Hamburg-Vigo Exchange 2016- 2019

Hello everyone! Hola! Hallo! I´m Niam and I´m quite bad writing especially if I have to use English :P so I´ll try to do my best, I´ll write a story. I hold my pen and I start writing this new text. We were waiting for the Germans at the airport and I have to admit that at the beginning I was a little bit afraid. I never had seen my exchange student before and I knew very little about her, we had talked a little bit through WhattsApp but we hadn´t seen each other. The Germans students arrived and I was so scared, who could be my exchange student?  Suddenly, I saw her, a sweet girl was in front of me, she had a white skin, as white as the snow, and a long blonde hair. She also had some fun freckles covering her face. I could see in her face that she was nervous and suddenly I knew it, she was my partner, she looked as confused as me. I introduced her to my parents and we went home but before that we stopped to have some dinner. During the dinner we were talking a little bit a

I loved being part of this program. It is a great experience that can teach you a lot of things.  I think it gives you self confidence because you have to communicate with other people in a foreign language, and that’s great because you notice that you’re able to do it and you find common interests with a lot of different people. In my case, I even met people of my own high school that I’ve never talked to before. It was completely worth it. You visit a new place, with different customs and different food, you meet people… Of course you can do the same by traveling by yourself, but if you do it with that program you can do it with your school friends and establish a link with your exchange student. It was an amazing experience for me and I would like to participate again if I have the opportunity.

                  In March, during a whole week, I hosted a German exchange student so we could practise our English and meet different places by traveling. I’m going to talk about the good things we got from that. I think the most important one is language. My German student was able to speak a bit of Spanish, but we talked in English anyway. That helped me improve my English, because in class we just read or write, but we never get to have a real conversation with someone before. We tried to know a little about each other, so I had to look some vocabulary up. During dinners, we talked about the differences between our cultures, for example, the celebrations of our countries, the most typical foods, our schedules for waking up, going to bed and eat… It is surprising how countries that are that close (they even have the same time zone) were so different in some things. For example, Germans are used to get up early and go to bed early, but Spanish both things later. 

„ Hi I’m Sarah. I´m 16 years old and a few weeks ago I was a part of the Erasmus-Project.  Today I will give an overview about my experiences during the Vigo-Hamburg exchange.  First of all I will start about the intercultural differences between Vigo and Hamburg and my experience with it. When I arrived in Vigo I was surprised about the fact that nobody of the Spanish students go to school by bike. Some of them take the bus and others are brought by their parents by car. In Hamburg most of the students go to school by bike and the parents drive to work by car. I think the different is also there because of the fact that in Vigo are a lot of hills and it´s hard to ride to school without arriving exhausted. In Hamburg there are nearly no hills at all so you can easily take the bike. When I was in Vigo we used the car every morning, but when my exchange student, Mario, visit us in Hamburg we had to take the train most days, because he didn´t ride the bike very often before and it wa

I personally love the spanish culture and language and I was really lookig forward to this trip. Even if I knew already quite a lot about it from school and from my personal experiencies, I also learned new things during this exchange. For example I didn't know before that the students in Vigo actually speak two languages – el castellano (the usual spanish) and the gallego, the native language of Galicia (the Province of Spain were Vigo is located). I also find it a bit strange, that students there go to school in the afternoons or sometimes even in the evenings, but therefore don't have lessons in the morning. Well, not everybody of course. I think they were kind of sepperated in different groups and some of them had school in the mornings and some of them in the afternoons.  In the lunchbreak we always went home to eat – which was quite unusual for me too because I rarely do that here in Germany. At least not if I still have school afterwards :) Alltogether I really like

One day we did the project „Graffiti“ in the school yard of the spanish school. We all were really excited and happy to get the chance to try this activity because there weren't a lot of us that tried it before. We got a big pattern with the skyline each of Hamburg and Vigo and the school gave us a big wall for our painting. So the first step was to get this pattern on the wall – which wasn't that easy! But after a lot of thinking, trying and using a lot of two-sided tape we finally succeded and started with the actual work: the painting. Everybody that wanted sprayed a little part of it so that in the end it was a great teamwork and we all had our fun :) Around this big painting we also left our personal marks. Everybody sprayed the outline of his hands at the wall and could design them individually. That was really fun!

I think this experience has helped me a lot to learn how to take care of myself on my own a little more, to see beyond everything else, looking at the little details and in trying new things (l learned how to ride a bike in Germany! –that’s something that not everyone can say-). I really hope to keep on touch with Jasmin, my buddy! She has been really amazing, I really appreciate her good ways to me and making everything she could so that I could be happy! I think that I practiced my English a lot and improved a little bit, which is always a very good thing! I had lots of fun and I would completely go on this experience again. Really touched, Amelia.

