The rest of us enjoy a couple of plane rides first to O'Hare in Chicago, on a little Airbus jobber, and then to Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Hesse), on a big ole Boeing 747 jetliner. Besides Dan, Josh, we also have on board rising seniors Zoe, Rose, Meghan, Quinton, Jill, Swetha, Eleanor, Holly, Sean, Dimitry and rising juniors, Helena, Nick and Audrey. And of course, accompanying us is Mrs. Kathy Jones, our intrepid chaperone.
Traveling through the airports with everyone was simple and easy. We stopped when necessary for bathroom breaks, assessed timetables without needing to rush, and got all of our luggage, passing through customs and passport checks without fuss. The next phase was a long-strided dash to where the trains left the airport. An ICE Train from Frankfurt's Airport train station to Mannheim, Germany would take us to our Schwetzingen destination. We snaked our way through the massive airport, up, down, over, and through terminals, between people, kiosks, electric people movers, using moving sidewalks when available, all of our luggage in hand. Nobody's suitcases fell apart during the dash. Once we arrived at the train station, I retrieved our pre-paid tickets from an Fahrschein-Automat. Herr Sperl sported me the confirmation numbers. Tickets were printed without fail, and we entered the station to find our correct track.
It was pretty exciting waiting on the platform, a typically European thing to do right off the bat. The train arrived and stopped for maybe three minutes. We lugged our bags onto it, making a right, then a left, into an emptier Waggon. Space was limited, but we managed to pile our suitcases wherever we can - on racks, above, between our legs, even in the aisle. The train trip lasted 45 minutes maximum. Waiting for us on the train track were our Hebel friends, with a banner that read, prophetically, "Gönn dir eins!" I doubt many of us saw the banner because it was displayed far from where we exited the train, ignored when the Germans walked rapidly to where we disembarked. The banner read in English, "Indulge in one!" It's a new phrase German teenagers seem to be using.
The welcome party on the train platform was all smiles and hugs, and before long everyone was whisked away to their host families by car. Mannheim is only 20 minutes or so away from Schwetzingen. Frau Bachmann was there with her beau, Dirk, and they met their new houseguest for two weeks, Mrs. Jones, quite graciously, and Herr Sperl, my host for the stay at Hebel, was equally excited. We all were, after a long journey, happy to see our friends again in Germany.
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| Bahnstadt von Sperls Dachterasse |
Mrs. Jones stayed with Kathrin in Edingen-Neckarhausen. It is a quaint little place around 8 km from Heidelberg. Down the street from her apartment was a regionally, if not nationally, known bakery, whose name escapes me. I had a sample of their bread; it must have been an off-day for them. The loaf was a specialty loaf, dark wheat with cherries or some other cranberry embedded in it. Not bad, but needed to be enjoyed instantly for best results, I guess.
Sperl and I and Kathrin and Kathy and Dirk all met in Ladenburg that evening, after freshening up, and unpacking a little bit. Ladenburg is on the other side of the Neckar River, opposite Edingen-Neckarhausen, and we met in the town square, found a restaurant and had our first supper in Germany, outdoors, on a beautiful, clear evening.
The next day, Sunday, was family time also, until the evening, when the welcome party was planned. I went for a nice bike ride into the old city of Heidelberg with Alex. We stopped, took pictures, had some ice cream. It was a sunny day, warm, and people were everywhere in the Altstadt.
But the weather was variable in Schwetzingen and Heidelberg that week and the second week. One Wednesday I woke up to rain, was able to sleep in, but found I had to trudge in cold rain to the bus stop, down the street from a Burger King on some street. No umbrella yet, but en route to Schwetzingen's train station, a dumped 7 Euros on a long umbrella, not a collapsible kind. It came in handy that day.
But I digress, the first Monday we were in Schwetzingen, there was no school because of Abitur oral examinations, so Herr Sperl scheduled our biennial Romantischer Rhein Ausflug. My fourth time on it and each time just as pleasant as the previous. Weather was nice for the bus ride to our first Burg Reichenstein, in Trechtingshausen.We toured the castle and fortress on a clear sunny day, then returned to the bus. We travelled then to Bacharach, Germany to wile away the time. A pleasant little town on the banks of the Rhine River, Bacharach allowed time to explore in small groups the streets and alleys on this quiet Monday late morning. After strolling, and spending a moment in an outdoor cafe, we all met up again at the pier to catch our Rhine River boat for a short trip to St. Goarshausen, past the landmark Lorelei outrcropping and past pretty little towns with massive steepled churches and edifices on
the hilltops overlooking the Rhine. We disembarked at St. Goarshausen
and caught our bus again for a ride up the way to the next destination, the Niederwalddenkmal, a massive monument commerating the end of the Franco-
Prussian war and the unification of Germany. We traveled up the mountain on our gargantuan bus, but as we disembarked, we first saw a new Grecian-inspired gazebo, and maybe students apparently thought that was the monument, which was not. Herr Sperl and I led most of the kids to the real attraction, but sadly several stayed behind out of laziness and/or disinterest. But in any case, the monument never fails to impress with its gaudiness and impressive size. And the vistas from the monument of the Rhine River below and the town of Rüdesheim, our next destination, were incredible.
