Excursion Recap Germany: Evan Herman, Luke Sommerville, and Joaquín Mon
An excursion is defined as a deviation from a regular path or pattern, and every late February, our school proves why that deviation is needed. For two weeks, classrooms are traded for real world experiences which can range from jogging the BeltLine to stepping foot inside the Coliseum. Each trip leads somewhere different and offers every student an unforgettable experience, but we often don’t hear those stories or multiples from every excursion. Until now, in this first fully collaborative article, students will share their individual experiences and reflect on what they have learned.
Germany: Evan Herman, Luke Sommerville, and Joaquin Mon
Evan begins by discussing the main themes of the trip: where students explored personal stories, historical places, and learned about the defiance and courageous acts many exhibited during this period of darkness. Additionally, the trip gave students plenty of free time to explore these vibrant, historic European cities.
Luke carries on: the first city was Munich, Germany. During our time in Munich, we visited the Dachau concentration camp. There's only so much you can understand about a camp like this through a textbook or computer; being on the property itself and walking through the different rooms is a completely different and emotional experience. You learn and understand so much more by simply being present, walking through the barracks and the chambers. We then traveled to the Allianz Arena to watch Bayern Munich defeat Frankfurt 3-2 in an intense soccer match, followed by free time to explore the city. Being in the supporter section of the stadium, we were surrounded by what they call the ultra fans. The constant singing and jumping really highlighted the difference between American super fans and European super fans. Bayern Munich went 3-0 up, then Frankfurt got 2 goals back in the dying moments, making the last 10 minutes of the game the most exciting. Additionally, we visited a documentation center to learn more about Munich’s role in World War II. The second city we traveled to was Salzburg, Austria. We took a day trip, where we first traveled to the top of Fortress Hohensalzburg. Built in 1077, the fortress is over 900 years old. It is Europe’s oldest preserved medieval castle and was used to protect Salzburg’s prince-archbishops. We went on a self-guided tour of the fortress, unravelling the stories within the castle's walls, all while viewing the Austrian Alps from the 400 foot aerial view. After that, we took a guided tour of the city and explored on our own to end our day excursion to the city.
Joaquín finishes off the article with where the excursion wrapped up, in the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. Throughout the three days, we visited and learned about the historical canals, art museums like the Rijksmuseum, and the famous Anne Frank House. A majority of our time was spent on our own, where small groups split up to bike the streets, explore food options, and simply walk amidst the architecture. On the same days, the group visited the Jewish Quarters to learn more about acts of resistance by Jewish individuals in order to fight against the horrid acts of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. These acts of resistance occurred after a quick four day invasion in 1940, where immediate measures were placed to send Jewish individuals to forced-labor and extermination camps, on top of the problem of their stolen belongings and hunger strikes.