Next day Cheryl accompanied Christine to the nursery school she works at. This nursery school takes place in the forest, no matter the season or what the weather is like.

After lunch Cheryl went off on a shopping spree in Augsburg, to buy some clothes for her grandson to-be, Jack.

Later in the afternoon Christine brought her to the railway station where she took the ICE back to Munich. The ICE is a bit faster than Canadian trains. It travels at up to 200 km/h on the stretch between Augsburg and Munich.

The nursery school is really something quite special. They started about 7 years ago and have become very popular in Germany since then. There are about 500 of them in Germany now. I think the concept started in Switzerland,but  I am not sure.

The children are 3 years to 5 years old, some start before they are 3. The parents bring them to the forest at 8:30 in the morning, no matter what the weather. They come back for them at 1:30.

I was very impresed with the children. There is very little structure for the day.

They are not told when to eat, so when some of them are ready they go to the wagon where all of their back packs are and they get their lunch and go into the T.P. and sit down and start to eat. They do not ask the teachers non stop for help to get any thing open or to pour their drinks from the thermos or anything. It was great.

When they are playing in the area they use their imagination as we did (50 to 60 years ago) One little boy came along with a very long stick between his legs telling us he had a bus and was going to England and would we like to come along? A three year old had a big stick in her arms and she said to me, Mien auto ist kapütt. I did understand that. I sure wish that there had been a school like this when we were growing up.

I helped the children make Frogs. It worked quite well because they know English for ,nose, mouth,eyes, arms and leggs. After they were around me for a while they decided to talk to me 90 miles an hour in German.  I would say only English, but I knew that they did not think that I did not know what they were saying. Some of them would whisper and look at me and I wanted to say, You can say anything that you want and I would not know what you mean.

I really enjoyed my time in the Forest with the Kinder. Thanks again Christine for making this possible for me.

The train was really a great way to get from point A to B. They are much faster than our trains as we all know, but I had not been on one since 1969 to 1973 when I would have to take the train to Gillam, Mb. where I lived. I am sure our trains have improved since then as well, but it was great to go so fast.  It is still cheaper for people to drive their car than take the train if they have one. It cost 19? to go 80 k. One ? cost $1.65.