Zespol Szkol Urszulanskich in Rybnik
Zespol Szkol Urszulanskich in Rybnik
The school is a catholic secondary school, which is led by Ursuline sisters. The sisters take care of the school and some of them are also teachers. But the school has got secular teachers, too. The patroness of this school is St. Ursula. Here is some more information about the school:
- At 7:50 students and teachers have a meeting in the assembly hall or in the chapel where they pray together and where announcements are made and then the students go to their classes.
- At 11.20 there is a break in which the students go to the cafeteria and have some tea with their sandwiches.
- In the afternoon the students can choose between many different art classes.
- The rooms are very well equipped and there is a computer in each class, there is also a language lab with an interactive board, which makes work more efficient.
- Students have to wear uniforms and they wear them with pleasure
- The students are proud that they can go to this school.
The Workshops
The workshops
We had two really interesting workshops: first we got to know the dancing teacher and he rehearsed a modern dance with us. We had to work in pairs. It was great because so we got to know each other much better right at the beginning of the trip. The dance was quite complicated and we had to work very hard, but in the end we were all proud of what we had learned within such a short time. One of the Polish students filmed the workshop and we saw the film on our last day at the school.
The second workshop started at the end of the first day at school. We went to an art classroom where we were shown some figures made of plastic wrap. After a short introduction we started to make such a figure ourselves.
When the Polish group had been in Bochum our topic had been "heroes". So the idea of the Polish colleagues was to create a figure with characteristics of several heroes. It was supposed to become a mixture of Einstein, Beckenbauer, Gutenberg ,Tell and Roentgen.
So first of all the different parts of the body had to be constructed.
We wrapped tape around parts of the body of different boys of our group. Then we had to cut it and to stuff the body with paper. The next day we started painting it. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time, so the teachers finished it. The figure was dressed up and given a name: Einauer Telgenberg. It was a lot of fun and I am glad that our exchange students have the figure as a memory of us. I wish them a beautiful new school year!!!
Alyssa Schade (9/5)Wieliczka
Wieliczka
When we were in Poland we also visited the salt mine Wieliczka . We went there with our teacher Mrs. Wülfing. First we had to descend to the first sole. The visit lasted two hours and we walked about three kilometres . Our guide showed us the very impressive chapel and said that this chapel is over 100m under the earth's surface.
The taps are often very strangely formed. They are out of pure salt. In early times the gained salt was transported by human beings themselves, but from the beginning of the 17th century usually horses and machines transported it. From the 14th until the 16th century the salt trade made out a third of the total government's income.
Nowadays the salt mine is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Poland. The salted air is also very healthy for people who have problems to breathe and allergies.
We were allowed to lick the salt from the walls, everywhere except in the chapel. In the end we entered a very small elevator, which brought us back to the surface very quickly.
I had a lot of fun during our visit and it was very interesting for me to learn so much about the salt mine and its history!
Umut Tasar (9/5)Krakow
Krakow
At the end of March the exchange trip to Poland took place. On one of the four days we visited the city of Krakow. It was a sunny and warm day in southern Poland. We reached the city with a small, comfortable minibus and parked it in one of the many side streets. I immediately noticed the large number of churches that seem to play a much bigger role in Poland. The streets were clean and gave a proper impression. We visited the famous Collegium Maius.
In this guided tour we were made familiar with the history and daily life of the university. The rooms were for their age, still in a very good shape and the guide was able to give us an interesting overview of the early atmosphere in these rooms. The whole interior of the building was very classy. The rooms were furnished with old, large bookshelves that contained many old books written by former scientists, mathematicians, geographers and other professors. This university was the home of many famous scientists. Despite its bad experiences at the time of National Socialism, the university is still well preserved and the visit is worthwhile.
After the tour we went to the large market square (Rynek Glowny). When we reached this, we were immediately overwhelmed by the large number of tourists. Even if there were many pigeons, the ground was very clean. The whole market was full of market stalls, which sold souvenirs from Poland. The yellow umbrellas of the stalls stood out against the masses of tourists. You were greeted warmly there and the sellers made good prices. This motivated us to buy a large number of souvenirs. Our luggage was filled with Polish flags and T-shirts.
Our group got about two hours of free time in which we could visit the city. On our way to Wawel Hill, we saw many shops and tried to resist the good prices. But in some stores we couldn't resist any longer and so we brought some T-shirts and flags. It was quite a long way up the hill but it was worthwhile, because the castle and cathedral on the hill are very impressive and you have got an incredible view over the city from there. We stayed up there for a while and saw the beautiful buildings. Then we took a walk around the walls of the castle and we finally took some pictures in front of the statue of the Dragon of Krakow.
After having had an ice cream, we headed to the bus that took us back to Rybnik.
Nathan Kuriewicz (9/5)
Auschwitz
Auschwitz
Our group also made a day trip to Auschwitz. When we went to the concentration camp by bus everybody thought about what would happen there and what we were going to experience. Everbody was very nervous. We arrived there with very bad feelings.
First we watched a film that provided us with some background information about Auschwitz. After having watched the film we visited the real ground where all the terrible events had happened. The first sentence we saw were the famous cynical words„Arbeit macht frei" at the entrance. Then we got deeper into the history. We saw all the houses where the prisoners lived, worked and suffered. It was horrible to see all the rooms with the history of so many people who were killed. In one room we saw all the documents and how the people came to Ausschwitz; in another room we saw the hair and the shoes of all these victims. We saw the „bunker" without any daylight and so many different rooms with other functions. One of the most horrible rooms was of course the crematory where all the corpses were burned.
All in all it was shocking but worthwhile to visit the concentration camp and it made us think about how lucky we are to live in such a safe, democratic Europe.
Samy Snita (Jahrgangsstufe 11)