| Alex:
PAD-Preisträgerin, 2006
 |
|
Foto: mit
freundlicher Genehmigung durch Alex
Zuerst will
ich den Padagogischer Austauschdienst, Werner Nowitzki und die
Deutsche Botschaft Neuseelands fur diese grossartige Gelegenheit
danken. Ich kann sagen, ohne viel nachdenken zu müssen, dass meine
Reise nach Deutschland der beste Monat meines Lebens war. Die Leute,
die ich kennengelernt habe, werden lebenlänglich meine Freunde
bleiben, und die Erfahrungen, die ich dort machte, werden auch bei
mir bleiben, als einige der glücklichsten meines Lebens.
Ich fand es
toll, dass wir (die Neuseenländerinnen und Australier), als die
letzte Gruppe, so herzlich empfangen wurden. Es war auch ganz schön,
aus dem Winter in den Sommer zu kommen, und obwohl wir dort ziemlich
müde waren, hat mir Bonn besonders gefallen, weil es ziemlich klein
und so schön ist.
Wir haben uns
in unserer Gruppe und auch den Reiseleiter dort kennengelernt. Es
war sehr interessant, Teilnehmer aus so vielen unterschiedlichen
Ländern zusammen zu haben. Alle waren unterschiedlich aber die
Persönlichkeiten waren alle sehr interessant und nett. Ich fand es
auch spannend, mein erstes richtiges Schloss zu sehen. Eigentlich
waren die Gebäude in Deutschland die schönsten, die ich je gesehen
habe.
Dann haben
wir Bonn verlassen und wir fuhren schon als gute Freunde mit dem Zug
nach Bad Homburg, und wohnten dort zwei Wochen bei Familien. Ich
hatte Glück, in der selben Familie zusammen mit Emily aus Wellington
zu sein, und sie war eine fantastische Gastfamilie. Sie wurde
eigentlich wie eine zweite Familie, und es war sehr angenehm mit
ihnen nach Heidelburg zu fahren, um den Fussball zu sehen und auch
einfach mit ihnen über Deutschland und Neuseeland zu reden. Wir
hatten auch die Chance, die kleine Stadt kennenzulernen, so dass wir
uns dort nach zwei Wochen richtig zu Hause fühlten. Das, und die
vielen Ausflüge nach Frankfurt haben mir auch sehr gut gefallen. Die
Schule war für mich ganz anders als in Neuseeland. Die Tage schienen
vor allem ganz kurz und unregelmässig, und das machte sie sehr
interessant, selbst wenn ich nicht richtig wusste, wo ich sein
sollte. Bad Homburg werde ich nie vergessen – das Rockkonzert, die
Biergärten, das Essen, die Leute, die WM; alles war wie ein Traum.
Es war
natürlich mit schwerem Herzen, als wir am Hauptbahnhof standen und
uns verabschieden mussten.
Es war auch
traurig herauszufinden, dass die Thesi einen Unfall hatte und mit
uns nicht mehr reisen konnte, aber die Eva und der Andi haben die
Reise nach Berlin und München toll organisiert. Obwohl wir in Berlin
immer unterwegs waren, war es eigentlich einer der interessantesten
Aufenthalten in Deutschland, weil man in den Strassen die Geschichte
von der Welt erleben konnte.
Ich fand es
auch gut, dass wir eine Woche hatten, die Zimmergenossen besser
kennenzulernen. Berlin war ein erstaunliches Erlebnis, aber wir
fanden es auch gut, uns danach in München ein bisschen ausruhen zu
können. Der Tag auf der Zugspitze und beim Wandern war einer meiner
Lieblingstage, vielleicht weil die Landschaften so unglaublich waren
und weil wir uns alle so gut verstanden. Als unsere Reise zu Ende
ging, hatten wir alle das Gefühl, wir kennen uns schon lange, aber
auch dass die Zeit in Deutschland viel zu kurz war.
