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!