by Rudi Floren (BvA)

On the 5th evening of our Comenius meeting, after we had visited Warszawa, we drove to a  very off-lying garden of one of the Polish students (in the middle of “the Pampa”) . It took several minutes to arrive at the garden. Over paved roads, and  sand.   A lot of sand.

The fire was burning as we arrived after the funny drive. We set up some seats so we could sit around the bonfire. Mrs. Ambrosiak, the Polish teacher, served some Polish sausages with long pickers, so that we could grill the sausages on the fire.
The sausages were tasty and the bread and drinks, too. It was really hot. The group communication on this evening was better than on the other days. We have talked with more Polish guys and we had a lot of fun together.

In these two hours we made communication with the Polish people. After that we drove home.

The way BACK!…

was very funny too. Our car was overcrowded, one Polish girl was left at the garden and our car for 5 people with 5 people already in it had to give her a ride. We drove through very bumpy streets, built only with sand.

Many people think athletics is not for them, because they would rather go for a group sport, but since I have done athletics for over eight years I can say you aren’t lonesome at all!

Athletics is a group sport, even if you do mostly single disciplines. There are workouts you need in each discipline and they are usually gone through with the whole group.

When I was 9, I went to training for the first time  and I was lovingly received by the others. At that time it was more about fun than success. We were a large group that sometimes also met off the practise and did something together.

After a few years it was more about success and the group dwindled. Now we were still a little group, we always trained together and went to all the competitions together. During training we laughed a lot and we met not only for training and we became very good friends.

Even in a contest, where we were actually competitors, we were clearly a team and were always together. We always supported and congratulated  each other on our victories, and encouraged each other when things were not like we wanted. Even if it was not going so well for yourself, you were happy for the others and celebrated with them.

I would say that the competition brought us even closer together, because if someone was injured or delivered ​​a bad performance, we were always there for each other and taught ourselves to laugh again. In addition, there is also the team score and the relay races in which you are competing as a team and succeed or fail together.

Even with those sports clubs, which we clearly see as our competitors usually, we have come to establish friendly relations. So we inform each other about competitions one club has missed,  laugh a lot together and always congratulate the other clubs to successful performances at competitions.

Athletics is boring and always the same? Absolutely not! Depending on the discipline, there are very different techniques which take differently long to learn. For the last two years I – for example – was mostly into shot put. You are not only in the ring all the time, pushing one “ball” after another, but you also do a lot of sprinting, jumping, improving your strength and much more.
Within these two years I have changed the technique three times, each of the three has taken its time and concentration, since they are sometimes very difficult to bring to perfection.

In addition, I also trained – “by the way” – for all other disciplines, but mainly for high jump and throwing the discus because I’ve done those in competitions.

Even if I had a lot of fun competing, I must admit that you need strong nerves for this. You have to cope with the expectations that you and your coach put into yourself . Because if you do not show the performance you  have expected, the coach is not the “nice guy”, and it also frustrates yourself.

However, if you look for a sport where you can prove your own ability to perform well and  also have fun and team spirit, you are exactly right at athletics.

Recently, German politicians decided to shut down all nuclear power plants until 2022. 7 of our oldest reactors are brought down now. The rest will follow between 2015 and 2022.

The whole story started as the dramatic catastrophe in Japan happened. Many German activists saw new ways to enforce their sakes. The problem was, no-one knew how the hole in the Germans’ energy need should be filled. The first answer was: renewable energies.

But how? To fill the hole we have to invest a lot of money to build wind or water turbines. Or rather solar pannels? All these techniques are not yet as efficient as nuclear power.

The other problem is that the more effective off-shore wind turbines are only buildable in the north of Germany. But the energy network is not  extended enough from the north of Germany to the south. We have to build 3600 km of new power lines. This is very expensive.

A new problem is that these power lines don’t pop up out of the ground in one second. It is a process. As long as we don’t upgrade the equipment we are dependent on energy from our neighbours.

But is that the solution?
France produces a lot more energy by nuclear power. Some reactors are placed near our border, in the middle of an earthquake region.

And Romania has built a new nuclear power plant …… yes, .. in the middle of an earthquake region.
Some of the German nuclear power plants were safer than those earthquake endangered reactors!!!

It is a vicious circle. We want to get rid of nuclear power because of its risks, but now the risk is – in some ways in the next years – higher than before.

We will see what the future will bring.

Sport is one of the most famous way of spending free time in our school. It’s very important for young people’s health and mental condition.

Our students take part in many competitions and they attend many extra ordinary lessons after school. They devote their time for improving their sport skills. Also our teachers commit themselves to training pupils.

We have 3 school representations: volleyball team, football team and basketball team. They achieve many successes in regional competitions. Our biggest achievement is the fact that we have been champions in our region for 7 years in volleyball and basketball as well.

We are proud of our sportsmen and we wish them more and more success.

Euro 2012 is  organised in Poland for the first time. As we all know it’s associated with many changes and improvements in our country’s infrastructure.  It’s  a great opportunity to promote our country in the world. It is  also a great entertainment for football supporters.

The sports stadiums are being built in Gdańsk, Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław. These buildings were designed not only for sports competitions but for other kind of entertainment like concerts or shows. We also started to renovate our railway stations and airports. For example we built a new terminal in Łódź and we are building many motorways.

Euro 2012 is a chance to cooperate with neighbouring countries mainly  Ukraine. Poland and Ukraine are planning to organize  the final together. During the sport event in our country there will be about 3500 journalists who will be reporting championship for millions of people all over the world. Communication network area’s preparation are connected with cooperation with Ukraine, therefore it is a task  which must be mastered together.

On the other hand, it is a big responsibility to cope with such a duty. There are some complications with infrastructure. There are some delays, the motorways may not be built in time. Chinese consortium which is building motorways in Poland doesn’t  pay Polish subcontractors on time so they went on strike. Problems are also appearing in roads’ investments and building of National Stadium. The disparity between official work plan  and actual situation is 16 per cent. But authorities think that these problems won’t disturb in completing the task on time.

There are 361 days left to the Europe Championship and despite of some complications we hope that everything will be successful.

In April 2011 the attention of the world was focused on Japan. 25 years after Tschernobyl, another power plant catastrophe occured in Fukushima, Japan, because of a tsunami in combination with an earthquake.

For weeks the news were dominated by new reports from the nuclear power plant. The operator company TEPCO and the Japanese government gave many contradictory statements and annuled them again concerning the dimension of the catastrophe.

In Germany this catastrophe broke loose a heated discussion about energy politics. Not long ago the German government had decided in favour of a lifetime extention for the German nuclear plants.

The people in Germany are quite concerned about nuclear energy as is proven in the election results in Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. The Green Party had the highest voting results in their history.

These days German politicians discuss to reinstall the older version of energy politics which included a sooner withdrawal from the nuclear energy programme and greater sponsorship in alternative energies.

But Germany, Austria and Switzerland are the only European countries which decided to withdraw from the risky technology of nuclear energy. Also countries which just have the financial opportunities to afford nuclear power plants now try to gain profit from it. Therefore they conceal the dangers of nuclear energy.

This is the case, for example, in Belarus and Czechia where people still suffer the most from nuclear radiation. Only some people try to give the majority of the population an idea of the dangers.

In Germany at least, the catastrophe in Japan, which cost again many lives, exert  influence on politics. It is not forseeable yet in which dimension, but it happens.

When we arrived at our hostel, a great breakfast buffet was waiting for us. A large table, full of different things, as if we were royals. Even the room in which the table stood had a charme like a royal palace. That showed us how important hospitality is in Poland. We were quite surprised about it because it was the first time that we saw such hospitality. The mayor’s wife, who is very friendly and polite, accommodated us very well. Every morning we got such a great breakfast and it’s obvious that we felt very well because of the good start in the morning.

Politeness and good manners are really important to Polish people. They showed it to us in different ways, for example at the bonfire, which took place on Sunday, where the Polish people gave us dishes for eating without us having to ask for them.

When we were visiting the school in Gostynin, which is older than 100 years, some of us went upstairs, finding the music and art room and suddenly singing came out of the room. Straight away boys brought us chairs, so that we could sit and listen to the beautiful voices of the Polish students. That showed us the difference between German and Polish students. The German students would have stopped singing straight away and no thought would have come to their mind to bring us chairs.

All in all, we can sum up briefly that the Polish people are very polite and friendly and we had a very interesting and good time with them in Poland.

