Day 7 - This will be the last until I return home...

Hello All,

I wanted to start off by saying "thank you" for being with us on this exciting journey! We had a wonderful time in Germany and are so grateful to our hosts at KSII for arranging a fun packed week.

Today we were at KSII to start our day and get emails early. Then we headed to Stadt Hanau to be received as official guests. Zina presented gifts to City Councilor Mr. Frodel and Head of Department Mr. Trebes and a representative of the Local Education Authority. We then had a tour of the Museum at the Stadt Hanau and it was one of the nicest art museums that I have had the chance to see in many years. AWESOME!

We then had lunch at an Italian restaurant right across the street, so we walked. The food was excellent. Several of us ordered the vegetable dish or one of the others that I took pictures. There seemed to be a preference to the pork dish with gravy and fries.

We then returned to KSII after a nice walk in the park back to our cars. Then we prepared for our web conference with Gateway Technical College. We started the conference with a couple of gift exchanges, signing of agreements, more gifts, and then the faculty and students introduced themselves and covered what was learned this week.

I hope you have enjoyed our journey! Tomorrow we are all with our host families on excursions and I will be unable to report back to you. Thank you and good night. :-)

Day 6 - WOW, we had a LONG day :-) BUT FUN!!!

Good Evening and Welcome back to our longest day of activities!

We started early this morning with an interview with the school newspaper staff. They were asking about our stay, what we liked, what we did not like and what was different here in Germany. They asked what was our favorite food. How can you answer that question? Everything is so GOOD!

Most of us barely have time in the morning to get coffee down before we head to the school. Some of the lucky ones get coffee, toast with jelly and some fruit. Some of us who take longer go to the school to drink our first cups of coffee and have some fruit.

We eat a large lunch, similar to our dinners in the US. Most Germans are health minded like we are and eat more vegetables. When we eat at these wonderful old pubs and restaurants in the day, that is our big meal. Then at night we eat some bread with cheese or maybe deli meat. The Germans drink bottled water both carbonated and not for all meals. They just do not like the taste of tap water. In a restaurant it costs more for water than a beer. It will cost 4-5 Euro for water and 3-4 for a beer (0.3 liters).

After we arrived today, we had a nice presentation on what the IT students would like to do with our students. This included a demonstration on Typo3 (free at www.typo3.org) and many security systems that they have in place at their college. Even in open labs students have to login using their ID's. We discussed it and they have valid reasons that even apply to us. They also had a couple of nice utilities for taking over the computer or reviewing what was in use by the class. We will be working with them over the coming weeks to identify what we want to have on their site as far as links and information. The students that will be going in March will have to become familiar with the software.

A video conference is planned form March 6th with the IT students from Gateway and KSII to start the project. We will also schedule one for March 23rd to review results with students and faculty. This meeting will take place in Kenosha via Video conference at 8:30 am both days. It will be a great time for families to be there on the 23rd as well.

After these demonstrations we drove an hour to Miltenberg. We ran into the oldest pub in Germany called Gasthaus Zum Riesen. We ran as it was raining. Ok, not a run, but double time...LOL

We all had a wonderful dinner, see the picture of Nancy's Schnitzel. Most of us try new dishes each meal and they have all been wonderful. Most dinners (largest meal) run 10-15 Euro with a cola.

We then had an hour of shopping in Miltenburg, it was great and had a lot of little shops. They were fun to go in and look at and many of us helped the Miltenburg economy. :-)

Next we went to the Youth hostel where we were presented with a project that several of the HS teachers were doing on team teaching for 3 classes on a 3 day, 2 night event. They were tired from the event, however, we shared some great information and Zina wants to use some of the information for a girls school, I of course think we need a boys school as well! :-) Seems like we might have two new projects when we get home to reduce the dropout rates in Racine!

We were treated to a light dinner at the hostel of mostly breads, some ham, and salads. Then a short break before we watched the talent show. We watched many shows and understood about 1/2 of what the students were saying as most was in German. We watched them perform soccer, handball (see picture of one above) and dance exhibitions, TV talk show (like Springer), faculty sing, and several others. It was obvious to us that this program was working. It was creating a bond for these young youth with others to achieve a goal. Before several teachers started this program they experienced a high dropout rate in their high school. This has helped!

We thanked our hosts and nodded off on our rides home...:-)
Ok, I hope you experienced our day and will be with us for one more day of work before we have some fun!

Thanks for tuning in! See you tomorrow.

Day 5 - Heraeus a Fantastic Family owned business and more :-)

Hallo and welcome back to another edition of my blog,

Today was a long day and tomorrow will be longer :-) We traveled a short distance to Heracus World Headquarters. They are one of the largest employers in Hessen, with over 11,000 employees and 10 billion Euros in sales. We started out with an overall presentation of how their apprenticeship program works. They do many different types of internship/apprenticeship programs. For high school kids they offer a 2 week course to help them find a trade or technical field that they would like to work in at the company. They get over 1000 applications, 250 are interviewed and accept around 100. Can you image the positive effect this has on students who were not doing their best? WOW, they what a motivator something like this would be to our high school students. We watched a funny I-spy type movie about the company history, products, divisions and types of customers it supports.

