Last week my class and me visited North Rhine-Westphalia’s State Parliament in Düsseldorf with our English and politics teachers. First, some of us were a little bit stressed, because the trip meant to be 5 hours longer than our daily schedule and we had to prepare for class tests.
But our worries were without any reason – it became a very exciting day and we had a lot of fun spending time together, although it was very cold and windy outside.
It was our last trip as a class, because next year some of us will do a gap year and the rest will be part of the EF, the Oberstufe. So no bilingual 9f anymore…
We went to Düsseldorf by train, and except of someone pushing the emergency button, nothing special happened. In Düsseldorf we walked along the harbour, until 12 o’ clock, when we visited a friend of Mr. Bialobrzeski. This friend has his own burger restaurant, called “Bob & Mary”. He and his wife were friendly and patient while explaining us the different aspects of leading and managing a restaurant. At the end we even got free burgers! They were very tasty, extremely different compared to the well-known burgers of “McDonald’s”.
After our trip to Bob & Mary we did a short rally around the TV tower. Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince enough of my friends to visit the top level of the tower with me, although our teachers would have allowed it. Instead of having a great view above the Düsseldorf harbour we had some ice-cream, which was fun too.
Finally we got to the State Parliament (“Landtag”). We had to pass a security check, just like the ones at the airport. I’ve been to the parliament two times before, once I even interviewed Hannelore Kraft, our former Prime Minister. Nevertheless, I discovered and learned many new things. We watched a plenary session and talked to the FDP deputy and Member of the Parliament Ralph Bombis. He was very open and honest. We learned that deputies usually are “normal” citizens, who quit or pause their jobs to represent their fellow residents for 5 years, their term of office. Then they get back to their normal life and hopefully have made our country a bit better.
Maybe I will be at the parliament a fourth time, one day. Working as a politician, having my own office there and eating the tasty cake all day we got on our way back home.
(A pupil of the bilingual class 9f. )
S. Mack, A. Bialobrzeski