Photo: Pocklington School German Exchange students on their way to Alfeld to meet their partners.

The half-term break saw a group of 15 students from 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th Year, accompanied by Mr Galloway and Mrs Wright, make the return visit to Alfeld to stay with their partners who had visited Pocklington in September 2017.

This was the 18^th annual exchange, and once again, lots of fun was had, and German was spoken, with plenty of visits and activities thrown in! Students spent a full weekend with their host families and then we had day trips to Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Berlin, the Harz mountains and a half-day trip to the beautiful town of Göttingen.

Here are a few quotes from the students involved, taken from some reports they have written….

“I really enjoyed meeting more of Jan´s family and seeing the German carnival which was quite different to what we see in England. It was very good as well to see Hannover 96 win at football!” - Ben

“Autostadt was very interesting and the concept cars were very cool. After, we went to the premium club lounge and saw a Bugatti Veyron, which was gold and mirrored. It looked really nice but probably cost quite a lot of money.” - Henry

“In Berlin we had a tour of the Bundestag and saw the Brandeburg Gate. After that we went shopping but our partners took us the wrong way! We got there eventually. I bought chocolate, a top and lots more things.” - Taggy

“On Sunday we went to the Baumann Höhle which is a cave and had a tour in German. Felix’s mother translated some of it into English which was good. Then we went to Germany’s longest suspension bridge in the Harz which was next to a huge dam. It was very cold and windy but the view was beautiful.” – Harry

“I lived in Alfeld with Milena and her family who were very friendly and welcoming. In the evening we watched TV, one night we watched Germany’s Next Top Model. We also ate in a Chinese Restaurant which was very nice. We also went shopping with some of Milena’s friends and had a smoothie from Immer Grün which tasted really good.” – Charlotte

“My lesson was double Chemistry. The first half of the lesson was about safety. There was a funny video at the end about a cartoon man playing with dangerous chemicals. In the second half of the lesson, we burned magnesium to make magnesium oxide and answered questions on it.  l learnt some new german words.” – Ewan

“The trip to Harz was very fun and also interesting. The silver mine gave us an insight to life in the mines and the difficulty of the work. We got the train at 9:00am and headed to the mines, and that was quite fun and informative; those who are tall struggled with the height of the mine. The colours that leaked from the walls of the mine were vibrant and pretty. After that we went to the local town of Goslar and had lunch in a local bakery. Then we headed to Harz and up the mountain via a cable car.  On the way down we had lots of snowball fights. It was a lot of fun and we all got along well. The journey home was funny and quite cold. Overall it was a ton of fun and I‘m glad we went!” - Sophia

To a view a Flickr album from the students time in Alfed, please click here.