In anticipation of next summers trip, and before the insanity of football and school begins, I thought I'd post a few links of Hamburg. Enjoy! The Germany Tourism Bureau's take on Hamburg The Best of Hamburg Panoramic photos of Hamburg Some Cool Pictures! [url=http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-191501748-hamburg_vacations-i-a [View Full Entry]

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First off, many apologies! This update has been WAY too slow in coming to fruition! It's been a crazy week and a half for me since coming home. The very next day I found myself at youth football camp coaching up the kids. That went all week before it was on to announcing high school baseball games over the weekend. But no excuses! Note: Congratulations go to Max and Bailey for winning the inaugural "Amazing Race: Hamburg"! Their exemplary efforts were rewarded with sweet Hamburg lanyards! Attached are some assorted pictures that were emailed but never posted here. Most were taken [View Full Entry]

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This will be a short one as I am in between activities here. Here are a few pics from the goodbye's and the trip home. I will post a more in depth look at this soon, but for now, enjoy. Lots of tears in Hamburg and a bit of shut eye on the flight... Many more pics and vid to come... keep checking back over the next few days! [View Full Entry]

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As cheesy as it sounds, it seems like only yesterday that we all met at Hanhoopsfeld School on a bright and sunny afternoon for the welcome dinner. Now, three short weeks later, we met at Anne-Catrine's house on a showery cool evening for the farewell dinner. We all slept in the day after returning from our overnight adventure that provided very little or no sleep at all. The longest that I heard of from the kids was 8pm to 10am, a solid 14 hours. The mood was festive at the start with the students hanging out upstairs. The flash of cameras [View Full Entry]

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Lübeck... Lübeck is a very cool town that just screams medieval times. The old town where we were is situated on an island. There are incredible oxidized church towers rising above you wherever you turn and look. There is a great central square where the street market takes place daily with vendors selling all sorts of wares and fresh food. Seemingly every street off the one main road is paved in old cobble stone with a maze of tiny cobbled alleys running from it. We arrived by train at about 10:30 and proceeded to Holsten Gate, a mini castle like structure [View Full Entry]

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I think that filling everyone in on today's events would be prudent as I am without any doubt that there will be plenty to share from our impending trip to Lübeck. So, here goes... Today was the las day of school for the students of Hanhoopsfeld. As such, the students were a bit excited and ready to get out of there. This being said, they were engaged and interested as our brilliant students presented their PowerPoint presentations. Presentations on American sports and Halloween were amazing! From there, Heidi and I took our kids to our favorite local Gellateria for some eis. [View Full Entry]

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Today was Heide-Park.... and it was pretty darn sweet! We met at the school at 8 and departed on a very nice charter bus for the 45 minute trip south to the park. The weather was pretty good really, overcast and around 70 with no real rain. The park itself was much bigger and more elaborate than I had imagined. You can view the park web site here : . Just click on the Union Jack on the right for an English version. The park features several very impressive rollercoasters including the "Colossos" which has the steepest drop of any wooden [View Full Entry]

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(Depending on your browser and connection, the video may or may not play. Please let me know if you have any trouble! Either send me a message, post a comment or email me directly.) This particular video will play sideways as that is how it was shot and I don't have access to any video editing programs here. Our students were quite busy Wednesday evening. A solid group went for a tour of Hamburg SV stadium (the local pro soccer club), and others were packed with other plans. Poor Jeff though was without anything to do. I had received an offer [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a great trip to the nearby town of Bergedorf. While there, we toured a castle, walked through the woods, stopped to play a bit, smapled the fare at a local street market, and thew kids shopped to their hearts content. We left in a sort of Seattle rain, more of a mist really. By the time we stepped off of the train in Bergedorf, it had stopped. We first stopped at a very old church for a look around at the old architecture and painting inside. After that, when we popped up to the castle, it was already [View Full Entry]

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Here are some of the accounts written by our students of their weekend with their host families. I will post more as I get them, but this should be a good start. I just thought it would be fun for you to be able to see what all of the kids are up to over here. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Over the weekend I did a lot of swimming. On Saturday we went swimming for six hours at ,,Die Insel'' with Shelby and Maren. On Sunday we went to the Baltic Sea with Shelby and Maren. When we got there we went swimming at [View Full Entry]

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