[I just found this article in a local East German newspaper [url]http://www.otz.de[/url], had the computer translate it. I'm lazy. Tried to smoothen out the edges a bit, though.]
[b]They come from New York for a Easter visit to Jena[/b]
By OTZ editor Reinhard Querengässer, Jena. Since Thursday 15 girl and boys from New York have been in Jena. They come from Manhattan, the district hit by the terrorist attack of 9-11, 2001.
The 16-year-old young people belong to a group of 120 young Americans who go to Germany until April 8th. "The bridge/Die Bruecke" is the name the joint project of the Federal Government and the German economy which makes this stay possible for the girls and boys from New York. They are children from New York families, whose apartments or schools took damage or are closed due the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Host for the visit in Jena lasting until Easter Monday is Jenoptik AG. The stay in the 15 host families with whom the visitors are accommodated since last night was also organized by the company. The guests shall get to know the life in German families from the USA in this "Homestay" time during the Easter holidays.
The daughters and sons of the same age of the host families and their friends already established contacts with their visitors in the afternoon.
Immediately after the arrival at the Paradise Station [one of two train stations in Jena, Kar98] the group worked its way by bus to the Dornburg castles. After a meal there, the young people then searched for (and found) Easter eggs on the castle grounds.
After being presented with large chocolates Easter bunnies, the group then returned to Jena to look at a laser show in the planetarium. A stroll through the town then stood on the program before one met the host parents at the Jenoptik in the old skyscraper at 6 p.m.
During the stroll through the town Christopher found that Jena doesn't look at all just like he has imagined German towns. "It's just like some American town!", he said, looking at the facade of the Intershop [a software company, Kar98] tower. Chris, as the Jena girls Susanne and Katrin called him, is the guest of the Engert family of the nearby village Ammerbach. And there the visitor New York will notice that Jena can be quite rural, too.