I spent three weeks of my last summer holidays in England. I did it because I'm interested in English and English speaking countries. That's why I informed myself how I could find out more about different ways of life. I wanted to know if it really rains in England every day and if they really drink tea all day. One day I went to a fair, where they presented exchange stundents programs and things like this. It sounds boring, but it was really interesting. I was interested in going to every place they showed there, but of course that isn't possible. I wanted to be in England, but not for a whole year. There were many companies and towns, which you can choose. I decided for the Carl Duisburg Company and York, because it's a tiny company and they mix the nationalities and don't send just one nationality to one town like other companies. It was a great choice. Three weeks without somebody I knew in England. My host family was a nice elderly couple and my host sister was a Spanish girl at my age. She was called Patricia.

I went to a School of English called the Melton College. It maybe sounds boring, but it was great to learn more about England's and also other countries' ways of life.

There were many young people from all over the world.

The teachers were young and open, the lessons interesting (also Grammar!) and everyone respected each other, which is important when so many cultures meet. The lessons were Vocabulary & Grammar, Reading & Speaking and Listening & Writing. On the first day you had to do an English test so they knew how good your English was and put you into a class with people at your level. So you don’t have to be afraid of being the worst one in your class, because you go there to improve your English. Every afternoon the school organised activities like football, a tour through the town etc. But it was also nice to go shopping there, drink a coffee or just talk - in English of course. On Saturdays the whole school went on trip to a town, for example Whitby. These trips were the highlight of the week. On last Saturday we had a disco. After the three weeks I flew home knowing much about other countries, friends from all over the world, and of course better English.

P.J.O.

On 24th September 2010 the minister for culture Prof. Dr. Brigitta Wolf was at our school. She has been on duty since this summer and wants to get to know some different schools. One of them was our school the "Europagymnasium Walther Rathenau".

Brigitta Wolf, Landrat Mr Schulze and the chairwoman of the parents’ council did a tour through the schoolhouse and the schoolyard.

Important places, which they visited, were the hall -our Aula- and the lecture room 340. In the hall the theatre group of Mrs Lorenz performed a play and in the lecture room 340 they talked ab out "Promotour futurego” a business-plan competition in of the University of Halle.

More about their experience with the minister you can read in 4FUN.