By Margrit Zinggeler
Four EMU German students, Casey Ahlbrandt (Business German minor), Corman Cabose (LIT German) Brendan Keely (German/History), Jonathan Strelczuk (LIT German) traveled individually to Germany and met with Prof. Margrit Zinggeler in the most famous brewery “Kneipe”, the Urige (http://www.uerige.de/start/) , on July 3. We had prepared for the program during winter semester and now it has become reality and we all made it safely to Duesseldorf and the students practiced their German along the way. We embarked on a Rhine-River cruise (see photo) and enjoyed a pizza dinner – Duesseldorf style (see photo). On Monday morning, July 4, while you back home celebrated Independence Day, our students sweated taking the difficult, grammar based placement test (see photo). The afternoon reward was getting up to Rhine-Tower for a stunning view over Duesseldorf and in the evening there was a party for all incoming international students. Classes, held at different locations in Duesseldorf, began on Tuesday: every day from 9:00am to 1:00pm is now class. In the afternoon of July 5, we visited together the Baroque Benrath Castle. The following day, after class, we took the train to Köln (Cologne) to visit the most stunning cathedral in the world which is practically on the steps of the main station. We climbed the over 150 m church tower while and admired the treasure exhibition and then enjoyed the most delicious German Mettwurst-dinner, with an unbelievable Sauerkraut and the best mashed potatoes we ever had, all of course with the famous Kölsch! (see photo). During the week that Prof. Zinggeler was in Duesseldorf, we walked all over the Altstadt, visited many churches and monuments, and of course the famous Heinrich Heine Museum. The university is named after the famous writer Heinrich Heine who was born in Duesseldorf. On Sunday, July 10, a bus brought us to Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Well, it’s on the program of the IIK (our university affiliated German language school). It gave us a European (and notorious) perspective of an old city. By now the students are already experienced travelers, can communicate in German in any situation and on their own for the rest of the month. Then they travel to Berlin and have two more weeks of intensive German courses while exploring the most interesting and beautiful city in Europe! The students live in Duesseldorf with families and in Berlin a dorm is more practical. They all fell in love with German culture and they work on a video project for EMU-German-American Day 2011: “Komm mit nach Deutschland!”
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