50/50 and Keeping Warm

HAMBURG........Night Life with the Beatles in Hamburg! Regina (NY), Rick(VA), Nicole (PA) and Ben (AZ)
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But school comes first...

Ways to Save MONEY! This school uses solar panels and encourages students to ride bikes to school.

Monday, July 4- Happy Independence Day!
This morning, we headed off to the city state of Hamburg. We started the day at 9 am with a meeting at the Behorde Fur Schule Und Berufsbildung. This school did not have any children in it as school had just started the summer break (even though it was not very summer feeling). This school is part of the Department for Schools and Vocational Training. They have this very cool "FIFTY/FIFTY" project. The project contributes to environmental protection in three ways...the fifty/fifty teaches pupils a responsible approach to energy, water and waste. From an ecological standpoint, fifty/fifty makes a concrete contribution to climate protection by reducing CO2 emissions in schools. Here is the cool part...If the participants (the school) do a good job of saving energy by using solar panels, reducing the use of paper, reducing waste, saving water and all that...the school will get to keep 50 % of the savings the school made. The school we visited saved 26,ooo euros last year. So in August, they will receive 13,000 euros. Why aren't we all doing this? PS The picture at the top is of the drawing on the girls bathroom or WC (as they say in Germany.)

Our next adventure took us into Hamburg. We did a little sightseeing and then were let loose for an hour of lunch and shopping. Pam Howard from Colorado(in the picture along with Klaus from the Goethe Institute) and Laura, also from Colorado) and I had a leisurely lunch outdoors and then I ran off to see if I could find a coat, shoes, and socks. It is cold! With half an hour, I found the socks and the coat. So, all will be well and I like the coat a lot!

Off we went to Universitat Hamburg. Dr. Johannes Meyer-Hamme talked to us about the German education system and recruited some teachers to do some research with him. He is a "regular" school teacher during the day and a professor at night. He focuses on the Didactics of Social Science Subjects.

For the Fourth of July (the first teacher we met this morning informed us that Germany also had a 4th of July ... it just wasn't an independence day...old joke). We had dinner right on the river...the restaurant was very cool and I had a pork dish with vegetables and a yummy sauce. The German restaurants tend to be very generous with their food and very conservative with their ice. I asked for a coke with ice(because you must ask for ice) and I received one ice cube!
Anyway, we have a couple of men that will put away any thing the rest of us don't finish! Little goes to waste.

We had a special treat tonight, at 10:30 PM we took the Hamburg Harbor boat cruise. We got very close to the international port where they were unloading containers. Ships must pay 20,000 euros per day to "park" at the port. So, they pay unloaders very well to get those containers off quickly. We saw the unfinished opera house ... it was too dark to get good pictures.
It was fun and I learned more about some of my TOP-mates. Picture on the boat: Nicole (PA), John (MA) and me (VA).Most of us headed back to the hotel about 12:30...others went to Reeperbaun, the St. Pauli district to see the Beatles monuments. This is the red light district of Hamburg. Our late-nighters enjoyed the sites and then came home or stayed out even later dancing and watching the sun come up. They must be much younger than me! And, they are. I enjoy their adventure stories.