Saturday

     My host mom's brother had special-needs, the experience of taking care of him and finding things for him to do led to her other brother creating a farm and crafts-work institute for peoples with disabilities.  The institute serves over a hundred individual and employs a something like 40 care-takers and administrative persons.  All of our conversations about this have been in German so everything isn't perfectly clear, however, I think I will be volunteering with the group in some capacity as part of my PPP 80hrs requirement.  I think I will understand the situation fully then.

That being said:

Every year, the group collects apples and turns them into apple juice to sell.  My family picked up 10 cases this year- I went with my host dad to pick them up.

While we were waiting around my host-dad showed me this awesome ancient chapel on the property that was renovated a couple of years ago.  I believe he said it was 600 years old.

After waiting around for awhile, we realized we were in the wrong part of the farm.  We drove to the source.  All of those green boxes have 6-8 liters of Apfelsaft each- we got 10 of them (supply for one year).

Germany integrates solar energy into a lot of buildings, the barn was no exception.

688,504 kWh produced. An average German home takes around 3,500 kWh/yr (US 11,500 kWh/yr). That's about one years worth of energy for 196 houses potentially powered by this installation- that's kind of cool! and there are tons more of installations elsewhere.

I spent the rest of the Saturday writing a report on the German Energiewende.  Convenient topic given the field trip I had that morning.

And then in the evening I talked up Auburn football to the whole fam.  I promised them spectacle, one-sided Auburn dominance, and the most beautiful sporting experience they'd ever see.  Instead, we got to watch the German national team and Auburn lose simultaneously.

Eventually we went full-screen with football. My host brother stayed up for the whole game (1:30am) as emotional support.  It was a very nice gesture because I could tell he had no interest in the game.