Together with 3 teachers the class 5a/b took a trip to Evry-Courcouronnes (a suburb of Paris) to visit our partner school called „Collège les Pyramides“. In the following paragraphs we summed up our experiences and will tell you about our adventures. Enjoy reading and hopefully you will meet the French students next year when they are visiting us in Bruck an der Mur.
On Monday, April 29th we took of by train to head to Paris. Due to a technical defect the sleeping wagon was cancelled and we pulled through a long 20 hours of sitting up straight. At Gare de l’Est we were welcomed by Sana Krifa, the Erasmus correspondent of our partner school. At the school we were greeted with French cuisine by the principal and the mobility exchange students. Afterwards we listened to a presentation about bees. We then headed over to our hotel and settled in. We ended the day with a communal dinner and gladly retreated to our rooms.
On the second day we woke up well rested and we had a big breakfast at the hotel. After that Sana picked us up and we went to an apiculture. The beekeepers were very friendly and explained a lot. For example, the reproduction of the bees or the life cycle of a worker bee. We saw the larva of bees, the queen and the female workers. The male bees are just for reproduction. After that we went to the shopping mall „Le Spot“ where we got something to eat. Le Spot is also famous for its game zone which we got to enjoy. Afterwards we visited the church of Evry which was very beautiful. In the evening Prof. Knoll and Prof. Honner-Uerkvitz went for a run around the nearby lake to train for the Business Run in Bruck an der Mur.
On Thursday we visited a museum in Paris (Cité des Sciences et de I‘lndustrie) along with the students of our French partner school. In the morning, at around 08:30 they picked us up by bus. During the bus journey we had some nice conversations with them. The first thing we did after arriving at the museum was visiting an exhibition about the human brain. Before taking part in a workshop about our memory, we took a look at an exhibition about recycling. All of those exhibitions were very informative and interesting but the most exciting part of our visit was the planetarium. The seats were very comfortable and the movie about our solar system and the Milky Way was great. After that long journey, we took the bus back to our school. The teachers from our partner school had prepared some nice snacks for the inauguration of the sustainability art project in form of a mural.
On Friday we visited our partner school and attended the regular classes with them. We were put in tiny groups and joined some English, German, math, geography, robotics and special needs classes. We got to participate in a nautilus project, program trains and join an elementary/middle school cooperation in the library. Afterwards we had a Common lunch in the school cafeteria and the French students invited us out to their outdoor school courtyard. Afterwards we had a workshop in which we learned how to create an app. The app was meant to help with finding the correct bin for different types of garbage, which was quite challenging due to the language barrier. In the evening we went to the mall for dinner, played some arcade games and went shopping.
On Saturday the time had finally arrived and we went to Paris sightseeing. At 9 am we started and first we went to Notre-Dame, where we sadly couldn‘t go in because of the fire 5 years ago. Afterwards we walked to the Louvre and a small pedestrian zone with little brasseries for lunch. Our teachers were brave enough to try one of the local delicacies escargots (snails in garlic sauce). From there we walked up to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile along the Avenue de Champs-Élysées. Afterwards we took the subway and went to the Tour Eiffel and spent some time there.
On Sunday May 5th, we took the train to Paris again and explored the city. First of all, we went on a boat trip on the river Seine for an hour and were able to experience the city from a different perspective. After that we bought something to eat and took the public transport to a church named Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre. Unfortunately we had to wait for a long time, because of a high-tech sustainable toilet, but once we had overcome this hurdle we were finally able to visit the beautiful church. Before we took the train home, we bought some souvenirs and macarons. In the evening we said our heartfelt goodbyes to the principal Madame Henry of our partnerschool and to Sana. We can’t wait to see Sana again in Austria next year!
On Monday we woke up really early to catch our trains home. The trip was challenging but we learned a lot about travelling. After 17 hours of several different trains und unexpected changes we arrived savely in Bruck an der Mur at midnight. It was a very informative, educational and interesting week in Paris and in Évry-Courcouronnes. Thanks a lot to our teachers and the opportunity we got.
Salut 5a/b
