Posted on: September 14th 2023

Town Twinning Visit To Bad MÃ¼nstereifel

A week ago, I was standing knee deep in cold water, trying "stork walking" alongside the mayors of Ashford, Bad Münstereifel and Fougères.

The first time I had heard of the twinning between Bad Münstereifel and Ashford was two months previously, when I was invited to go on a trilingual trip to the German town. I learned that Ashford was twinned with both Bad Münstereifel in Germany, and Fougères in France, a place I was already familiar with after communicating with my pen pal in French lessons.

Over the summer, I worked together with four other students from my school on a presentation for the approaching trip. Our topic was "environmental sustainability " in Ashford and we had to prepare a speech we would be giving to the mayors of the three towns. When we returned to school after the summer holidays we had just over a week to prepare the final touches - and to learn our scripts in all three languages!

It seemed like hardly any time to pack and prepare before it was the morning of the 14 September, and the five of us, along with two teachers, were waiting in the chilly air at the Ashford Stour Centre to board the coach. It was then that we met over twenty members from the Ashford Twinning Association, who would also be coming with us on the trip, and we all boarded the coach together.

We drove to Dover and crossed to Calais via the Channel Tunnel. Upon arriving in France, we had a six-hour long drive which was broken up with two stops, one in France and one in Belgium. We ate our lunch and purchased the very first souvenirs of our trip, including some delicious Belgian chocolates.

It was 5.30 when we arrived in the car park in Bad Münstereifel. By some surprising coincidence, we managed to arrive at the exact same time as the French coach and we were immediately greeted by the German members of the twinning delegation. We were introduced to the host families who we were going to be staying with - it was slightly daunting to meet so many people at once and be speaking a foreign language, but everyone was very friendly and understanding of the language barriers.

Following the initial introductions, we walked to the nearby Realschule of Bad Münstereifel. We had a tour of the school, which was very interesting as the Realschule and the Hauptschule are connected together in different parts of the same building. There was a buffet of food and drink provided and we all received badges with our name and country on them.

After this we went to the house of the host family we were staying with. The family my friend and I were staying with was located in one of the smaller villages close to Bad Münstereifel. The village was very pretty and even contained a small castle that we walked past on our way to get ice cream in the evening.

On Friday morning, all of the students from Ashford met again in the Realschule and we joined in with the German students for the first lesson of their day. For me, this meant that I was in a German lesson. It was a completely different style of lesson to what I was used to in England and I really appreciated the chance to see the differences between the English and German school system.

After the first lesson was over at 9.00 we were taken to the Europa Platz near the centre of Bad Münstereifel. Here everyone from the three town twinning delegations was gathered. First we were formally welcomed to Bad Münstereifel, and then they explained some of Bad Münstereifel's efforts to become more environmentally sustainable over the past few years as this was the topic for our meeting over the weekend. All of this information was relayed to us first in German, but then also translated into English and French for the benefit of those in the group who didn't understand German.

We spent the rest of the morning on a tour of the town, as well as learning to play games such as boules. During the tour of the town, we learned about the effects of the flood which had taken place in Bad Münstereifel a few years before. We were also shown photos of the measures taken to repair the damaged buildings and roads; for example, the cobblestones on the roads were replaced with smoother stones that make the high street more accessible for people with disabilities. After being supplied with freshly baked pretzels, we went to try the Kneipp bath. I had never heard of a Kneipp bath before arriving in Bad Münstereifel, yet the town would soon have two functioning Kneipp baths in use. Kneipp was founded by the German priest Sebastian Kneipp in the mid-1800s. Sebastian Kneipp suffered from tuberculosis. However, he recovered and believed this was due to the cold-water treatment that he performed regularly. Kneipp is said to improve you circulation, as well as your metabolism. In Bad Münstereifel we all took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our trousers and began walking in a large but shallow basin of water. The water felt freezing, but was actually around 18°C - it was definitely awakening and refreshing.

In the afternoon, the whole twinning delegation from each town drove to Effelsberg, where we had lunch. I didn't initially spot the Radioteleskop in the valley immediately below us, which is a difficult feat considering its size. The telescope has a diameter of 100 metres across, as we found out soon after lunch, and is able to detect a pebble sized object as far away as the moon! We also got to see the entire telescope turn around towards us, which was very impressive. After this, we also had a talk on the topic of pollution in the night sky, and what we can do in order to minimise our effect on our surroundings.

I spent the rest of Friday evening back at the house of my host family. My friend and I were served a traditional German dinner which involved Rotkohl (red cabbage), and lots of potatoes. It was delicious and a change to what I typically eat in England.

On Saturday morning, five of us arrived early at the Realschule in order to practise for the presentation. We were nervous to begin with but it helped to be able to practise on the stage with the microphone. Our presentation was on the topic of environmental sustainability in Ashford and in England as a whole. We spoke of the initiatives currently going on in our school such as the eco club and the new building project. I had to speak in both French and German which was quite nerve-wracking. The schools representing Fougères and Bad Münstereifel also had to give a speech, and it was nice to get to know the other students.

After the student presentations, the mayors from each town also spoke about their plans for the future and thanked us for coming to Bad Münstereifel. We spent the rest of the afternoon with our host families doing activities in the town. In my case, my friend and I chose to visit a Wild Park nearby where we got to feed lots of different types of animals.

On Sunday, the students from our school all met up in Bonn together with our host families. Bonn was very interesting to look around as it used to be the capital of Germany and therefore has lots of traditional architecture and old churches. We went to the museum of German history, which contains the country's history from 1945 to the present day. We also had a tour of Bonn, including a cathedral, delicious ice cream and a brief stop outside the house where Beethoven once lived.

We concluded our trip on Sunday evening when everyone from the three town delegations met up in a restaurant in the centre of Bad Münstereifel. All of the students from the three schools sat together on a table, and we managed to get on well through a mixture of the different languages.

We returned to the car park where we had first arrived on Monday morning and said goodbye to the French and German delegations.

I really enjoyed the whole experience. Danke schön for giving us this wonderful opportunity!

Account written by Johanna, Year 11