First days in Germany

We arrived at Melbourne Airport at 11:30 on Thursday morning, early for our scheduled 12:00 meeting as a group. “I wonder if my bag is over the weight limit” Ryan says to me. “Well, mine weighed 15 kg at home so I’ll be fine” I said to him. We were both over. My bag was 22 kg. I blame it on mum´s incorrect scales.

At 2:00 we met up as a group the second time, after checking in our baggage and began the process of boarding our flight. Our plane left at 3:45 and we were all excited to finally be on our way to Germany. The meals weren´t the best but you can´t expect plane food to be great.

After 8 hours on the plane we arrived in Singapore. It was only a 100 meter walk to the next boarding area from our plane, and luckily we only had a 1 hour stop-over period. We were all showing signs of fatigue, as it was the middle of the night in Australia, but we were determined to get our body clock into German time.

The 12 hour flight to Munich was a long one. After watching one in flight movie I tried to sleep, but was unsuccessful. The passenger next to me had a great 10 hour sleep, compared to the 3 hours I would have had. We were all awake well before we landed in Munich, at 5:00 local time. After our 1 hour bus trip we arrived in what many of us now call home, Bad Aibling.

The school treated us to a tour of their new facilities, which were great I might add, and we also bought some breakfast from the school canteen. After our tour we walked a short distance to a local church where we introduced ourselves to the school.

At 11:00 our host families picked us up from school and we made our way home. I spent most of the afternoon unpacking and also had a quick nap because I was to go on a tour that night.

After a short drive and walk my host family and I arrived at the light show walk, which was marked by the oldest water wheel in Germany. Although it was a long night of walking, I thoroughly enjoyed the show.

After an 11 hour sleep from midnight German time to 11 am I had a meal ( I guess it was breakfast) and then at 1:30 Peter (my host brother) and I went to the train station and caught the train to Rosenheim. Rosenheim is a much bigger city than Bad Aibling, and is famous for its great shopping. We met up with some of the other exchange students and spent the afternoon walking the beautiful streets of Rosenheim.

Looking forward to the rest of the trip,

Max Carter

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Am Freitag war es soweit, die Austauschschüler sind gekommen!

Als wir zuhause ankamen packte Max, mein Gastbruder, seine Sachen aus und am Abend machten wir uns auf zum „Felsenzauber“. Hierbei wurde in Kiefersfelden die „Gießenbachklamm“ mit den Verschiedensten Lichtfarben und Effekten beleuchtet.

Am nächsten Tag ging es um 13:30 Uhr auf den Weg mit dem Zug nach Rosenheim, wo wir uns mit ein paar andern Schülern des Austausches trafen. Wir zeigten ihnen die Stadt, gingen Shoppen und aßen eine typisch bayerische „Bratwurst“.

Am Abend besuchten Max und ich noch eine Geburtstagsfeier.

Peter Haidacher