GAPP 2005
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
As participants in the German American Partnership Program (GAPP), ten
LHS former and present German students spent four weeks in Germany this
summer: Juliana DeWilde, Jesse Ewing, Joshua Holbrook, Elizabeth
Strader, Michael Lerch, Ashley Oakley, Matt Runkle,Dan Walker, Paul
Busch and Yitzchak Winograd. They were accompanied by Physics teacher,
Bryan McCauley, parent Carmen Bearden and German teacher and GAPP
coordinator, Barbara Fromhein.
The first week of the trip was spent in the Black Forest, visiting
such cities as Stuttgart, Hartford's partner city, Baden-Baden and its
spas and romantic Heidelberg with its famous castle. During the second
week, the LHS students experienced Bavaria with excursions to Landshut,
München, Passau, Neu Schwanstein and Salzburg, the Mozart city in
Austria. These were exhilarating and exhausting weeks!
During the last two weeks, the GAPP group stayed in Frankfurt/Oder
in the state of Brandenburg where they were hosted by German families,
got to know their partners and attended classes at our partner school,
the Sportschule Frankfurt/O. The students were given a reception at the
Frankfurt/O city hall, visited the Reichstag in Berlin with a tour given
by a state representative and experienced the unique atmosphere of the
Spreewald ("little Venice") by boat.
LHS GAPP student, Dan Walker, had this to say: " The LHS GAPP trip
to Germany was an awesome experience. Our reception in Frankfurt/O was
very warm. My partner's family was great and the school was equally
welcoming." To which Matt Runkle adds: "Germany was a fantastic
experience. Seeing first hand how another culture lives is a great way
to learn tolerance towards other people." Mike Lerch sums up his GAPP
experience in this way: "I had the great chance to meet teens from a
different country. Many stereotypes have been broken and I learned that
they weren't that different from us."
Then on Sep. 17th, the LHS-GAPP students and their parents greeted
and welcomed their partners from Frankfurt/O in Boston and introduced
them to Ledyard and LHS. Please look for a report of that chapter of the
GAPP '05 cycle in the next issue of the newsletter!
A very sincere "Danke schön" to all the LHS parents of the GAPP
students and to the chaperones for their genuine support and to the LHS
German students for being superb GAPPYS and ambassadors for LHS in
Germany. To view a photo journal of GAPP'05 go to the website as created
by Matt Runkle: www.Gapp2005.com.
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