My experience in Hamburg has been one of the best things I’ve lived before! I completely loved the city, and my family there is amazing! One of the things that really amazed me about Germany is that things there are very practical. I don’t know how to explain it, but I found myself a lot thinking “Wow, they really think of everything!”. I was actually amazed by tons of things, like having books in the bus to read freely, and that system of just buying a ticket and being able of using every single type of transport we needed.  I also loved the school, it is huge, and having a piano that everyone can play every time they need is completely charming and useful. Not only they make sure there is always music playing (which I personally think is very important), but also they make other kids interest in music, and everyone can learn how to play the piano because there will always be some who want to learn and some who want to teach. Really excited,  Amelia

. These photos are from the day we did a tour of Hamburg by groups. It was a fun day but we ended up very tired. I choose these photos to represent the student role, since that is what taught me the most culturally and how to take me practically alone in a foreign city. The truth is that you learn a lot with this type of trip and, although at the beginning it is scary to arrive and not know anything, then you do not want to return. Without a doubt an experience that I will never forget and recommend to all those who want to learn. We had a great time knowing all the corners of the city and in my opinion it is a beautiful and very interesting city, I would go back Talking on a personal level, it was a trip that made me discover many things, although it can be very little time to do them. At first I arrived with a little fear for not knowing what to do, but the days passed and each time I had less desire to return. What I had was a dream since we were doing activities all

The best thing from this experience is not only visiting new places but knowing the people who lives there and their kind of life. It's great meeting people from cultures that, even though, are too similar to ours have different things that makes them interesting.  My host family was very kind to me and they took me some places, like the dancing party were I was Friday night. It was a great experience with them and my schoolmates, and I'm happy that besides a good experience I have a new friend. 

We arrived there on Saturday evening and my host family took me to a campground near the sea, where we spent the whole Sunday. On Monday morning, we had breakfast all together at the school and then we had an activity for meeting the city centre. The following days we prepared and art exhibition in the hall with pictures and paintings we made. On Wednesday night, our exchange students brought us to an enormous garden where a spectacle of water, lights and music took place.  On Thursday and Friday morning we visited Lübeck and the Miniatur Wunderland, an recreation of many cities in a very small size.

In my lifeline I have traveled the world more than most other people my age and have gotten to know many cultures. Well, I thought I got to know them. Till now I didn’t know how less we know about a culture until we get in close contact to the people, that live in the country. The best way to get the full-intercultural-experience, is to live with a family even if it’s only for a week. so first: What have I learned in general? My spanish sucks. But for real. I was under the impression, that I knew the language well (at least for my 6 months of learning it), it wasn’t until I actually had to speak it, when I noticed that lessons in school didn’t quite prepare me for this. Of course you can’t learn a language for 6 months and expect to speak it fluently. But overcoming the fear of talking in the language, is something you can’t learn in class so you need to for example participate at an exchange. I think this speaking barrier is common for germans. We are so afraid to make a mistak

Wednesday the 20th march Gabriel (my exchange partner) had to learn for his exams in the afternoon. That's why his mother and I went to the mountain „Monte Alba“. There we were three hours and I saw one the most beautiful sunrises, I've ever seen. Meanwhile his mother told me almost everything about Vigo and his history and showed me where the islands are (las islas cies) and other montains and how they're called. On the one hand it was very hard for me to assimilate all things because it was so many information and all of it in spanish. But the things I understood were really interesting and gave me a little bit more impression of Vigo.

The exchange program was really tough. The only day where we could spend time with our exchange family was Saturday. On this day, my family and I were going to Santiago, an important city in Spain and I was truly excited. First we had to drive there and it took about an hour before we arrived. I had a funny conversation with my exchange family and they asked me a lot of questions about my life in Germany. We also passed by a lot of other small towns, who were really pretty and kind of adorable. But Santiago was way bigger than those towns, it was probably even bigger than Vigo.                                                            We arrived at Vigo and first my exchange family wanted to show me the cathedral of Santiago. On the way, we walked past some souvenir shops, where I bought myself a magnet with the cathedral of Santiago on top of it. Then we entered the cathedral and it was astonishing! It was really beautiful especially the gold shrine, that was made out of real gold

Reasons for the Spanish exchange to be worth a trip! 1.       Spain is one of the prettiest countries in the world  2.       Vigo is a beautiful city with lots of art       3.       The families are very friendly and helpful    4.       You make new culture experiences   5.       They eat a lot of nice food  6.       You can learn a beautiful new language 7.       You make international friends    8.       You see beautiful sunsets        9.       It’s a great experience    All in all, it was an amazing opportunity to make the exchange to Spain and see a new culture, meet new friends and see some new art. It is a great program which gives students the chance to get the experience of an exchange and let them try new things. Thank you, Erasmus, for this opportunity!