Visit to Munich.
Diary from Comenius meeting in Germany
29.11.09- 5.12.09
Friday 4/12- Alexander Fahnehjelm
This week has been a great experience for me. At first, when meeting all the other students, I was very nervous and almost backed away from them. But I soon made friends with some Scottish girls with whom I believe I will have a great contact with for at least next year, maybe even longer.
This week has been a great experience for me and my friends; we’ve explored Munich, visited a Water plant, the Süd-Deutsche Zeitung (a newspaper in the south of Munich) and even visited the BMW Headquarters.
Ok, so now a bit more about today, Friday 4/12. We had to get up a bit early; we had to be in the European school at 7.30 am, instead of 8.20 am, so I guess everybody was a bit tired. Then we took the U-bahn to Ostbahnhof, and then we switched to the S-bahn and arrived at the BMW Headquarters at 8 am. There we had a guided tour around the factory. I don’t know what the others thought about it, but I found it amazing! The guide showed us first where the ordinary steel plates where cut out and formed into the right shape for the inner and outer frame. Then, everything was welded together by machines and/or humans.
The next step was the painting. There were actually seven different kinds of painting that had to be done, but I don’t remember them all, but for the first ground-color the whole car frame was dipped, or actually rolled, in a pool of some liquid. Next the painting was done by robots, three or four orange robot arms per room, which sprayed diluted paint above the car. But before, the car frame had been negatively charged, so by putting extremely positive charged sticks above the nozzle, the paint gets positive charged and then by magnetic force, the paint gets stuck on the frame.
In other rooms, the building of the car is finished and the instruments, the security of the car and the steering and such are tested. From here, the checked cars that pass the tests are delivered to customers and stores.
Dieser Reise hat viel Spass gemacht! Ich habe viel Deutsch gelernt und gesprochen, und ich habe viele neue Freunde getroffen.
Thursday 3/12- Fabian Sund
Today we started school at 8:15. Then we took the bus to the water reservoir. First the guide talked about the water in Munich and then we saw a film about the water in Munich and after that he showed us how the water in Munich is transported to all the parts of the city and where and how the water is kept. We walked through the forest to some water reservoirs and it was very interesting. The water was very clear and clean.
Then we ate our lunch-pack and walked around a lovely lake. It was pretty cold but it was fun and relaxing. After that we found a nice little café. We sat down and ordered some food and hot chocolate. We relaxed and made friends and learned new Turkish words.
Heute haben wir ein Wasser Anlage besucht. Dann sind wir um einen schönen See gewandert.

Wednesday 2/12- Carl-Christian von Kauffman
We gathered in the school at 8:30 and I could see on every ones face that they were tired. We went to the Europe hall to listen to presentations and did some dances, one dance for each country. We from Sweden presented “Små Grodorna”. The time went past very fast, and after, what felt like a second, we had a ten minute break. After the pause we had language lessons in the “green container”, a room on the third floor, even if it was named “the green container” it wasn’t green, . You could choose between three languages, Spanish, Italian and German. I took German with most of the Swedish guys, the only one that didn´t choose German was Sara, she studied Spanish. After 10 minutes of serious learning the teacher disappeared… and we started to learn swear words, I think that was the funniest part of the day. After one hour and 40 minutes it was time for lunch, it was some kind of cheese speciality and soup and some vegetables. After lunch it was time for Turkish and Scottish presentations. We were supposed to listen to the presentation for an hour but they only took about 20 min so we started to prepare a movie, we interviewed each other in strange places. When were done we were supposed to go to a sport activity, but it was only Jönis and Fabian who went there and they danced and had a good time. At 15:30 we went to a newspaper factory, we saw a film and enjoyed a long guided tour, nearly every one “fell asleep”. After that we went to an English host family and had an English BBQ. We really had fun.
Ich finde die Zeit am See sehr toll und ich habe viel gelernt.
Tuesday 1/12 – Johan Jönhagen
Today we listened to some interesting presentations and gave our own presentation. It went pretty well and it was very fun to present it.
We have also been to a geothermal-plant and learned about geothermal energy.
We ate sandwiches for lunch after a speech about the fall of the Berlin wall “ der Mauerfall” by the principle. It was hard to understand because he talked very fast in German.
After our presentation we went to the Polish consulate. We couldn´t understand everything, the speeches were in very fast German and Polish! After the speeches we sat down and ate some cakes and had some nice chats.
Then we went to the “Marienplatz” and saw the “Frauenkirche”. We went to the stores and bought some chocolate. It was fun to get to know everybody!
Then we went back to our families.
Wir haben unsere Powerpoint-Präsentation gehabt. Das war sehr toll!
Wir haben auch die Geothermie-Plant gesehen.
Dann haben wir den Marienplatz und die Frauenkirche gesehen. Das hat mir sehr gut gefallen!!!
AUF WIEDERSEHEN!
Monday 30/11- Sara Apéria

It is twenty minutes past eight on a Monday morning. For many people; for my classmates in Sweden, for the pupils at the ESM-school and probably for the majority of the inhabitants of Munich this is a regular and very common Monday morning. For me, for the other representatives and for all the people involved in the Comenius Project, this is not at all an ordinary morning. This is the first day and thereby also the beginning of a new, important and very exciting chapter of our lives.
My first thought was how big the school was and I extra-checked with the daughter of my host-family that this really was the meeting-point that I now had before me. My second thought was how many pupils there were in the school. They were socializing, laughing, talking to their friends and running around everywhere.
I headed for the meeting-point and went to sit with the other Swedes; Fabian Sund, Alexander Fahnehjelm, Johan Jönhagen and Carl-Christian von Kauffman.
After a while some of the other participants of the Comenius Project arrive; the Scottish representatives and the Turkish representatives. An hour or two later the Frenchmen and the Polish representatives arrive. We socialize and talk to the other representatives until the school-day starts half past eight.
Then a German girl named Julia showed us around at school.
After this little “sightseeing-tour” one of the teachers, Mr Holger Lindermann, tooks us to a classroom where we introduced ourselves and played some games to get to know each-other better.
After this we went to a computer-room where we answered some questions from a quiz about Bayern, München and Germany.
Then we went to a big hall were we watched a show made by the pupils of ESM. First of all we watched a beautifully organized flag-ceremony, which welcomed us to Munich. The pupils carried flags from all the European countries. After the ceremony we continued to watch the show, where the German pupils entertained us with their singing and dancing. It struck me that they all were very talented and I was very surprised that one single school could have so many talented students in singing and dancing.
After lunch-break we went back to the Europa Halle, where we listened to some powerpoint-presentations about Sustainable Energy. Besides the good presentations, we were also offered a performance of Polish folkdance performed by one of the Polish girls.
Afterwards we went sightseeing in the city-centre of Munich. My group went to the Christkindl-markt, a wonderful and yearly held Christmas-market.
Am Christkindl-Markt verkaufen sie viele Süssigkeiten, zB Schokolade, Mandeln und Früchte. Wir sind auch an der Frauenkirche vorbei gegangen und haben viele andere Wahrzeichen von München gesehen.