|
| Student wins
scholarship |
 |
| Emily, PAD
scholarship, travelled to Germany July 2006 |
|
Ich möchte mich herzlich bedanken für die absolut fantastische
Gelegenheit, die Sie mir gegeben haben. P.A.D 2006 war für mich ein
absolut erstaunliches Erlebnis (eigentlich würde ich sagen, einer
der besten Monate meines Lebens). Diese Reise hat meine Perspektive
auf die Welt wirklich erweitert und ich habe so viel über
Deutschland im Allgemeinen gelernt. Dieses Erlebnis hat mir auch
unglaublich viel Vertrauen mit der deutschen Sprache gegeben. Ich
würde sagen, dass mein Deutsch nach einem Monat viel natürlicher
geworden ist. Ich glaube außerdem, dass meine Unterhaltungen mit
andern auf Deutsch viel interessanter sind, weil ich jetzt viel mehr
sagen kann! Es hat auch immer so viel Spaß gemacht, meine Gruppe
hatte einen fantastischen Sinn für Humor, und die tollen
Reiseleiter garantierten immer interessante und erlebnisreiche Tage.
Wir haben zuerst vier Tage in Bonn verbracht, wo wir unser erstes
Schloss (das Schloss Brühl) gesehen haben (sehr beeindruckend für
uns und die Australier). Als wir dort waren, haben wir auch ein
schöne Schifffahrt auf dem Rhein gemacht und Köln besucht. Ein
Internationaler Abend mit allen Preisträgern hat uns viel über
andere Länder beigebracht und gab uns auch die Gelegenheit, eine
Rede in der Öffentlichkeit über Neuseeland zu machen (Wir waren
natürlich ganz schön nervös, aber alles hat gut geklappt).
Zunächst verbrachten wir zwei Wochen bei einer Gastfamilie in einem
kleinen Dorf von Hessen, das Bad Homburg heißt. Es gibt dort nur 60,
000 Einwohner, und es war auch sehr reich. In die Schule zu gehen
war ein tolles Erlebnis, auch mit unseren Gastschwestern auszugehen
(und wegen unseren lockeren Gasteltern dürften wir das auch ganz oft
machen)! Alle haben natürlich für die Weltmeisterschaft geschwärmt:
Die WM brachte eine neue Bedeutung für das Wort "Fußballfieber"! Ein
besonders denkwürdiges Erlebnis für mich war ein Ausflug mit unserer
Gastfamilie nach Heidelberg. Ich würde gerne Heidelberg wieder
besuchen, weil es dort eine reiche Kultur und Geschichte gibt, die
mich besonders interessiert hat und die ich gern weiter erforschen
würde. Die Verbindung mit der Universität ist mir wirklich
aufgefallen und es war für uns echt relevant, eine Universität im
Ausland zu sehen (wegen der großen Entscheidungen mit der Uni, die
wir alle bald machen müssen).
Nach diesem Aufenthalt hatten wir eine Woche in Berlin, wo wir fast
alle der berühmtesten Sehenswürdigkeiten gesehen haben. Ich fand
Checkpoint Charlie und die Mauer besonders interessant zu sehen,
weil wir so viel darüber in der Schule gelernt haben, aber als wir
sie in der Tat gesehen haben war es irgendwie etwas ganz anders.
Unsere Reiseleiter haben versucht, uns viele besondere Erlebnisse zu
vermitteln, zum Beispiel wir haben ein Restaurant besucht, das 'Unsichtbar'
heißt, und dort war alles pechschwarz und alle Kellner waren blind.
Ich habe danach ganz viel überlegt: ein wahrhaft unvergessliches
Erlebnis.
Zum Ende der Reise haben wir München besucht, eine Stadt die ich
gastfreundlich, unbeschränkt und echt malerisch gefunden habe. Ich
habe mich gefreut, die schöne alte Architektur mit unserer
Architektur in Neuseeland zu vergleichen. Kunst von so berühmten
Künstlern wie Picasso, Monet und van Gogh, die wir dort in der Neuen
Pinakothek gesehen haben, war etwas, was ich schon immer sehen
wollte. Und es war noch besser, als ich es erwartet hatte, wie so
viele von den Erlebnissen dieser Reise. Wir haben auch die Zugspitze
besichtigt und hatten sogar fünfzehn Minuten Aufenthalt in Tirol.