We stayed a short time admiring the monument and the views of the valley below, then we took a cable car ride down over the pretty vineyards to Rüdesheim, a quaint and touristy little town famous for its Asbach liqueur and Rüdesheimer coffee made with this famous liqueur. Sperl, Mrs. Jones and I led the students to the Drosselgasse, and we strolled down the narrow alleyway and found a little beer garden to relax in while the students ate ice cream and explored the town. We rode the bus back to Schwetzingen and arrived in the late afternoon.
On Tuesday, we had a our first day at Hebel, beginning with a tour of the school and then the students began visiting classes. We had our first homeroom session and afterwards Mrs. Jones and I traveled by streetcar and bus to Heidelberg and spent the day there taking in the city. We hiked up on this hot summer day to the Schloss Heidelberg. It was a nice day, and we found a little outdoor cafe on the Hauptstrasse, a Löwenbräu restaurant and enjoyed some bratwurst and beverages.
Wednesday at Hebel was the annual Abisturm chaos, where the newly minted graduates of the gymnasium would spend the day tormenting underclassmen with supersoaker water pistols, referee whistles, paint, buckets of water, and other methods to obstruct the instructional day, all tolerated by the teachers and administration. Then classes were cancelled by a lighthearted announcement over 
the PA speakers, ostensibly by a graduate, instructing everyone to appear in the atrium of the school, to witness some fun and games. Administrators, students and teachers took part in contests, whereby the losers were soaked in buckets of water while standing in kiddie pools. Huge banners were hung in the atrium, of which one was particularly offensive, at least by American standards dealing, with the sanctity of public space, but nobody seemed to mind the weird message on that particular banner. The whole event ended with the graduates, the Abiturienten, performing a choreographed flash-mob style dance in front of the entire school.Wednesday evening was, I thought, very special. Sperl organized a jam session at Hebel's theater stage room. We had a drum kit, amps, mics, a keyboard, guitar and basses, and a slew of seasoned musicians, advanced learners, and beginners blowing saxophones, trombones and making a glorious
Thursday the weather starting getting dicey. I slept in and woke up to steady cool rain, gray skies. We had a picnic planned in the Schlossgarten in Schwetzingen; that was eventually cancelled. But our visit with the mayor of Schwetzingen, Herr Oberbürgermeister Dr. Rene Pöltl, was still on. We all met in front of the Hebel school and made our way through the rainy wet streets to Schlossplatz, where we all fanned out to grab some lunch and meet in front of the city hall for our traditional meeting with the mayor. He greeted me with a big hug, a sincere and moving gesture, and then we all
That Thursday night we went to Kathrin's apartment in Edingen-Neckarhausen for dinner. Dirk prepared a vegetarian dish of some Thai-inspired curry and mock duck. A variety of beers, most locally produced, topped off a fine evening with Sperl and his wife, Christine, Kathrin and her beau Dirk, Kathy and myself.
Thursday and Friday at Hebel were also the days when the presentations got underway. The ones I saw were excellently produced and executed and the Hebel students, I thought, were mostly interested and intrigued by our students' presentational skills and the topics they reported on:
Friday evening I enjoyed a film at Sperl's place. His television/video setup includes a bright projector mounted from the ceiling that projects the image on a massive screen that, with the flip of a switch, rolls down, covering the large picture-windowed doors leading to a balcony on the main floor of the apartment. Pretty impressive setup, but the movie we began watching, with the title of Fack ju Göhte, a rather cheesy, high-school comedic enterprise with profanity, obscenity, unbelievable plot twists, but decent enough acting, was uninspired. Needless to say, I couldn't finish it, because of my growing fatigue and because the film failed to arouse any sympathy from me.
