March 30, 2025 - Leipzig
It's hard to believe we've been here for a week already! Today everyone spent the day with their host family again.
Praha writes:
Hallooo, Praha again, today my day started off by waking up around 10 AM. Yes, I know that’s pretty late, but it was a weekend 😔. My host family and I had a super traditional German breakfast, and I mean exactly what you might think. It consisted of Brötchen, Marmelade, hazelnut spread, all sorts of cream cheese, different types of cheese slices, and an egg. My host papa explained all the different types of bread, cream cheese, cheese, and where they came from. I can’t even remember them all anymore cause they all came from many, many different places. For example, cheese from France, cream cheese from Bavaria and Norway, and Danish bread. After breakfast, my host mom, Maria, and I talked about the differences between college in the US and in Germany. A lot of differences were noted.
I had requested this earlier, but my host family and I went to go see The University of Music and Theatre Leipzig which was founded in 1843, the first music conservatory Hochschule in Germany. It was really beautiful and historic as it was closed for years during WW2 one point, but all the people in the town came together to preserve the university, and they all contributed their money into keeping it running. It apparently even became a world wide effort too. My host mama talked about how she used to study their in her final year of uni, as they moved the library that used to be in the city center to being in music conservatory area. I loved how the different departments were a mix of the original old conservatory and the new modern efforts of preserving it.
Next we went to the Federal Administrative Court Leipzig which was coincidentally across from another court. Afterwards, Maria and I headed to the city center where we checked out some supermarkets and a bunch of cool stores. We also got to see the place where the famous German book “Faust” was based on. After getting some Leipzig magnets, we coincidentally ran into Kirah and Amelia who were also shopping there. Right after this, Maria took me to a cinnamon roll desert shop which was the equivalence to “Crumbl” in the US but with cinnamon rolls. Very yummy but too sweet.
In the evening, we went to a grill hosted by Greta’s family, and we brought Caesar salad with us. A lot of GAPP families that lived nearby were there. Even though we all had different dietary restrictions, it was heartwarming to share a delicious meal with everyone. Greta’s family has an adorable cat named Yoda who is an extrovert! :) Later, the dads set up a campfire and we all had a Spezi. At one point I was talking with my host papa and the other host papas and some of my friends were confused why I was the only kid chatting with them. I said it’s because I’m balding and I needed some advice from the dads. (This is a joke, I was actually talking to them about German grilling culture) Anyways, I had a really fun time just chatting with everyone and creating more memories with them. I’m super thankful for Greta’s family for inviting us into their beautiful home, and creating this fun event for all the nearby GAPP families.
Sofia writes:
Yesterday, Emmy and Luise came over for a sleepover. This morning, we woke up very groggy after losing another hour of sleep due to the time change. But we still started the morning by baking fresh croissants with either Nutella or raspberry jam inside. I have had a very fun time learning to bake here because the measurement system is completely different. Except for when we made vodka pasta last night and decided no measurements were necessary. Back to today, the croissants we had this morning were honestly the best croissants I’ve ever had. While eating our croissants, we finished watching all the Twilight movies together. It was very amusing to hear how they had been dubbed in German.
After we finished our movies, Emmy and Luise left, which gave me some time to catch up on my schoolwork before our evening plans. After our break, we headed to a trampoline park! While we have these in America, it was very different here in Germany. There was a changing room where you were supposed to change into "sport clothes." There were a lot more rules and also a lot of different games there. There was even a recommended path for which activities to do in which order. We worked up an appetite jumping, so we had dinner at a restaurant called Peter Pane, where we had burgers and fries. I got to practice some more ordering in German!
After dinner, we went to play minigolf. This was definitely the highlight of my day. The inside of the place was decorated, and it was very cool. There was a story, and you were supposed to find a secret, but we didn’t figure it out, so we had to leave through the loser's door. It was my first time playing minigolf, so I was far from perfect, but I did get better towards the end. Everyone there was super nice and didn’t get mad when Emmy and I sent our golf balls flying across the entire building and accidentally hit the walls with our clubs. It was such an amazing day in Leipzig!
Luay writes:
Today Oskar’s grandfather took me and Oskar to this car museum after hearing about my interest for cars. The museum mainly consisted of older Audi cars and some other historic German cars. It was a really cool experience. I loved seeing how different the engines were before compared to now, and how they have been improved over the years. My favorite by far was the Audi Motorsport section where they had many Audi race cars which were really cool to see.
Afterwards we grabbed some food at a restaurant and then on the way home stopped at his grandfather's house because he wanted to show me his old Mercedes. It was very very very cool and the paint was in great condition as well as the leather on the inside, considering the car is 27 years old. He let me sit inside the car! He also took me to his office and showed me some old car books he had and he even gave them to me and I thought that was really really cool of him.
Later on we went to go-kart. I was really looking forward to it because we have been talking about it all week. I began to understand why most of us don’t have our license, but it’s ok because we all had fun together, and afterwards we stayed and ate some pizza all together. (There was also a very nice e36 m3 in the middle of the track. I almost crashed into the wall a few times while admiring). Today was DEFINITELY one of my favorite days so far.
No comments:
Post a Comment