We have arrived!

April 14, 2011

It has been a couple of busy and exciting days for our GSE team. After our 14 hours of travel we were greeted by friendly smiles in Germany. Jurgen, our coordinator for the week and Andrea, the President of Rotary Konstanz-Rheintor, met us at the airport to take us to our first meeting. The meeting was held in German. Fortunately for our team, we had a German Rotarian at our table to translate for us!

We had a little surprise as the local newspaper met us after the meeting to take our picture and interview a team member. To the reporters surprise, we had our very own reporter on our team, who then interviewed him as well! The next day, we woke up to our picture being in the paper! It only took our team one day to become celebrities here!

Over the past few days we have spent time touring the beautiful city of Konstanz, spent quality time with our families, and have enjoyed getting to know the local Rotarians. We have met with the City managers and have discussed the differences and similarities between politics, budgets, voting, and overall city governance.

Today, has been quite amazing as we all went our separate directions for our vocational studies. We really enjoyed discussing our own professions with our counterparts here locally.

Tonight, we had our first presentation at the Rotary Club. We all did well with our German and they really enjoyed the video that Shane put together for our Team.

I can truly say that the hospitality, experience, and food in Germany have all been wonderful!