Monday, June 19

We're back to our classes again this week. Here's a picture from class. (The students are divided into two groups, and I only have a picture of one group on Monday, unfortunately.)

During culture class, students illustrated what they remembered from our tour of Schloss Eggenberg (the castle with the peacocks) on Friday.  Here are a couple examples of their work where they recreated some of the interesting murals on the ceilings and walls:

After our classes and lunch break, we did several group activities. First, students had to the words for different objects taped to their backs.  They had to ask each other yes or no questions in order to figure out what they were and who their partner was.  Here are some examples of the pairs: peanut butter and jelly, eggs and bacon, Graz and a hedgehog, macaroni and cheese, etc. 

After this, we did another activity called "Standbilder," which is basically like statues.  We would give the students a topic, like the Uhrturm (clock tower in Graz), and the students had to come up with a way to stand in order to illustrate the topic.

At the students' request, we also played a round of Ente, Ente, Gans better known as duck, duck, goose.

The most challenging part of the day came next. You may remember those stairs that take you to the top of the Schlossberg (castle mountain).  Well, today was the day that the students had to climb those stairs.  Some of them were determined to run to the top, and many of them met their goal.  Some of us (including me) took it a bit slower. :)

Here you see a few students stretching before our trek up the stairs:

And here's a reminder of what the stairs look like:

We made it to the top!

After this challenging workout, the students were rewarded with a ride down a slide.  That's right: in Graz there is an indoor slide that takes you to the bottom of the Schlossberg (castle mountain). This was one of the most fun activities that we have done.  We each had to grab a mat to use while we slid down.  We put our feet and any belongings into the pocket at the bottom and then down we slid. It was very amusing to see how differently people reacted to the experience.  Some people screamed so much that it was unbelievable, and some people didn't scream at all, which is also unbelievable, in my opinion. :). 

Here we are before going down the slide:

Here are some pictures of students as the exited the slide.  Unfortunately, I missed a few students because I slid down after them. Sorry that they're blurry; they were going very fast at the end. 

Of course, our pictures were also taken as we exited the slide (much like on a rollercoaster), so the students had a ball checking out all of them, especially the variety of looks on our faces. 

After the walk up the stairs and the ride down the slide, many of the students were thirsty, so they went to their new favorite water score, what they like to call "Straßewasser," which translates to "street water."  But don't worry, it's totally safe to drink.  They're actually referring to the large public water fountains found throughout the city that are labeled as "Trinkwasser," which means drinkable water. Here they are filling up their water bottles right out side of the building that houses our classrooms: