museums, and shops. They also visited the Mirabellgarten where the famous Sound of Music song, ‘Do-Re-Mi,’ was filmed. That evening they returned to their host families and spent the next several days in school.
On June 28th, our students went to school for a half day and spent the second part of their day visiting Burghausen, Germany. During this visit, they toured the longest castle in the world and were led by two of their German student counterparts.
On July 1st, our students joined the German 10th-grade students for a trip to Berlin. During this trip, students visited the Parliament building to take a tour of the Reichstag (government capital) where they saw a presentation about the German government system, current parties, and explored the building itself. Students were able to walk all the way to the top of the building’s glass dome where they could see the entire city.
Following this presentation, they were given a second presentation from the town representative where they learned about the life/what a typical day in the life of a German Government Official looked like. Later, they took a sightseeing bus tour and visited the Olympic Stadium.
During the next few days of the trip, students took a walking tour of the German Museum, visited Bernauer Straße, the East Side Gallery, the Brandenburg Gate, a TV Tour, a photography museum, and went to a dinner theatre where they saw several impressive performances set to the music of the 90s before ending their trip to Berlin and heading back to their host families in Altötting.
Throughout the trip, students went on many excursions with their host families after school or on the weekend. Some of these unique excursions included: visiting Chiemsee, a lake in Bavaria that contains one of the three castles of King Ludwig, local Summer Festivals, sampling/making traditional German foods, and attending a German musical.
Their last few days in Germany included attending watch parties for the European Soccer Cup and a goodbye dinner at a local tavern where each host family provided a dish and everyone could reminisce about their experiences and thank their host families before heading back home.
“My favorite part of the trip was definitely the fact that the Euros (European Football [soccer] Championship) was being hosted in Germany while we were there. I knew that soccer was big in Europe, but being able to go to things such as public viewings really opened my eyes to such a big part of their culture. Rooting for Germany as they progressed pretty far into the competition was super awesome to watch, and also experiencing the German's patriotism was super cool.” - Rya McKain, Junior at Warwick High School.
The students came home with so much more knowledge and understanding of the German language, culture, and lifestyles than they could’ve ever imagined. In their time abroad, they were excellent ambassadors of Warwick School District and America. We couldn’t be more proud of them for that!
They had the most amazing time and will have memories that last them forever. Many students commented on their desire to return to Germany again soon, whether that be as a vacation, to attend college, etc. We cannot wait to flip the script and host our exchange partners when they visit the US this Spring!