Ich fühle mich sehr stolz, dass ich jetzt sagen kann, das ich auch
Österreich besucht habe!
Am Ende der Reise mussten wir alle den Reiseleitern (zwei
Uni-Studenten) herzlich danken, weil sie so gut auf uns aufgepasst
haben, aber gleichzeitig hatten sie uns während der Reise genügend
Unabhängigkeit gelassen.
Wie Sie sehen können, hatte diese Reise einen unglaublichen Eindruck
auf mich gemacht, und ich werde es nie vergessen. Es war erstaunlich,
dieses Erlebnis gehabt zu haben und ich kann wirklich sagen, dass
ich meine neuen Kenntnisse nicht nur jetzt, sondern auch in der
Zukunft benutzen kann. Alex und ich sind auch sofort sehr gut mit
einander ausgekommen. Es war sehr hilfreich, dass wir uns bereits
während der Interviews kennengelernt haben.
Vielen, vielen Dank für alles. Ich werde immer für meinen Sommer im
Fußballfieberland Deutschland so dankbar sein.
Emily
|
|
|
| Alex, PAD
scholarship, travelled to Germany July 2006 |
|
I have to thank the PAD for
this amazing opportunity yet again. My month in Germany was the most
amazing month of my life. The people I met were all fantastic and I
know I have made some lifelong friendships. I enjoyed staying in Bad
Homburg and getting to know the town like it was my own, but also
exploring the cities. Every day there was something new and although
we were very busy, we were very lucky to have great group leaders so
our programme was always interesting and not too tiring.
This trip made me want to
continue learning German in university (partly because I saw just
how little I actually knew) and also to start up other languages in
the future. I really feel like it made me more confident and
considerate as a person, because I got to know so many different and
similar cultures to mine.
I really loved the trip and
will never forget it.
|
|
|
| Lauren, NZGSE
scholarship 2005 |
|
With the courtesy of
The
Society for New Zealand-German Student Exchange (Inc.)
I am going to
Germany. I am going to Germany…Nothing…….
I cannot
believe it. As I perched on my bed with my flowery wallpaper blooming
down at me, I simply cannot believe the fact that tomorrow morning I
will be leaving. With my mountainous luggage and forceful conscience, I
am going to Germany!
Having never
flown abroad before, with my stiff new-smelling passport in hand, I
referred to for at least the 50th time, the long list of instructions
about how to get from Auckland’s domestic terminal to the international
one. “Follow the blue and white lines”, it all seemed so foreign, new
and overwhelming, before I had even left the country.
Having
settled myself in my seat next to Fiona McNamara and Matthew Calvert
(the other scholarship winners), I took the opportunity to gawk and
goggle at all the people embarking on this journey. We were all on our
own journeys despite sharing the common destination. Funny, I still
couldn’t believe that this building 747-jet plane was my vehicle to
Germany.
Considering
that the village where I live has a noticeably high sheep to human
ratio, my amazement at Singapore was quite understandable. The four
time-warped and timezoned hours passed by in a flurry of departures and
arrivals, departures and arrivals. I was so grateful for the presence of
Fiona and Matthew, It didn’t matter that we were the three lost sheep
entering the unknown we had each other.
At least,
until Frankfurt. As Fiona and Matt were whisked away in the bustling
stream of luggage trolleys off to adjoining flights, I was left. Left,
right, left it was all I could do walking. Completely directionless yet
remembering my parents advice in trying not to appear that way. I was in
search of my new host family. Family? No silly they’re all the way back
in New Zealand. Yes Lauren, family. Your new family for the next 10
weeks. Its funny how quickly the childish nightmare of being lost in a
supermarket comes flooding back. The only difference though was that
Frankfurt airport was about eighty times larger than the local four
square, and even more scary, there were all speaking German. However
eventually I did find my host family. After a handshake and a hug, I
knew that the second part of my adventure had begun.
