Monday 10/08/2019

Today my day started way earlier than usually. I had to get up at 6:30 am because one hour later the bus picked us up in St Ansgar for our ride to South Dakota. Then we drove to Charles City where the other german students already waited for us. Our long journey began. After some hours of driving and a little break inbetween we had time to eat something. Some of us went to McDonalds and the others to Pizza Ranch where they had the opportunity to eat something from a buffet.

Later we continued our trip. On our way we stopped at a scenic view point. We had a great overview over the Missouri River and took some pictures of us and a big statue of an indigenous woman.
Afterwards we had to drive another two hours and then we finally arrived in Wall where we had time to visit the shops until 10 pm.

Sunday 10/06/2019

Today I woke up at 8 am.

I had to hurry because we wanted to leave at 9 am. After a quick shower and a little snack we started our way to Des Moines. The drive to Des Moines took us three hours. My host sister slept through the whole drive so I talked a lot with my host mother. After we arrived in Des Moines we went to the Iowa State Capitol. It was not opened so we walked around the Capitol and other memorials. As we had enough of sightseeing we visited a botanical garden. Compared to the outside it was really warm inside. My host mother tried to teach me a bit of a few plants. Because we were hungry we were looking for food in a mall. We could not decide what we wanted to eat so we took pizza as usual. 😄 I had a pizza with green olives and ham and it was really good but to be honest my favorite pizza is still the one from “Godfathers Pizza” which we had at the second or third day in Iowa. After lunch was eaten we went to the living history farm where we were able to see how the people lived in their houses 200 years ago. It was really interesting but I can not imagine to live like them without flowing water and without electricity. 

On the farms were horses, cats, pigs, chickens and little cows we could pet. Since the farms was closed at 4 pm we could not really see many houses but what we have seen was really worth it.

My host sister really wanted to have ice cream for a nice end of the trip, so we went to another mall and got rolled ice cream which was really good. This ice cream is self made and we were able to follow the whole procedure. Then after a three hours drive and two movies later we finally arrived at home. I had to pack my suitcase for the trip to South Dakota tomorrow. As I was ready I went to bed at 11 pm.

~ Erja

Friday, October 4th

Today was donut Friday at our school in St.Ansgar. So we ate one of the best donuts I’ve ever had for breakfast. After that we had the opportunity to print some key chains with an 3D printer in our chemistry class. We decided to make the outline of Iowa.

 The next class was cooking. Our assignment was to bake some pretzels with cinnamon und frosting, which is a typical kind of pretzel in America. For the last class of today we went to the middle school to share our presentation about Germany with the middle school students. 

It is a tradition in St.Ansgar for the football team to eat a meal together before the game. Everybody who helps the football team is part of it (cheerleaders, camera girl, managers...). 

The football game typically starts at 7 o‘clock. Before the game, the national anthem is always played by the school band. Our team dominated the other team and won by 50 points. Another tradition in St.Ansgar is that the kids hang out at the parking line after the game.

Grainmill

Friday 27th of September (in St Ansgar)

My school day started as always at 7 am. After breakfast we left the house at 7.50 am. The way to school takes more or less 15 minutes, because I live in a small village called Grafton close to St. Ansgar
The first class starts at 8.15 am, I went with my Host sister Emma to Spanish class.
The second class of the day was History. In this class the teacher wanted me to play a game.
It was me against the Americans. The first one to name 5 famous people from the other student’s country would be the winner.
I would say we ended up in a tie.

After history all of the Germans met and waited excitedly for our first school bus ride.
We had a really nice bus driver, so we asked her to take a photo of all of us in front of the bus as a reminder.
We drove about 5 minutes to the Grainmillers factory on the outskirts of St. Ansgar.
When we arrived, we were welcomed by one of the employees. First of all she gave us brief introduction about the factory.

None of us have ever been to a factory like this, so it was quite interesting for all.
Later they showed us how they produce their products and explained to us how the machinery works.
As a departing gift, they gave us oldmeal, which they produce at this factory.
Then we drove back to school and had our last classes together with our hosts.


In conclusion you could say, it was a really productive day, and everyone learned something new.

Thursday the third of october

About this day is nothing really special to say, cause it was normal like every day, except that we went bowling. 

Thursday started normal, so I got up at seven and arrived at 7:50 school. We were all day with our hosts except for their practice and bowling. After school about at 4:45 the teachers and students drove us to the ‚comet bowl‘ and most of us stayed there till seven. 

It was all in all a normal day but also a day of fun, except for that one time when the comets team showed up for practice and did one strike after another.

Trip to the Iowa State Capitol

Today my host family took us on a trip to the capitol of Iowa "Des Moines". We started at about 9:15am at St.Ansgar High School. Our trip took us about two hours but I must admit it felt way longer than that. When we arrived in Des Moines our first stop was at "Zombie Burger" a burger restaurant downtown that has a variation of weird burgers. You can get yourself a burger with a maccaroni and cheese patty instead of bread- weird, I know?! After our lunch we headed to a store called "The greatest store in the universe/RAYGUN" it's a shop where you can buy different souvenirs that are related to Iowa and Des Moins, you can also get funny meme stickers. By 1:00pm we headed to the Iowa State Capitol where we were met by our tour guide. He showed us around for the next two hours and told us interesting facts about the architecture of the State Capitol. The most interesting parts of our tour with him probably were the "whispering gallery" in the dome of the capitol and the old library. After the tour we had some time to explore on our own before we met with a friend of my host family that works at the Iowa State Capitol. She gave us access to the very top of the State Capitol where we had an amazing view of Des Moins. The way up was really exhausting because of the heat and the hundreds of stairs but the view was worth it!

Then we had the luck to meet the Lieutenant Govenor of Iowa Adam Gregg! He was really welcoming and friendly, he told us how his interest in politics started and we got to ask him questions. In the end we took a group picture with him.

By the time we were done at the capitol it was time for us to head home. On the way back we stopped at a restaurant called "Hickory Park" where we had ice cream. It really was an amazing day!

Tuesday October 1st

Today's day was very different to the other days. Instead of sitting in class for the first four periods we went on a trip to the so called 'Mennonites' a community that has a very different lifestyle compared to us.

After the long ride through the pouring rain we arrived at a small house which was the school-house.
Inside there were children from 1st to 8th grade sitting at their tables in one big room with a board and three teachers.
We sat in the back, watched their math class and listened to their songs.
Then we sang 'In der Weihnachtsbäckerei' to them and showed them how to play 'Ente, Ente, Gans'.
After a lot of fun and laughter we had to say goodbye to the children and went to a house nearby where the bishop of the community told us about the community and answered our questions.
We learned that the Mennonites renounce many things such as electronic devices,  alcohol or vehicles with tires and live under the rules of the church.
In the end we got to try homemade cookies and 'Traubensaft' which were very tasty.

Back at the school we ate our packed lunch and went to class with our hosts for 6th and 7th period and after that we answered questions in the german class.

All in all the day was really interesting and informative even though the weather wasn't playing along with our plans at all.

Julia