Our first full weekend in Schwetzingen saw my students going on myriad excursions with their host families: Strassbourg, Bodensee, Europapark, Köln, among other places. Sperl and I traveled the short distance to Worms, a city I've wanted to see. It was a short but nice little outing. We saw several beautiful churches, a medieval and well-preserved Jewish cemetery, not to mention a stroll through
Sunday was when we visited Karlsruhe. The place was decked out in an anniversary motif, celebrating 300 years of existence, young for a German city.The historic city center was embroiled in major construction, with subways being built, streetcar tracks being laid, and everywhere construction sites. That didn't stop people from being outdoors enjoying dining, visiting bakeries and churches and strolling in their impressive botanical gardens, which are adjacent to the German Ministry of Justice, which for some reason is based in Karlsruhe. I recall visiting Karslruhe on our GAPP 2009 trip, when my colleague Peter Fuchs took me to the Altstadtfest in the Durlach district of Karlsruhe, a rip-roaring street festival with rock bands playing everywhere, food and drink being served everywhere, throngs in the streets and on the meadows of Karlsruhe-Durlach. I enjoyed my visit to this city south of Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg.
The second week in Schwetzingen and Hebel was a whirlwind of activity. Our students were still giving presentations to throngs of German youth. On Tuesday, we took a field trip to the BASF Chemical Factory in Ludwigshafen, a sprawling complex of pipes, river docks, railways, tanks, steam vents. Pretty amazing. We first started in an interactive museum tour of what BASF does in the world, and we looked around and determined that 85% of our surroundings has something to do with BASF products. The we boarded a bus and toured around the complex with a tour guide who gave the presentation in English. The students at one point were ignoring the presentation and the tour guide responded accordingly with terse remarks on how to be polite. Well-deserved reprimand. The tour was long and sometimes tedious but altogether informative and impressive.
Wednesday was a regular school day, and Thursday we took our traditional trip to the Südstadtschule, an elementary school in Schwetzingen. As usal everyone had different experiences, al dependent on the teacher hosting our small group. I ended up with Swetha, Eleanor, Helena, Alexander, Meghan and Rose, I believe, with a gym teacher, who led us outdoors to the gymnasium building where she got the kids running, leaping, throwing, dodging, stretching. Some of us tried to take part also with the 4th graders, but we were too big. Afterwards, we had a little recess on the playground. I had coffee with Mrs. Jones with the teachers in the break room. And then the post-recess instruction began. Our group sand some songs in English, then in German, and we got into a big circle and invited one another to dance in the middle to some popular German radio song. Our teacher was very welcoming and we had great fun with them.
We also met with the principal of the school, Herr Ade, and bid us farewell with a gift of asparagus-shaped chocolates.
Thursday evening I visited Herr Fuchs with Alexander. Fuchs lives in Leimen and he also travelled to Enloe with a group, in 2009, my first time doing the exchange. We visit each time travel to Germany. We had dinner and drinks at the Brauhaus in Leimen, an excellent place with superb food and service.
Friday at Hebel, our last day, and the big thing today was the farewell picnic, We first rehearsed that afternoon for the Abiball performance. I was slated to play bass on a Duke Ellignton song, while the band a Bruno Marz song also. Then I learn that one our own, Audrey, had a mishap with her bicycle. She came to the farewell party, with bandages on three different places plus a possible chipped tooth. She slowly recovered from the accident and remained on the tour with us through the following week in Munich.
Friday night I invited my hosts in Heidelberg to dinner at Mandy's Diner, a 1950s-style American burger joint with fries, milkshakes, 1950s rockabilly and rhythm and blues music, and memorabilia from that era. The place used to cater to the many American soldiers stationed in the area for many years. To this day, one can still pay the bill in American currency.
The final Saturday in Heidelberg and Schwetzingen was a relaxing one at first. Alexander and I spent the midmorning and early afternoon at a monastery in Heidelberg, the Stift Neuburg and the Klosterhof, the charming inn on the premises of this Benedictine monastery. We saw a wedding at the beautiful chapel, with the bride and groom driving around the monastery in a three-wheeled mini-car. Apparently it's a tradition to take a ceremonial ride after the marriage vows in a classic vehicle. The food and brewery at Stift Neuburg was superb and the day was a gorgeous one. An almost perfect little outing.Later in the day, we went to the Abiball, Hebel Gymnasium's version of an Enloe graduation, Senior Award's night, and senior prom, all rolled into one. We went early to set up for Alex's big band performance, in which I was to play bass guitar on one of the two numbers slated for his music program. I played on the Duke Ellington song, C-Blues Jam (we played it in B-flat). The entire atrium of the school was beautifully decorated, a stage was set up, long tables for the graduates and their guests also, and one classroom was outfitted to be a beverage distribution center, so to speak. Folks needed to buy tickets and use those tickets to purchase a variety of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Our group had a reserved table setup on the second floor overlooking the atrium, and we all enjoyed a long but enjoyable evening together.
Our
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