Since a long time, it has been a tradition for the 10th grade students at the LFSL to go on a 5-day trip to a foreign country, depending on which language they chose to learn. The Spanish students travel to Madrid, the capital of Spain, and the German students to Berlin. This time, the trip went to Hamburg.
Hamburg, officially the “Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg”, is the second largest city in Germany. It is one of Europe’s largest harbours. It’s a city that has had many relations with Scandinavia, thanks to the importance of trading, starting from the Middle Ages until today. Hamburg is now one of Europe’s largest harbour.
The activities that we were planning to do during our trip to Germany were very diverse and covered different areas: On Monday, we went on a cruise tour on the Elbe River, allowing us to discover the fauna and flora of the city and the diversity of the landscape. Before that, we visited the Altonaer Museum, which is a museum informing us about the history of Northern Germany and its relations with other countries. In parallel with that, we have also learned more about the emigration to the United States, especially since Hamburg’s port opened the doors to America, which was the main destination at the time.
We have also visited a very cool museum, the “Miniatur Wunderland”, where the whole world is represented in models. We have also visited the Neuengamme concentration camp, a bit further from the city, which was an unforgettable, emotional and a very educational experience. Finally, we have also visited the City Hall and Senate, since Hamburg is also a regional state. Finally, we visited the Hamburger Kunsthalle, an art museum with paintings from the middle ages, to contemporary and modern expositions. This educated us on many different art movements and we even went to see the famous romantic painting, “The Wanderer” of Caspar David Friedrich.
We believe that this trip has been very beneficial to our group. In many ways, it has helped us grow. First of all, we got to experience a slightly different culture. We believe that globalisation (hence learning about other cultures) is key to a better world and a future. It makes you understand different kinds of people better. Second of all, our trip to Hamburg deepened our knowledge about certain issues and certain themes. An example of this is our trip to the Neuengamme concentration camp. We have studied about the Second World war before in school but seeing a concentration camp up close really changes things. We were standing exactly where the prisoners stood many years ago.
We also liked the Hamburger Kunsthalle. We had many different favourite paintings and works of art. One of them was a representation of a music sheet. It was a unique musical painting. We had to pull a thread to hear the music. One of our favourite places in Hamburg was the Miniatur Wunderland, which depicts the world but in miniature. It really made us realise how small we are.
At last, we believe that this trip had brought us closer together. We played many different types of games, such as the French game called Loup-Garou. We played the game together with our teachers. It was a lot of fun!
Eating at the restaurant every night also made us closer together. We joked and had fun (Pascal and his magic tricks!). On the last night of our stay, we watched a movie altogether called Zombieland! There is nothing like a movie to bring people closer together. This trip also put us in many types of difficult situations, such as having to speak with locals. A group of us went to Starbucks to go buy some coffee. We struggled to make our order! Surprisingly enough, the worker spoke a bit of French. On Tuesday, we went on top of a skyscraper and got to see a beautiful view. We asked a couple to take a picture of us. Yet again, they spoke French. It was quite a funny coincidence!
To conclude, we believe that this trip was essential to our development as students. Our trip was diverse, unique and covered many areas. We had fun during our visit to Miniatur Wunderland and on our cruise tour. We learned a lot about German culture and history thanks to visiting different museums. We matured when we visited the Neuengamme concentration camp. Our trip to Hamburg was a special experience and, if we had a choice, we would do it again!