This will probably be the last update for the blog. We are at the airport making sure everyone gets on the plane, then they should arrive back in bloomington at 4 pmish tomorrow. Becca, lin, al, and myself are continuing our journey to a few more countries. Hope you enjoyed the blog and I'm sure you'll hear some good stories when everyone gets back

Last Night In Frankfurt

So, it is our last night in Frankfurt and we are all feel at home in Germany. We are all sad to be going home tomorrow, and will miss all of the new friends that we have made at Turnfest. We have connected with so many people from so many different countries. It is really amazing how much we have made an impact on people and how so many different people have made an impact on us. I know that the motto of Turnfest of "building bridges" sounds kind of corny, but we have all made so many connections and friendships, and we will miss everybody. We are all excited to get home, however, and look forward to seeing all of our friend and family in the States!

link to Online Pictures

Here is a link to a lot of picture from Turnfest 2009.
http://youturn2009.xai.com/de/de/gallery/imageTagList.html

Video from the opening Parade

The parade.

I think it was safe to say that we had imagined to expect from participating in a parade in Frankfurt was clearly a departure from what really took place. The picture above had been taken of our group before the craziness began in full.
We were set up in parade order like normal parades, then as the actual time for the parade to begin approached, the streets around us began to swell with people. Again, that seemed normal for us having been in parades enough. The energy that was emanating from the participating groups was contagious. A group behind the circus were Slovenian and they started pitching girls into the air. Chris Ries and Jason Hubbard, inspired by the Slovenians, pitched Chris into a handstand in Jason's hands. Suddenly, a crowd had formed a circle around Jason, Chris, and Becca Nemecek and the Slovenians. The Slovenian group responded to Jason and Chris's handstand trick with one of their own. The spectators who were swelling the streets began to chant for more. What soon followed can only be described as a friendly show down of acrobatic skills, with a Danish group joining the fray and each trying to top the next. This went on for an estimated 30 minutes and resulted in having all the circus troupe members pulled in to stack 3 highs, and diamond head tricks.
The crowd was in such a fervor, the parade organizers had to be called into action and force us into our line again to begin the parade.
Once the parade started, our girls took turns standing on the shoulders of our performers waiving the flag. The parade route was over 2 miles long and we were greeted by throngs of people who regularly cheered, "Yes we can" and "USA, USA, USA!"
Upon reflection, some members refer to the experience as "one of the most amazing experiences of my life and a highlight of the trip."

So we made it here to Germany! It has been awesome so far. We learned a new game called wasserbombe. If someone yells it you have to fall on the floor and the last person to hit the floor loses and has to sing a song. I lost twice and had to sing the itsy bitsy spider and Mary had a Little lamb. Marcus called it during dinner yesterday and we all stopped eating and hit the floor. The town we are in is very small and quiet. It is called Enkheim. We have met many amazing people and learned so much about different cultures. It has been an amazing experience so far.

Picture

We Have Internet!!!

After many unsuccessful attempts of hacking into the school's internet connection, we finally did it...and by we I mean Lin. Now that we have internet access now we will be able to update the blog and hopefully get some movies and or pictures up. Today we are doing our full proformance in either downtown square or on the river, we are not quite sure just yet. Then later tonight we will be able to blog and add everything. So keep checking the site because amazing stories and photos are soon to come :)


Chris

If your worried about what rick rolling is, just youtube it. Its nothing bad, I promise.

We just got rick rolled in germany! What a great day!!!

The parade yesterday was the coolest thing ever. We performed for thousands of people while walking the streets of frankfurt. When everyone found out we were american, they would cheer "yes we can!" I guess germany loves obama. Well today we are going to see the national competitions of german wheel, sport acro, and tramopline. It should be awesome. Yesterday after the parade we saw a firework/light show that was the coolest thing ever. Hipefully we can post pics soon!!! Goodbye from germany

Its almost 2 pm here and we're getting into our costumes to participate in a parade all around down town frankfurt. Only a few teams are selected so its a privlage to be able to participate. The parade should take about 2.5 hours to walk. Afterwards we are planning on hanging out downtown and hopefully finding an internet cafe.

So it seems as if a german newspaper that's equivalent to our chicago tribune, wants to follow us around all day and do a story on us. Pretty sweet..

Breakfast was good this morning and now we're getting ready to participate in some clinics. Today we're able to try gymnastics, slack rope, and unicycles.

If u need to call, the number 01628980739. You might have to do a germany country code, but were not sure. Well its nine o clock here so were going out for fun

Thanks for the emails on internet cafe locations, well check them out tomorrow. Al now has a phone that has free incoming calls, so u can reach us if needed.

Our updates are small because we have been using a mobile phone to text in our updates. We're looking for an internet connection so hopefully everyone can blog.

We had our first performance this morning. The turnfest participants seemed to really enjoy it. Our equipment arrived about an hour before the performance.

Well we're all checked into our rooms...not too small but no air conditioning. Ah the US luxuries. Anyways we're eating at a local italian pizzeria. How germany

we all got our luggage, meet up with our new friends from turnfest and now are waiting to board a train to the school!

Well we just landed in Frankfurt and now we're riding around the runway. We all need to go through customs now, should be interesting

So 11 of us have arrived in detroit safe and sound. We're all sitting down to america's number one watering hole... Chili's...next Germany!

We need to be at the airport in 7.5 hours... Just testing to see if we can updated the blog from a cellphone.

Last Practice

So tonight is our last practice before we leave for Germany. We are all meeting at six o'clock to run through our act once, maybe twice it the first run through is horrible...haha. Anyways most of us are still packing up and trying to stay under the 50lb limit on luggage. 11 of us will be flying out tomorrow morning around 11:00 am, with a 5 hour lay over in Detroit. From there we will be flying straight to Frankfurt and arriving 7.5 hours ahead of the last three people. Once we get there we will meet up with our German group from Turnfest who will take us to the school we will be staying at. It will be interesting to see how many air matresss we will be able to fit in this classroom....hopefully everyone will get one. Just a little bit of house-keeping, for those that will be reading this, we are going to try and let every student write on this blog so just be aware who signs off at the end of each post....I'm thinking it will be interesting to see the different persepectives from the trip. Anyways wish us luck and keep reading the posts!!!!

And so it begins...

Our circus troupe will be taking twelve students and two coaches to Frankfurt, Germany from May 27th-June 7th. We were invited to participate in Turnfest 2009, which is a gymnastics festival that will have more than 70,000 participants. Here's a link to the event's website translated from German using Google Translator... Turnfest 2009