My First Exchange in 1981

I was 29 years old. Ann and I took our first exchange group to Germany. The sign they made was incredible, displaying a Welsh dragon. The parents were fantastic and made the trip a success for our students. Both the excitement of parents and students alike made the trip so much fun.

The picture is from Bahnhof Zoo in Berlin. When you walked into that station or came out of it after exiting a train, you saw interesting things. It is how I picture hell: drug addicts, thieves, prostitutes. And that is during the daytime.

Berlin, however, is also full of fantastic memories. The Doppeldecker Bus or double-decker as we called it was fun for all of us to ride in as a group. A spiral stair brought you to an upper deck of seats with a low ceiling. In some parts of Berlin with many trees, you could hear branches slide over the top as the bus went from stop to stop. I rode with students. The bus driver, who had a mirror like a periscope, did not like having young students up there, because youths were the ones who scrawled graffiti all over the bus and ripped the seats.

This first group of Americans was an incredible bunch of kids. I will never forget them and their excitement of being in Germany. It was a great exchange, but my lack of experience prevented me from traveling like I did at the end of my teaching career.