My stay in Uelzen

I wil first begin by warning that these will be long posts! Most of us have not had WI-FI access combined with very busy schedules which makes for difficulties when it comes to blog posts. But Sara has done a great job on getting everyone caught up on the past few stops! Secondly, I do not have the technology for inserting pictures into my blog posts, so pictures will not be available with in the posts. I apologize. I know it adds so much to the posts. It may be possible to get Sara to upload some for me at some point. :) Thirdly, I have a few corrections to make from my Hamburg posts. Torben, who was a member of the GSE team that came to the US in April lives in Hamburg, has brought these corrections to my attention. 1) The population of Hamburg is 1.7 million 2) St. Michel is not the oldest church in Germany, but it is the largest Christian church. It also was not completely destroyed after WWII. Thank you Torben for these corrections! It must have just been a lost in translation type of confusion, but I would not want to mis-lead our readers with false information! And now for Uelzen! June 1 Before departing for Uelzen, Debby and I got up early and went for a bike ride thru the forrest with our Rotary host Horst. Actually, Horst and I rode bikes while Debby ran, which is how she received the name Debby the road runner. We went about 10K, and it was beautiful. A very good start to the day! When we arrived in Uelzen we met our home stay families. My host is Ulrike Struk, but she is judging a horse show tomorrow so I will be staying with Sara and her family for the evening. Tonight we had a tour of the University. It's a very small off site campus - think the size of Heartland Community College, but a branch of the college is in this small rural area. They were having an Alumni cook out so we had our dinner there and had a great chance to get to know our hosts. June 2 We began the day with a walking tour of Rainer and Edith's village, Barum. It is adorable! Almost every home is a restored barn. And almost all of them were designed and resrored by Rainer. As Sara said, back home we would have named the town after him. Rainer said, 'But the town is too old to change the name'. Point, Rainer. Most of these barns are from the 1600s or so - I know this because it is tradition to carve/paint the owners name and date of construction over the main entry way of the homes. I told Rainer they should name a street after him at the very least. In the afternoon Sara and Rim went to the farm, but I had my own special vocational day of sorts. I was heading to a Zumba class with instructor Karin Graaf who runs her own dance studio in Uelzen. One our way into Uelzen Rainer took me to the town of Bad Bevesen to stop at a fitness facility there. He just so happened to build this facility 10 years ago and is currently working on plans to expand. I spoke to the owner of the facility who said they did not currently have Zumba classes. She said they ran an add in the newspaper for a Zumba demo one timed and had 50 people show up - the studio can hold around 20. She then asked if I would like to teach Zumba there - permanently. I do believe I just received a job offer! We then made our way to Karin's studio where I guest instructed for part of the class. Karin began with the warm-up but then asked me to come lead some songs. As I was doing so, people on the street and in the surrounding shopping area heard the music and came into the studio to see what was going on - I'm talking 10 or 12 people. Karin explained to them that it was a Zumba class and that I was a guest instructor from America and they all joined in and took some pictures. It was great fun! There were also 2 ladies who had not done Zumba before, so I was a part of their first Zumba experience. I always love seeing their surprise at how fun Zumba can be - exercise in disguise! Teaching part of the class was a great way for me to really gage my instructing skills. One because i don't speak German, but two because a regular Zumba class is non-verbal. Hand cues and exaggerated movements are used to let the class know that a change is coming in the movements. As an instructor I can get spoiled by only being in front of my regular students because they are used to my choreography and cuing. Having a class full of people that I don't know really challenges me as an instructor to make my cues clear and concise and to make variations and levels for different physical abilities. Sometimes as an instructor you can take for granted knowing the ability levels your students, but I have just walked into a class blind, not knowing the fitness level of these students and need to make my class accessible to all of them. It's a great challenge and I love it! I think the class was a great success, and Karin has invited me to come teach again! A very successful Zumba day over all! After Zumba I joined the group again for our dinner at Zanzibar and the Night Watchman's Tour, and returned home with Ulrike for the rest of my stay. June 3 We began today with a huge American breakfast prepared by Tim's home stay family - scrambled eggs, toast, and the best bacon I've ever had! No joke. After I drug myself away from the table, Ulrike and I made our way to visit her horse at the stable. I have never seen a horse that thinks that it is a dog more than Ulrike's horse. We took her for a walk in the barn and when Ulrike took her off the lead the horse just followed right behind her just like a dog. She also kept eying me whe she would walk past me as if she was saying, 'I don't know who you are lady, so I'm staying close to my Mom'. It was very funny. The rest of my day was the same as Sara has posted - tour of the old barn museum. It was very similar to Pontiac's Threshereman's reunion except it happens May thru September. Ulrike and I joined Sara, Edith, and Rainer for dinner at their home. We had many, many laughs and it was a great end to our stay in Uelzen with such fantastic people. -Lindsey