Halfway to Hambergen

So, it's been a week since I last posted here. I'll try to sum-up the week.

Sunday, I went on a horseback ride with a friend of my hostmom and her daughters. It was so much fun! They took me to the top of one of the tallest hills in the area and then down into some beautiful forests. The ride lasted about three hours, and I was so sore after. It probably didn't help that I didn't have a saddle, though...

School was a bit different this week. On one of the days, we did a sort of scavenger hunt in Bad Lobenstein where we were split into two teams, and then we had to race around the town using a GPS to find the location of letters. These letters then had to be unscrambled to spell out a word. It was fun, and I believe my team won (even though we had stopped to get icecream on the way back). I don't think there was a prize, though.

Then on Thursday, we took a fieldtrip to Mödlareuth. It's a small village right on the border between Thuringia and Bavaria. During the East-West division in Germany, it was one of 20 or so other towns that had a physical wall dividing it, like Berlin. The Americans gave this town the nickname of "Little Berlin". The town still has a large piece of the wall in tact and on display for visitors. The also recreated what it looked like at one of the checkpoints in the area. There was a small museum of artifacts and photos. Also, there was a large shed filled with both military and civilian vehicles of the time. Overall, I think it was really interesting and a great experience.

Yesterday, we watched a movie about Goethe. We're going to Weimar on Tuesday, and we'll be visiting Goethe's house among other things. The movie was pretty good, even though I couldn't understand it all. We ended class a bit early that day, which was nice.

Today, my hostparents and I are going to Gera. It's a fairly near-by large town. I'm not exactly sure what to goal of going there is, but I'd bet I'll find out soon enough. My hostmom also said that there might be a Neo-Nazi demonstration as well as a counter demonstration. We'll see how that unfolds.

Bis später!