During my
battle against the jet lag and sleep deprivation, I was absorbing my
first real impressions of Germany or at least of Vogelberg (the area
where I went). Grey sky wet autobahns, snow lined footpaths place names
like Poppenrod. German conversation. This really was what I had
desperately tried to anticipate before I left. It was interesting to
note that although my host family were using words which had been on the
vocab lists (which I learnt of course), for the first few days I really
had to adapt to hearing them strung together. It was an eye opener to
experience the language flowing so naturally and so fast. From the
beginning onwards I convinced myself that one day, one day I would be
speaking as fast as my host family. I knew that I had to start somewhere
and so with my goal in mind and Pippi Langstrumpf in hand, I plunged,
fell, drowned myself completely in the German language. It wasn’t to
have a single English word in sight. Apart from the emails I sent home
to my non-German speaking friends and family.
Perhaps that
is why the culture shock hit so hard. Its quite amazing just how many
kiwi sayings do not translate. My mother wrote in a letter all change
and she couldn’t have been more correct. Every single minute detail had
been twisted slightly, or was completely different. Suddenly my safe and
cosy world of Upper Moutere NZ was vanishing. It was like suddenly my
blinkers had been taken of, I could see.
And I most
certainly looked, granted that most of the time I was like a Japanese
tourist looking through my cameras view finder but I was most definitely
trying to take it all in. I was starving for anything and everything
that was German, which resulted, led me to just about every German
souvenir shop across the country. In a matter of weeks I went from
comparing everything to NZ and to expecting a completely new way of
approaching and living life.
Living in any
other family would be an amazing experience, but living in one of a
different lifestyle and culture really changed me. Just as you could
never find a typical kiwi family, we all have our unusual habits hidden
somewhere. I don’t know if what I experience was typisch deutsch, but I
am certain that my host family really was fantastic. I am so grateful
for the endless patience trust me there was a lot of it, and humour of
Detlef Gerlinde and Britta Langer as they explained, demonstrated and
showed me their way of life. They incorporated me into the family as
they tirelessly answered my many, many, many, many questions.
Despite my NZ
German teacher’s enthusiasm about how fun the German schools would be I
must be honest and at the end of the day, school is school. The first
few weeks were very interesting and it was amazing to see how many
subjects they can fit into a timetable. But I was certainly grateful for
the change in the school routine when we had the winter camp in
Wittenberg, and then later my free travel.
Meeting all
of the Gassies in Wittenberg was definitely an experience and an essay
by itself, so without going into too much detail there are just a few
things worth mentioning. After being thoroughly confused by who was an
Australian and who was the German host, I just gave up and spoke German
to everyone. I found it really helped my German to hear the dialects and
accents of the host siblings from all around the country. I any other
situation, I do not feel that all 30 of us exchange students would have
bonded so closely. By sharing all our stories about the hard the good
the great and the funny times that we were experiencing for the first
time in weeks, I was no longer foreign. Although my experience felt so
once in a lifetime, I was able to share it with such a special group of
people.
The train
trip to Wittenberg was the fist time I had ever been on a train let
alone trying to figure out the train timetable. However it certainly
wasn’t the last. My week of free travel thank goodness for the Trans
Euro pass, was absolutely brimming with photo taking, doner kebabs,
train trips and of course excitement. We condensed seeing Dresden,
Weimar, Erfurt, Nurnburg, Frankfurt, Koln, Aachen, Munchen, and Fussen
into such a small amount of time that I definitely burnt off all of the
kaffee and kuchen of the previous weeks and the Christmas kilos. I was
blown away with the variety in what we saw of the country and its
culture. I feel that the responsibility that we had to take matured me
by at least 6 years to the stage where suddenly we were translating and
helping the tourists that we met on our travels.
