German keyboards

A little challenge directly from germany. Find the difference between the german keyboard (see pic attached) and the american one. Particularly two letters are switched and forget about it when it comes to the right side of it. :P

3 of us have US laptops/ipads, while Arthur and I are confronted with the challenge of a scrambled keyboard :P. So forgive me if I spell "zou" instead of "you"

A token of the fun facts of being in another country :)

Bis bald!!

Sah ein knab ein roslein.....again....Sah ein knab ein roslein....again.. The Germans are loving Röslein and we keep singing it for them. We have another Rotary presentation tonight where we will perform again. I think we should sign a contract. Today I was at a vocational visit at VR Bank in Neumünster.
My vocational host took me to lunch and then to see my host parents at their work place, Media Markt (equivalent of Best Buy in America). There are so many things I have never seen therefore I have taken over 1200 pictures. Schleswig-Holstein is so beautiful and the friends and family's here have greeted us every step of the way with open arms and tried to make us feel like we are at home. So many thanks already, so much fun, and a time we will never forget....to be continued.
 

Bowling in Flensburg



Rathaus in Hamburg




Kinka, Maren, Agus and Ashley having dinner before the District Conference



Röslein performance at District Conference

Lunch break from vocational day in Neumünster

Feeling rested and ready to tackle our last few weeks. Our trip has been extraordinary, our hosts are beautiful families with much to share about culture and their way of life. My visits to local schools never cease to amaze me. Children are the same all over the world, and in the hands of these talented and caring teachers, they will succeed in all their future endeavors. How is every village more beautiful than the next?
~Myles

Amazing what a good night's sleep and a little R&R will do. Everyone looked and sounded much better today. The District Conference dinner last night was very long. The food was good and we enjoyed sitting with our new Bordesholm hosts, but the speeches were very long and needless to say, our German isn't good enough for us to understand what is being said. We had a piano player to accompany us with Röslein and I think we sang well, but the hall was so big we couldn't hear much of the audience singing with us. But we could see lots of smiling faces and DG Wolfgang Mueller-Michaelis was visibly emotional when he thanked us afterward. He said "I so wanted my American friends to be here this evening because I was so moved when I heard their presentation in Husum and their song." I guess it was worth staying. Here is the team waiting to go to dinner last night at the Conference.

And here is one of my favorite guest's at todays birthday barbecue

Feeling like a new person after finally getting to sleep in. Rotary distrct conference in Hamburg was last night and didn't get to my host families house until 1am. I was "resting my eyes" on the drive home. In Bordesholm, Germany with my host family. Just had macchiato and cake! Leaving for Lawrence Furbish's birthday BBQ soon. Now that we have internet we should be posting more pictures and blogging soon :) Tschüss

All of our German friends keep asking "why aren't you blogging" and the answer is, we have not had any Internet for a week. Today we are in Hamburg for the District Conference and finally can make a new entry. The week has been fantastic but now we are all experiencing "overload." So many new people and places! Plön was beautiful and our hosts were all great. We saw a gorgeous country estate of Price Hesse, visited the Plön Castle, had a short but fascinating visit to Lübeck, and visited a Museum in what used to be East Germany which showed what the old Iron Curtain was like. Next it was on to Otterndorf where we were finalize able to stay together in the same place; that was nice. We had vocational days, traveled to a moor for a nature lecture, unfortunately all in German, but the scenery was beautiful and our hosts translated some of it. The next day was excellent with a tour of a Naval Air Base, a visit to a Air Museum featuring Zeppelins, and a visit to the Emigrants Museum in Bremerhaven. Our host Hans-Peter Weber took us for a swim, bought us pizza, and left us alone for the evening. What a nice man! Today was very long - getting up very early, a train ride to Hamburg (without coffee!!!), the team walked around Hamburg and I spent time at the Conference. We ate lunch with the outgoing German team and Wolfgang Janus and did our presentation this afternoon. We got a chance to relax and will be attending the festivities tonight before moving on to Bordesholm sometime late.

The old Iron Curtain.

On the Moor.

Honest, we have been so busy the last few days we have had no time to Blog. (Or we would have been blogging after two in the morning.) Our wonderful hosts in Flensburg have created a fantastic program for us. I feel like I can't describe it all and yet it is hard to know what to leave out. I guess one of the real highlights was the Nautical Simulator at the Maritime Center of the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences. This is used to train captains, pilots and other large ship officers. We climbed into a room that was like the bridge of a large freighter (They have 6 in all and split us into two groups on two ships.) It had controls and displays like a real ship and you looked at computer-generated screens that made it look like you were at sea. That had us take control and maneuver the ships into the harbor and locks, so you were steering and engaging the throttle. There were other moving ships to contend with, both large and small, and various other hazards. It started out calm and then conditions started to change with fresher seas, then dark clouds then bigger waves until suddenly these enormous waves were breaking over the ship and somehow, using the video display that made you feel that the ship was rolling and tossing in the sea - some people had to leave the room because they started to feel sea sick. Even though you knew it was only a simulation, you couldn't help feeling just a bit nervous. It was fantastic. I don't have the best picture of the rough sea now but you can get an idea and maybe we can post a better picture later. Later that day we have a great time bowling and eating pizza then the "kids" went out to a disco and the old team leader home for a quiet drink with his hosts and bed. Maren Weiße  joined us and it was great to see her. Yesterday we had a very interesting tour of Glücksburg Castle and ride over the border so we can say we were in Denmark. (The Danish hotdog with the traditional toppings was fabulous. Last night Eric and Ursula hosted a "Munich" dinner and evening and we stayed up until One AM drinking and singing. Franziska's husband Toby plays a mean piano, Erick played guitar, accordion, harmonica, and percussion. And Arthur blew us away with his hot guitar playing. What a great night. This morning Ich bin ein Schlafmütze (sleepyhead).

Ashley and I getting ready to chow down during our visit to Schleswig.

Eric took me to Schleswig for a great visit with my good friend Claus Nielsky.

A shower during our walk around the nature preserve at Holnis.

Ashley in front of Glücksburg Castle.

Agus and her host mother Maren in Denmark.

And now today we move on to Plön!!!!