Freitags in Bad Laasphe

Authored By:

Skyler F.

    Maybe it was just one night, but that will always be a defining memory. On Fridays during the summer, there is a concert where the farmer's market usually takes place. Many of the girls spent the time before dinner getting ready and bonding. It was mostly chaos, but piece by piece, everyone completed their outfits for the night. This led to an amazing bonding experience with a multitude of the girls, especially some that I had not really talked to before. 

    After heading to dinner and fixing anything last minute, we started to proceed down to the town. Most of the time was spent singing random songs and talking about what we might get at local grocery stores, passing the time by quickly. As we arrived in the town, you could hear the music. We all checked out the concert first, but then were allowed to branch out to other places in groups. Many people got ice cream, trying spaghetti ice cream for the first time. Some of which, loved the ice cream pressed through a pasta maker with strawberry sauce and white chocolate chips on top, although a few people were not as fond of it. 

    After roughly forty-five minutes, many people signed out and went around the town. The park has a very interesting almost see-saw and the grocery store has lots of food, shocking all of us by how cheap it had been. Towards the end, many people started to return early to be on time to go back to the castle. The concert had become more alive in the time that many others and I had left. Spotting many other CBYXers, I went towards the stage of the concert. Awkward, yet fun dances were taking place to the music and everyone was having a good time. Singing to music we barely knew still created a fun time and got us seen by the band. 

    The lead singer from the band asked everyone from America to come up onto the stage, as seen from our loud “Oh’s” and “Nah’s” whenever we could. Everyone was hesitant at first, but we all got up on stage, and they let us scream the “Oh’s” and “Nah’s”, all together while having lots of energy, jumping up and down and dancing with each other. At some point, the song stopped, and a moment that will stick with us for the rest of our lives had been made. As it was towards the endof our time in the town, right as the song ended we headed back to meet all the wonderful Teammers. 

    As soon as we knew no one was left behind in the town through a headcount, and taking a few photos, we headed back to the castle. Everyone still had lots of adrenaline from the concert, making the hike up one of the easier ones, causing everyone to still be singing parts of songs we just learned on the way back. After some way through the walk back up, many of us calmed down and had conversations that connected us even more than we had before. Making friends and memories that night will always be an amazing thing that I will cherish forever. Along with giving us a taste of the German culture, from meeting new people from the town to trying spaghetti ice cream, fulfilling a lot of what I had originally sought out in the program.