The intellectuals in my group (ie all of them) will be glad to inform you that today's rather pretentious title starts with a passive construction. Yee haa! We're delighted to have improved our languge skills and learnt so much, but the friendships we have forged here mean so much more. Yet without being able to communicate in German we wouldn't have been able to understand each other so well. It's only when you visit the country whose language you are learning that it all begins to make sense. Okay, I'd better get off my soap-box. The Abschiedsfeier, or farewell bash, was organized by the pupils alone, with Alex using a little gentle persuasion to encourage as necessary. Brits and Germans crowded into a stiflingly hot room on the very top floor of Stama, the Gasteltern bringing all manner of food to tickle our tastebuds. Alex wrote the programme up on the board (why did Frau Glanzmann never dance?? Very disappointing!), then sorted out the IT, then it all kicked off. I apologize here if I forget to mention anyone but with 13 Brits and all 13 Gastfamilien and friends and teaching staff it did get rather exciting at times. Alex and Arthur were our presenters; Kate, Jaz and Uddam did a dramatic rendering of Goethe's "Erlkoenig" poem, Alex played his ukulele vigorously to accompany "Somewhere over the rainbow", everyone present joined in for the Loreley song "ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten", Meabh very bravely did a solo on a borrowed violin - takes some courage to stand in front of such a big audience and perform alone; there were original poems / raps in German... Alex also put together a quiz to get things going at the very start: first question was to identify a strange Pokémon figure from the outline only... it turned out to be me! Plus he quizzed the audience on their local knowledge and on English translations of German idioms. (Expecting the audience to understand "in cahoots with " was just a little bit mean but they rose to the challenge).