Almost Out of Here

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005 - 1830
Ilfeld, Germany
Day 43

(I usually don't update in rapid succestion. But I just wrote another brief post right below this one.)

My time in Ilfeld is almost over. We have a full day tomorrow, then we depart for Halle early Thursday. For some reason we have another meeting there, then we are finally released on Friday morning. Then my travels begin once more. I'll be stopping over in Berlin for the afternoon, I imagine, then I'll be continuing on into Poland for a little while. The rest of this week is going to be pretty busy, so I'm not exactly sure when i'll be able to get onto a computer next.

The second half of the project has been a little more complicated. Since the introduction of Hohegeiß, our western partner village, it's been quite hard to manage our time between them and Ilfeld. Getting them to mix has been quite hard, as well. The westerners want us to hang out in Hohegeiß, while the easterners generally don`t want to bother leaving Ilfeld. The westerners have been dwindling in number as well. Not because they (necessarily) don't like us, but most of them are on vacation. We're down to just two: a brother and sister pair.

Sunday was quite strange. On the way back from one of our group outings we stopped by "Pullman City," a recreated American town from the wild west. Saloons, horses, sheriffs, the whole sha-bang. Germans, for some reason, have a fascination with the American west. I hope they realize, though, that things have changed since then. My guess is that about 150 years ago we exchanged Pullman City with Leavenworth. That seems fair.

It was tacky beyond words. But it was so overdone that it was awesome. It was really weird, too, because for some reason there were a whole bunch of Confederate flags flying all over the place. Of course the ol' Stars n' Stripes was flown in abundance, but it was one of those things that makes you do a long double-take.

We spent most of yesterday in Hohegeiß finishing our beautification project. Afterwards we went to a small folk festival (just think of a County Fair in a town of 900 people, and of course: all German, all the time). That was a lot more fun than I expected. One of our two western youths knows the mayor, so when we ran into him at the festival, he came over and made friendly with us. He bought us all a round of beers, which was nice of him. Afterwards, we asked our youths if they knew any other mayors that would buy us another round. One of them tried actually had the number of the mayor of the next town over in his cell phone. He called him for us, but sadly, no one answered.

Unfortunately, that's all for now. I have to get back to the house. We have some work that we have to get done before we leave. Also, my German exchange parents (from my high school program) are coming over for dinner tonight!

I'd like to write more about my time in Ilfeld in general. Hopefully I can get away at some point in Halle or in Berlin and take some time to write down some concluding thoughts.

Til sometime!

-ben