This year I took part in ISS

Every other day of the seminar we had a special programme, usually from 8 o´clock until 5 p.m. On Monday we met in the morning and made 6 groups – 4 students in each of them. We stayed in these groups for all week and had to work in them. After that we went to MIND, it is a scientific centre, but I just can´t remember the whole German name for it. We did some experiments there and stayed in MIND until lunch. Then we visited the Residence, our guide was speaking English, so we could understand and found out some interesting information. But that still wasn´t enough and we went up the hill to see the Kapelle, so we saw a nice chapel and then our hosts´ parents arrived and took us home.

On Tuesday we started building. We built Solar BBQ Parabola, Solar Oven and Solar Panels, as you can see, everything worked just because of the sun. When we finished our products, we went to the climbing park by bus. I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe it seems that this day was so short or that we did fewer things than on Monday, but trust me – I was unbelievably tired.

Next day, on Wednesday, we met a bit later, at 8.15 at the railway station and we started our trip to Nürnberg there. First we went on a guided tour to historical buildings with an English speaking guide and after that we went to the centre of the city and we got free time to look around. But that wasn´t all, we had more things on our list of programme. We visited the Sense Museum. We found out how our eye works and things like that.

Then Thursday came and we visited a part of the university and learnt something new about energy plants. We saw a detail of an onion and leave under microscopes. I think everyone really enjoyed it. It was a nice morning, we stayed there until noon and then we went to the town for lunch – we had kebab. We had free time in the afternoon to spend it shopping, but we decided to do something else, so we went to the swimming pool. Of course, someone didn´t go there but most of us were there.

When Friday came, we were so sad; it was the last day of the seminar. We started with presentations in the morning. We made presentations in PowerPoint and then parents of our German friends came, we showed them our products we had built and then we said something about topics our presentations were about. After that there was a small group of about ten students who went to the city. I enjoyed it as the only Czech in this group. At 4 o´clock we gathered at Mr Mantel´s – the German professor. We had a barbecue there which ended around 7 o´clock. After these 3 hours everybody went to Benedikt´s house to watch The Three Musketeers. We decided to watch it because parts of this film were filmed in Würzburg (the city we stayed in).

And then, unfortunately, it was Saturday, the day of our departure. I woke up early and packed all my things. Then Sina – my host and me went to the city, oh well, first we went to the railway station to meet the others. So, nearly every Czech student spent the last day in the city with friends. Maybe it was the last time we were talking with each other and last time we saw them. When the time of our departure came, somebody was crying and everybody was hugging one another.

I can´t say anything interesting about our journey back. We were sleeping, speaking, joking most of the time. The only interesting thing happened when there was a problem on the way, so we had to take a bus.

And that was I think everything important about ISS. I´m really looking forward to taking part in it next year.

Zuzana Rezková, SA