Girl Scout Lodge!

Leah S.

May 10, 2009 - 4:14 PM

First I want to start by saying Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! It's your special day! Ok, now to my story. So this Friday night I spent the night at the Girl Scout lodge. It was pretty awesome. Haha. OK, so it was my German retreat. It was totally cool. We learned some folk dances. I have never really learned how to dance, I would not say I'm the worst at it, but I'm definitely not that great at it either. Well learning folk dances was really fun. They are so upbeat and kind of quirky. There was some waltz (I think, I might be wrong on that) in one of them. I think the coolest one though was the polka dance. That was really fun. I was going to sit out and give my knee a rest so I could take pictures of everyone dancing, but it was too much fun and my knee never bothered me so I didn't get any of us actually dancing. I do have a few of some people dancing though.

After that we had some free time and people were in the mood to dance around to Rammstein and some other German music so I snapped some pictures then. Before the dancing though, we had a pretty good dinner and some free time to get settled in. Then after the dancing and everyone had the opportunity to relax a little bit, Helmut took some of us on a small walk around the area. It was a very beautiful night. It was the full moon so it was very bright out. I forgot my camera of course and didn't manage to get a picture of the beautiful full moon. The lodge is kind of in a little bit of a wooded area so it was nice in that way too. There was a clear cut so a lot of trees were gone, but a small little forest remained with a little wildlife.

Then those of us from my German class (well most of us at least) and another boy from the one hundred level slept in the one small room the lodge offered. The lodge was just a kitchen and a huge room. Well we closed the door so the others could sleep and stayed up talking. It was nice. I got to know my fellow classmates a lot better. Then we got up, too early I might add, the next morning and had breakfast. Then there was a bunch of free time so some played games, others did a puzzle, and then Helmut took some of us on a hike again. It was pretty. There was not a lot to see, but it was nice to get out in the early morning and go for a hike. It was fun. I find a few really pretty purple flowers and took a picture.

Then when we got back we set up the seats in a circle so we could sing. The singing was fun too. I can't sing at all and what was worse is that I had a cold so I could barely keep my voice from cracking. The songs were funny and fun to sing. There were a couple of songs from Bavaria. Bavaria has its own dialect that should really be considered another language almost. Most German's cannot understand the Bavarian dialect. It brought back memories of my long stay in Germany. I got a few pictures of us all sitting down getting ready. Then it was clean up and get on the bus and head back to school. All in all in was a great weekend. The hardest part about the retreat was that we would fail the course if we spoke English. It's sometimes hard to remember, especially when we got up in the morning, to only speak German. We are not used to it so it's harder to remember. I think all of us passed though. This was a fun weekend and I probably won't forget it. So until next time.