Braden Welborn: Germany

 Berlin - Orientation

First Impressions

Berlin's fan mile: semi-final round, Germany vs. Italy

After over 24 hours without sleep, we arrived in Berlin. I had mixed emotions: nervousness and excitement. I was nervous about talking to the German people in their own language. That first night we were planning on going to the fan mile in Berlin to watch the Spain-Portugal game. The fan mile was pretty empty because Germany wasn't playing, but it was still a great time. During our 4 days in Berlin, our group of 11 Americans (3 guys, 8 girls) really meshed. I became very close with a large portion of my group, and we had an amazing orientation exploring Berlin and becoming accustomed to the German culture. We saw some amazing museums, the Berlin Wall, historic parts of former East and West Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate, and many other awesome parts of Berlin.



 Niederalteich, Bavaria – The Home-stay

Time with Germans

My host family and I

Going into the home-stay, everyone was pretty nervous. I was the only person in my group whose host siblings were all from the opposite gender; I had 3 sisters. Despite being worried about connecting with the girls, my “main” host sister Magdalena immediately made me feel at home. Her family was incredible to me and we developed an awesome bond during our time together. I really felt an amazing connection with my host father. He was a jolly, very stereotypical looking Bavarian man. I recall our guide telling us that typically Germans are typically not so open to hugging and the like unless they are familiar and friendly with you. I was very surprised when my host father bypassed my offer for a handshake and gave me a great bearlike hug, and it was only our first meeting. It seemed to me that he felt a sort of son-he-never-had feeling towards me.

I became really close with all the German kids at school. We visited Munich for a day trip and explored the city, and visited Augustiner Braeuhaus and Hofbraeuhaus. We spent a weekend with all our host siblings in Regensburg which was amazing. It is the city where Vanderbilt sends their students to study abroad, and it has a very interesting history. The food in Bavaria was incredible. So many different types of sausage, the best being Weisswurst. I was at a barbecue and they had about 8 different types of meat, 1 dish of potatoes, and several types of bread and pretzels. The diet was right up my alley. We spent time at school every week day excluding the day trip to Munich and we would go learn about German schooling from 8:00-12:45. We split our group into groups of 3 and received schedules for classes and with different grades every class. When we would attend English classes they based the entire lesson on us by either a Q&A session or one time we even got to teach the class! It was really sad when we had to leave Bavaria because we had made some amazing friends there, but we could never stay in one place too long, so after a short 10 days we moved on.



Hildburghausen, Thueringen - Service
Learning and Serving

Our first day in Hildburghausen: BREAKING NEWS

Passau, a neighboring Bavaria city

The next 10 days of our journey was spent in the Former East. Hildburghausen was a small, quiet town, and we stayed at a hostel on the campus of a school for troubled youths. We spent about 5 or 6 of our 10 days helping to restore a Holocaust mass grave site near Hildburghausen, a small work camp used by the Nazis atop a Hildburghausen mountain where the grave sites came to existence. We visited Buchenwald and Erfurt for a day. Buchenwald was extremely moving and quite an experience. The appreciation we received for our work on the grave site was really touching. The people of Hildburghausen could not thank us enough and we even got into the newspaper twice. While in Hildburghausen we played in 2 soccer tournaments at youth clubs in neighboring villages. We participated in the "first international fussball tournament" at two different youth clubs, and we had a great time winning 1 game and getting smashed into the ground by German soccer hotshots. The soccer was, honestly, one of the most fun parts of the trip, and we bonded really well with some of the local teenagers whom we played. Our service project went swimmingly and was very successful.

Being thanked by the mayor of Hildburghausen for our service. Sadly I missed the memo that we were taking a serious photo!

To the Wilson family:

Thank you so much for allowing me to have this experience. I can honestly tell you it changed my life and was the best month I have ever had. The friends I made and the experiences we shared will be with me forever and I cannot put into words how much this trip meant to me. Once again thank you!!!!