Mary got to say "HI" to some of the students that came to Gateway in prior years! :-)

We then went on one of the most informative tours in a production plant. They took us to their light bulb manufacturing line where they make specialty lighting for copy machines all the way to tanning beds. The process is all done by hand as the lot sizes are small and the customer has a quick turnaround time requirement. They stress quality and it showed in each step of the operation. Then we went to see how they quality check these bulbs and the burn-in rooms.

After this we had a wonderful lunch in the company cafeteria. There were about 7 major choices for lunch and it was excellent. I had pork sausage, sauerkraut and fruit. YUMMY! I could not take any pictures while at the Heraeus plant as it is highly secretive. You can see information at http://heraeus.com/wch2/dach/e_wch_home.nsf/$frameset/startneu


After lunch we met the VP of marketing for a division that had flawless English and he took us to the trading area. Heraeus trades precious metals for its manufacturing plants and customers. The area was impressive with each trader having a specialty metal and 4 monitors with data and live trading feeds from all major exchanges.

We returned for a wrap-up presentation and thank you from Zina Haywood and Gert Friedrich. Then we drove to the city of Hanau for some touring, we went into a jewelry museum called the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus. See the pictures of stuff that was NOT for sale. I would have thought about buying some honey, honest! LOL

Our meeting place in Hanau was in front of the statue of The Brother Grimm, do you remember them from your childhood? I did not and I had to ask Gert. He asked if I remembered Hansel and Gretel? In front of the statue was Mary's dream car....There were a lot of older cars getting ready for a real road rally in the morning. Hey where was Mary when we left anyhow?... ;-)

We shopped for about an hour before we took another tour. One of the local brewery's took us for a behind the scenes tour of the entire process and they were brewing. It was incredible the amount of different pieces of equipment needed to brew and the processes it goes through to become beer.

Wow, what a day, tomorrow is filled with a LOT and will be our longest, however, as you can see by the pictures we were all still having fun!

I hope you enjoyed our journey! See you tomorrow! :-) Guten Nacht

Day 4 - Teaching and visiting Wiesbaden

Hallo and welcome back to my site :-)

Today was an exciting day! All of us started out visiting and participating in English classes. The students were exciting and full of interest about Americans. We discussed many topics, such as: violence in the classrooms, the war, clothing, politics, fast driving, fast food, pollution, China, manufacturing jobs, products made in America/Germany and of course beer. A picture of some students in one class is above. I included a picture of our group minus the photographer Jill! Tomorrow one with us all!

I think we helped many students understand that we are just like they are with differing opinions on all of the above topics and that we are not afraid to discuss them and share our opinions.

After that we took a short drive to Wiesbaden the capital city of the state of Hessen. There we had lunch at one of my favorite new restaurants, can you guess why? Say SUSHI!! We ate at Sushi World and many had cooked food...LOL

Then we headed to the Ministry of Education and the Arts with a meeting to discuss the changing political and school situation in the state of Hessen. We covered a wide range of topics and shared information. We ended the meeting with a presentation to Herr Klaus Ring. Thomas Reinholz and Tina Sorgenfrei from the Department of International Education were also presenting information. Then Herr Ring took us on a tour of this wonderful city. We all wanted to shop, however, we ran out of time.

On the tour we visited a church called Marktkirche Wiesbaden which is now an Evangelical Lutheran church. It had ceilings over 150 feet and an organ that was built in 1863 with 125 ranks, and 6,198 pipes!! I'll post that picture tomorrow as Jill took it where her telephoto lens.

We look at many wonderful buildings as you can see above. The clock as very interesting a coo coo clock :-) We also looked and and some tasted the water that cures from hot springs right within the center of the city.

On the way back to KSII our meeting place we were stuck in our first traffic jam which the Germans pronounce Stough spelled Stau I think??

I hope you enjoy the update and I will have more tomorrow with new pictures from Jill's camera!

Bye now!

Day 3 - Wow was it great!

Hallo and Guten Tag from Germany,

Today was another fantastic day! As you can see by the pictures we all had fun. In the morning we heard about the changes going on in the German system to give the local colleges more autonomy. They are governed much like we are from the Federal government to the local to the cities. The exception is that the cities hire the maintenance and support staff, including the principles/presidents of each school (high, votech, University).

After a quick lunch we it was our turn to present Gateway Technical College. With over 60 people present including members of the press, major companies in the area, and government officials Zina (Zina Haywood Provost and Executive VP at Gateway is pictured with her host and counterpart at KSII Manfred Matzner) led us with a perfect German introduction. We were all in awe of her! She worked hard learning the language with help from her German hosts to get the introduction and conclusion. Zina explained our Mission/Vision and International goals and then introduced each of the faculty and Denise to say a little about their programs. Zina then wrapped up the speach and we had about an hour to hour and 1/2 of questions. They were great questions and you could tell that the German system is going through the same changes we were several years ago. They desire to make many changes, longer availability of classes and Saturday/Internet delivery...