Płock is a city in central Poland. It was the capital city of Poland during their reign from 1079 till 1138. Płock is a city full of history, a place where you can see century-old tradition and history of state and the nation. The most important church of Płock was built in the beginning of 20^th century. It is called “Temple of Mercy and Charity “. It is located on a steep, high hill called Wzgorze Tumskie situated above the bank of the  river Vistula (German: Weichsel). This impressive, monumental building was reconstructed many times. There are relics of the following architectural periods: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Classicism. Documented historical sources present Płock as a significant, dynamic centre of politics, culture and art.

When the Polish and German students visited the city of Płock, we first walked at the market square. After walking a while  though Płock we were standing in front of the church of  Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Płock .We had a guide who showed us the treasury of the relies of the church. After that we visited the church inside and were able to see the coffin of Bolesław Krzywousty who was buried there in the 14^th century. When the guiding tour was finished,  we moved to the river Vistula. There we had a great view over the city.

The bus took us from the river Vistula to the shopping centers of Płock where we had time for shopping and to have some food. The shopping centers where  as big as those in Germany. After two hours we were taken back to our hotel by the bus.

All in all, Płock is a small old history town which was very interesting to visit.

It’s the year 2006, summer, Germany. The whole world was looking to my country. One huge event took place in the summer of 2006 in Germany: the FIFA World Championship. An event, when the whole world was looking onto Germany for a month. A world championship always has a political implication somehow. What I mean is the patriotism that you feel especially at this time. More than in “normal” times. When your country is playing, you walk around covered all over with flags tattoos or face paintings in your national colours. Usually, nearly everyone has got a flag in his window or these funny flags for the outside mirrors of his car.

Well, that’s what it is like in most of the countries, which take part in the tournament. But not in Germany. For many years it wasn’t acceptable for many Germans to show such big patriotism, because of our history. This has changed with the 2006 World Championship. Germany was a complete black-red-gold country for a whole month. Everyone was proud to show “See, I’m German and love my country.”. I mean, why shouldn’t it be okay as a German to show, that you’re proud to be German? Every time I’m in England, I can see lots and lots of English flags or the “Union Jack” in the windows, even when there is not any kind of tournament.

And I think that is okay. You should be proud of being what you are and you should be able to show it, without having a guilty conscience. You don’t do anything wrong or forbidden, do you? I’ve seen every single match of the German team on the public viewing screen in the park with thousands of other fans. Everywhere, virtually on every single square centimetre of the park, you could see flags. Not just German flags, also English, Polish or Argentinean flags, depending on what country our opponent in the match was. This was an absolutely gorgeous and overwhelming atmosphere. We were partying peacefully together with the other fans and had so much fun. No one had problems with the patriotism of other nationalities.

Nowadays, that should be normal. Even for us Germans with the load of our history. You see, the thing with history is, that it is history. We are living now and shouldn’t let us control by our history for all times. That’s why I think that it is totally correct and acceptable, that even we Germans may show our love for our country.

In this sense, we are allowed to say:

I love England

Kocham Polska

Ich liebe Deutschland

From the 8^th up to 13^th June the German Comenius group of Langenfeld had a visit to their partner city Gostynin in Poland. When we arrived at the hostel in Gostynin, I went towards my room.

But after  ten minutes, Mrs. Arnold called me and asked me to come down to her and Mrs. Śniecikowska – she is the wife of the major of Gostynin and our hostel leader.

Because my whole family is from Poland I know this language and could help to translate a few things at the morning for example when the breakfast should start. After our breakfast we went to the school, the Liceum Tadeusza Kościuszki in Gostynin and had there a German-Polish guide who showed us the school. I understood  everything the Polish students talked about  us .

On the trips to Plock, Torun and the old town of Warsaw, the Polish students got to know me better and were surprised when they heard I can speak Polish. So sometimes I had to translate  between the German and Polish students when they had problems to communicate in English.

One afternoon Mrs Arnold, Martin and I met  the mayor and his wife at the hotel by coincident and had a difficult conversation about the Polish and German school system. The conversation was very intensive and long. So I had sometimes difficulties to translate things but Martin can speak Polish too, so we helped each other and had a successful conversation.

At our last breakfast in the hotel we had a special guest, the mayor Mr. Włodzimierz Śniecikowski,  who talked to  us about the history of Gostynin  and other things. All in all my  unexpected translator job in Poland was very exciting and was a lot of fun.