Day 15: June 21

Today is June 21st, a Friday, and the weather has been cloudy with some rain. Everyone arrived to Gymnasium Hechingen (the partner school) at about 7:45 to begin the day. The planned day was short, having around four or five hours of being held in German classrooms as small groups, then being given the option to either go on a walk to get ice cream or to remain in the school until the school day was over. 

The small group that I was moved around with consisted of Azriel and Shelby. Only one of the days classes actually contained one of our exchange partners, which I found partly odd, but it was alright as I got to meet many more new people in the classes we were put in. It is a bit difficult to remember the classes that we were put in and what happened in them. 

The first hour was an art class, where they were making model shoes out of cardboard. While we didn’t do that, we talked with a group of about four students about the United States. It is extremely fun to talk with the people here about America because I already know all of the answers. In second hour we were set in an English class, which is where Azriel’s exchange partner Saria was. The English classes are always a lot of fun. The next hour we had had something to do with fake news, but for the first eight minutes we just flipped 2/3s empty water bottles with about ten of the students, followed by the guest teacher introducing herself to the class for thirty minutes, followed by me using the restroom for the remaining twelve. The hour after that was some sort of technology and coding class, and there were plenty of people who weren’t a part of GAPP that I knew in there, and they showed me what their devices did. It was a reaction measure, where you click the button when the light turns off, and it displays how long it took you to click the button in milliseconds. My score was 211 milliseconds, which I think is quite fast. After that the classes were temporarily paused I believe, there may be a class that I forgot that we went to, but that’s alright. 

We were then given the choice, go on a walk in the current wet climate to get ice cream or remain in the school and sit through another few hours to be taken home. Having taken an umbrella, me and a large group of other Americans chose to get ice cream, which I am glad that I chose as my exchange partner Karl has a very long school day on Fridays. We walked through half rain with Frau Hiller until we reached the ice cream shop, which was situated right next to a couple small playgrounds. After getting the ice cream we had fun on the soaked metal playground parts, which wasn’t the safest but it still was fun.

It began to rain more so we made our way back to the school where our partners were waiting for us, either to be brought home or to be brought to more classes as I was. The day was essentially over at that point, and we all headed home. A much more relaxed day compared to many of the others, but that was very welcome.

- Drake Eisel