Thursday 18th February

Visit to Essen. The day started on the bus with students singing happy birthday in six languages for Linda from the Netherlands whose birthday is today. First stop was the Ruhr Museum.

From the webpage:  

The Ruhr Museum at the Zollverein Coal Mine is not an industrial museum, but a new type of regional museum. An integrative concept combines natural and cultural history, showcasing the entire history of the Ruhrgebiet, from the formation of coal 300 million years ago to the current structural change towards the Ruhr Metropolis.

After this we went to the University of Essen, where Prof Alexander Schmidt from the Department of City Planning and Urban Design gave a talk about the Development of the city of Essen, focusing on the period after 1945.

Presenting findings at the museum: Spanish students

Presenting findings: Norwegian students

Presenting findings: Dutch students

Ammonites

The outside of the museum

The sun came out finally

 

Wednesday 17th February

Visit to Münster. Today's trip was a visit to Münster, about an hour's coach ride from Rees. First stop was a photo outside the town hall, before we went inside to visit the Peace Hall where the Peace of Münster was written in 1648. We also visited the Stadtmuseum to learn about the Development of Münster from its early days as Mimigernaford through the Medieval period and into the 20th Century. The City was destroyed during the Second World War and has been reconstructed in the same style.



Group Picture outside the town hall

Inside the Peace hall

The town hall from the outside

Visiting St Lambert's Church With its Cages for the Anabaptists

Tuesday February 16th

Today we had a day at Gymnasium Aspel. The students had prepared a presentation about the history of their city. They had looked at different periods that were important for the city's history and focused on buildings, inhabitants, citizenship and safety/defence. Each country presented the history of their cities for the whole group.


The Norwegian students talk about Oslo
 

Spanish students talk about Ibiza City

The German students talk about Rees

 

 

After these presentations, the students worked in groups and compared the five cities. They looked at inhabitants, buildings, citizenship and safety/defence. They made posters about this.

Students present posters about inhabitants in the different cities

Buildings in the different cities

Citizenship
 

First day of the meeting in Rees, Germany

After traveling on Sunday, all the countries in the Project fianlly met up in Rees. Our students met their host families, and went to their homes in Rees for a good night's sleep.

The following day, we met up in school to go through with the first day of the project.

The students were divided into mixed groups to get to know each other, and present their families and home city to one another.

Later in the day, we all went on an excursion to Xanten where we visited an archeological site which showed a Roman city near the river Rhine.

Waiting for the guide at the park, sheltered from the East wind

In the bath house with our guide

The ampitheatre

After the visit to the Roman archaeological park, we walked into the centre of Xanten to eat lunch. Refreshed and a little warmer, we walked around Xantern and the German students told us about different buildings in the city.