Thursday, 6/2:
Today we are all together at my host's school for the whole day and I could not be happier! When the Germans visited us, we kept them all together each day so they could have the same experiences and talk with each other to reflect and I'm happy to have this chance.
First order of business at school was a delicious breakfast with her Principal - full of pretzels of course! He is a very kind man who you can really see cares about his school, the girls and helping the community around the school. He explained the private funding, tuition costs and all of the extracurricular activities - his passion for education was truly inspiring.
We had a full day at school taking English, answering questions about America - Trump - and observing a couple examples of German teaching.
After lunch we headed to the Rosearium restaurant - a hidden gem in a city park. I tried a German "pizza" and it definitely made me miss Phoenix - pizza is a biweekly meal in Arcadia!
This afternoon was all science and I loved it! My host's husband works as an engineer at at a waste water treatment plant and gave us a private tour.
***Nerd alert*** Don't read unless you're in hippy training!
Up until 1979, waste water was not filtered, i.e. - it entered the Danube River straight from the toilet to the fish's gills and the drinking water pipes. Now, the drinking water is filtered before it reaches your faucet, but without this initial step of filtration, the chances of your poop water mixing with your drinking water are very high. Yikes! Here are the steps Robert's plant goes through to make sure you don't get E. Coli! :)
1. Toilet paper and other big items are filtered out.
2. Sand and stones are filtered out and sent to another area in Germany for use.
3. Sedimentation - everything else that is tangible and you can see is filtered out - approximately 300 cubic meters a day! The result is called sludge and sent to a "digester" on site, along with the excess phosphorus, iron and aluminum.
4. All organic (poop) material is removed by bacteria digestion in the digester. The sludge is there for 30 days, converted into methane (i.e. cow farts) and used for heat and electricity. Parts of Germany receive the methane and mix it with coal to get the full effect. To keep the little bacterias alive, oxgyen is pumped into the water. If you've ever smelled cow farts, you know it's pretty bad. To keep the smell down, the tanks are placed on the ground and covered in wood chips - genius and so simple!
5. Water is clean-ish and ready to be released into the Danube. To make sure the process is working, there is a tiny fish pond on site - rain water from the Danube and the newly filtered poop water collects and it's tested every 2 years for harmful bacterias - coliform - my APES kids would be all over this field trip, like they were our water testing lab before I crashed the mini-bus. Oops.
Germany is at the fore-front for alternative energy and water filtration. They want to have 30% of their energy provided by alternative sources, like wind/solar/methane ASAP - so awesome! I got my Environmental Science nerd on and some really cool ideas for the APES projects next year that all revolve around poop water!💩
The day ended with a group dinner at Doreth's house - which made me very happy! Doreth's husband is a retired engineer and the epitome of a German man - jokes, liquor and cooking! I spent the whole night laughing and admiring Doreth's cute German cottage on a hill!
Tomorrow, the Americans are together again for my first visit to the Gymnasium!
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