Day 6: Wismar

Day 6: Wismar

This morning Frank and Volker were allowed to film the morning prayer of some of the more religious lifeguard. I am very eager to see this myself. After the breakfast we walked to the kinder garden of Zingst. The educators showed us the whole building before we met some of the older children. The lifeguards were very enthusiastic about the drum they found in the room and demonstrated some very cool rhythms. They asked some questions: “What animals do live in Israel?” “What do you think about Zingst?” “How long do you work every day?” and so on. They also sang a song for us, where everybody took part in in the end.

The ride to Wismar went very smooth, although some roads were closed. We met the mayor of Wismar, exchanged some gifts and had a very good fish soup. The guided tour through the city was very informative. We were in the gothic district, were we saw the old cathedral, that was destroyed by the socialistic government of the DDR. Only the tower remained, because it still is a sign mentioned on the sea charts. We also saw some parts of the harbour and the market place. Our guide also explained about the history of the city that was hanseatic, then was for nearly 400 years under Swedish crown and was also influenced by the industrialisation. The time under the Swedish rule is responsible that Wismar was left out on the train connection between Hamburg and Stettin in Poland.

Afterwards we went to the swimming pool to show some techniques. We did 4 stations concerning this topics: liberation from a drowning person, explaining the situation on the groynes and how we rescue there (we will do it tomorrow in the Baltic Sea), spineboard and stiffneck and training with the recuetube. The indoor competition team from Wismar also demonstrated one discipline.

We had dinner on an old ship that was reconstructed partly from original parts from 1400 and partly new parts. We also heard a presentation about the lifeguard stations in Israel and saw some videos. All in all it was a very nice evening and we came home very late. Frank seemed tohave a very philosophical discussion with Schmulig and Roy from Herzliya and our bus driver Henry about religion, Kant and many different things, He still was very amazed about this the next day in the morning.