From
incompetent to competent, it was not only my travelling skills that
benefited from the free travel experience. I returned home to my host
family feeling confident and at east. I was stunned to realise that I
was already past the half way mark. The ten weeks, which had initially
seemed such a long time, were already almost over, in what felt like two
weeks. There was a transition. Things started to have a time limit and a
closing date on them. It felt so strange that all that I had been
fighting to integrate and merge into was coming to an end. At the same
time as I was sending and receiving emails from home about how exciting
my return would be I was explaining to my new school friends, teachers
and family how much I wished I could stay. How much I wanted to continue
being the famous exchange student. It was hard trying to juggle two
worlds. I wanted to be in both, but the calling of my homeland my old
world of Upper Moutere, Nelson was getting stronger. The timing felt
right really. I was really looking forward to the week in Berlin our
last week in Germany, as I knew it was my last opportunity to share and
bond with the other exchange students.
My departure
from my village, Grebenhain was certainly a sad one. There were a few
shed tears as I hugged and thanked my host family for the last time. I
couldn’t help but reflect on my truly unique journey. Emotions of
accomplishment, pride and hope flooded me. I hope that I see them again.
I though as the train pulled away.
Berlin,
bigger, brighter and more German than I could have imagined. A week of
laughs, tears, speeches and friendship. It was my last week in Germany.
The last week of what had been my dream of the last three years. Funny
once again I was unable to believe it. The five do-everything and
anything we can before we leave days passed in about five seconds. As we
all shovelled enormous amounts of German chocolate, souvenir pamphlets
and memorabilia into our apparently shrunken packs of suitcases, I was
overwhelmed by both the thought of leaving and of coming home.
Sitting at
Frankfurt airport, ten days or ten years could have passed since I was
last there, reaching into my jacket pocket my finger brushed a long
forgotten piece of paper, my list of instructions for locating
Auckland’s international airport. Gosh I had grown since that day, I was
a new me. I folded the piece of paper returned it to it appropriate
place, and smiled confidently inwardly at myself. Yes Lauren you did go
to Germany, it was a unique experience, which no one can claim as theirs
because I did it, and I don’t regret a second of it.
I just want
to thank the NZ German Student Exchange so much for providing me with
the opportunity of not only a lifetime but of my lifetime. Without the
effort involvement and support of so many people, I know that I never
would have achieved at the age of 16 what some people never get to see.
Thank you the renovation and renewal of Lauren Joy Fraser came about
from the experience that my sponsors and others made possible. It was
fun, challenging and one awesome adventure.
|
| |
|
Mark, PAD
scholarship 2004 |
|
The Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Zugspitze, and a
boat trip on the Rhine: these were just some of the fantastic things that I
was fortunate enough to experience on a trip with the PAD in July. Not only
did I meet some great friends during my stay in Germany, but the trip would
also have to go down as one of the best experiences I have had. Although a
little nervous at meeting the people in my group after flying in to
Düsseldorf, after a few days everyone had become good friends. In my group
there were people from countries as far ranging as Mauritius and Belarus.
After some short excursions and an “International Evening” involving a haka
performance in Bonn, we took the train to Nürnberg where we were to stay
with our respective families. Going to school was a totally new experience,
and we also did some small excursions to the nearby towns of Würzburg and
Bamberg. It seemed as if the two weeks in Nürnberg would never end, and
certainly nobody wanted it to by the time we had to leave for München, so
good were the friends that we had made with the group from Pirckheimer
Gymnasium. In München such things as visiting the Neue Pinakothek museum
and discovering the inner city charm were in our agenda. One of the more
surprising things which I was to see were people surfing in München,
despite the fact it is over 680 km from the nearest sea! After München we
were back on the train, this time to Berlin, our final destination. The
weather in Berlin was somewhat cooler than the 30 degree plus temperatures
in the other cities, and this came as a welcome relief. For me the Berlin
Wall and Checkpoint Charlie were incredibly interesting, and we were also
fortunate enough to experience Shakespeare in German in an open air theatre!
Overall the trip was a great experience, something which I will have good
memories of for a very long time.
I would like to take this opportunity to
thank the German Embassy for this excellent opportunity.
|
|
Jayne, NZGSE scholarship
2005 |
 |