Then it was off to the mall in Hanue and I picked up a couple of toys for the boys. The mall was not to busy so we took the train to Frankfurt for shopping and dinner. We had fun riding the train, 3 people roundtrip was 8.40 Euro. Fast and cheap with no traffic jams. It was about a 20 minute ride on the train.

We shopped some more and I have to tell you that if you close your eyes and listen you will think you are in Chicago or New York. It is so metropolitan! I heard, Japanese, Germany, English, Chinese, and Spanish in less than 2 minutes of arriving. We walked and shopped and then went into a large department store and in the basement they have a large grocery store with 4 restaurants. We chose the fresh fish one and ordered. They cooked it to perfection, I had some type of white fish with mashed potatoes with lobster in them....ummmm

It is very expensive to live here, homes are very high priced as is food, gas, clothing and just about anything you can think.

We stopped in front of a town hall and I took a picture with my hosts as they were married there 30 years ago. Then we walked to the Opera which the outside had to be rebuilt after the war. It looks great! See the pictures and enjoy today! :-)

We then took the train back to the car and a short ride home. Espresso and I can write anything even at 10 pm. :-)

I will chat more tomorrow. Thanks everyone for your fun comments!

Day 2 - The Evening :-)

Hallo again,
WOW time is clicking fast! I hear it is cold there. Today was a sunny 40F degrees and we all enjoyed the sun on our faces. We started with a drive to meet up at KSII. Then we drove to Heidelberg. It was a fast one hour. BTW, how fast is 200 kph? They like their cars here for a reason to drive them real fast.

We walked around the main street in Heidelberg where all shops (except food) are closed on Sunday:-( We then walked to the Kulturbrauerel Heidelberg Actiengesellschaft and had a fantastic lunch! For 25 Euro I had a cola light (Diet Coke), Bowl of potato soup, and Fish. It tasted like perch and was over a bed of cooked spinach. There was a side of fresh potatoes with parsley as well. I was GLAD we were walking after lunch. See their menu at: http://www.heidelberger-kulturbrauerei.de/

Next we walked up to the Hofeintritt Erwachsene palace. It was a straight up walk and many took the ski-lift, while I walked with some of our hosts. It was a good bit of exercise.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them! :-)
More tomorrow..Good Night


PS the castle that I visited last night was Ronneburg. It is over 700 years old and in excellent shape with many rooms to walk through.

PSS Oh, yes I almost forgot! The boat is an electric tour boat that runs entirely on solar power and batteries charged from solar.

Day 2 - The morning

Hallo and welcome back :-)

I tried to stay up late last night, however, I had to have a short nap from 5:30 to 7 pm, then up and my hosts had a wonderful dinner prepared of cold red cabbage salad and cold winter salad. The winter salad looked and tasted a lot like baby spinach, however, my hosts told me it was not spinach. I will have to research it when I return home. We had a hard roll with a wonderful fish dish, salmon and cod in a white wine cream sauce. It was fantastic!

We stayed up and talked until midnight and I had a great time learning about their favorite vacation spots and hearing stories from there son about growing up. He is now at the University studying Economics and is in his first year.

The University system here, while hard to get into and overcrowded (sounds like UW-Madison), it costs only 250 Euro per semester and covers all transportation bus/train in a large area, and tuition. It is going up to 500. As you would expect many are not happy about this.

We discussed taxes and how their government tells them that the US does not pay as much as they did. When we talked about local, state, and federal taxes combined they were shocked that we paid so much, especially our property taxes! They still beat us in VAT (Valued added tax).

Barbara is a school teacher at the high school and teaches English. She told me that in the 70's they were getting a fair wage and the schools were in excellent shape. Since that time the pay and benefits have gotten worst and the buildings in need of repair. This sounds a lot like the same problems we face in Racine.

Peter teaches car salesmanship and business administration at our sister college here KSII. He can retire in 3 years. Barbara will not be allowed to retire early as English is a skill in need at the high school level and she will have to work until 65.

Today we are off to tour our sister college a little and the visit a castle. I'll be sure to put the names and places in when I return. It is in the far southeastern portion of Hessen.

Have a great day!
Thanks for stopping by...

Day 1 in Germany

Hallo,
Today we arrived at around 10 am local time. We drove fast to a rowing club for lunch (170kpm). After our lunch we were able to go with our hosts to their homes. I unpacked, sent off a fast email and then we went on a tour of several castles.

Attached are some picture of my journeys so far, a picture of me, some of the castles and a local village.

The food at the club was fantastic! They had excellent pizza.

I am beat, and will chat more tomorrow! :-)