Englischhausen is born as DIVERBO expands into Germany

Englischhausen popped up on a search back in early May of 2015.  I spent quite a few hours that day researching various ideas on how to make money putting my unique skills together with things I enjoy doing.  Primarily based in Spain, DIVERBO has expanded in the last few years into Germany.  This company found their niche creating an environment where people learn English  surrounded by native English speakers 24/7. It’s an intense immersion course that deals with all aspects of daily life and the business world.  No other language is allowed to be spoken.

We make the commitment

Digesting this, I hatched the idea to volunteer with DIVERBO as one of their native English speakers.  I convinced my friend Kathy to join me, and without boring you with the logistics of the process, we were invited to participate in Englischhausen in Germany during the last week of October.  We worked it out to stay on in Europe afterward, and we had a blast!  If you ever have the opportunity to volunteer speaking English, I highly recommend it.  It’s a very rewarding experience that will stick with you for a lifetime.   But I’m a bit ahead of myself…

Kathy and I started our journey becoming intimately acquainted with the United Club facilities at the airport.  The wasn’t in the plan, but our flight was delayed numerous times.  We camped out there for five hours.  Our delayed departure had cut our first day in Frankfurt short, but we had time to walk around a bit.  Surprisingly, most of the people in the vicinity of our hotel seemed to be Turkish!

A Night in Frankfurt

Hotel Pauli is a family owned place on a quiet street in Frankfurt.

Our hotel restaurant was under renovation, so dinner we ate at a local family-owned Italian restaurant.  It was absolutely delicious!  In addition to our individual entrees, we also had family-style appetizers, including a superb antipasto and bruschetta.  I tried the German apfelwein.  This is a dry wine, not my favorite.

Luckily for us, one of the program directors is a fellow salsera…so we went out dancing our first night in Europe in downtown Frankfurt!  The place was really cool but not a lot of good dancers and no On2 dancers (my style of salsa dancing) at all.  We danced quite a bit, and my dance card was heavily monopolized by this Turkish guy.  He was an OK dancer, but I wasn’t interested in him. He also could have benefited from some more deodorant.  Apparently we looked pretty good dancing together – Kathy was thinking ‘wedding’ till I came over and exclaimed I couldn’t stand him! I wanted to dance with other people, so in the end I had to be rude.  Thankfully there were other salsa dancers to help erase him from my memory!

I’m glad we went, and salsa dancing on top of a great Italian meal was the perfect way to kick off our tour of Europe.  It also gave Ielieke her first story to tell her Grandmother:  “Kat, the Turk, & the Wedding that Wasn’t.”

Off to Laubach for Englischhausen

A couple of students rode the chartered bus the next morning for to the Englischhausen venue in Laubach with us.  So our English speaking duties began.  As we traveled through really beautiful rural countryside, we got to know one another.  It turns out we had a celebrity look alike on board.  He is very sharp and has a wicked sense of humor.  But this Phil Collins can’t play the drums.  I also found out lots of things I didn’t know…like my friend Kathy a long time ago dated Robert DeNiro!!!  It was a full day, and I must have been suffering from jet lag on top of our late night salsa club visit, because I nearly slept through breakfast the following morning!

About DIVERBO

Our role as ‘Anglos’ involved explaining idioms, and talking on a wide variety of topics.  We had group discussions, one-on-one conversations, telephone conversations, and conference calls.  We participated in plays, gave presentations, and even played games in the evenings.

Englischhausen October 2015 in Laubach, Germany

The presentations were interesting.  We learned a song in Chinese, we enjoyed a tin whistle serenade, we discussed current events (the Volkswagen scandal), and we practiced meditation, among other things.

My favorite team building session involved drawing an unseen item out of a bag.  You then had to market it as the greatest thing since sliced bread.  There was a pen, a belt, a party hat, all manner of interesting things.  It was quite fun!

Kathy brought a game where you had to guess a word from the verbal clues that were given, but you couldn’t use the words and phrases listed on the card.  We had a lot of laughs with that one.  My idea was a bit more challenging, I think.  I presented a word, and you had to find an anagram for it (rearrange the letters to form a completely new word)…like lied (idle) and recital (article).  It definitely exercised the brain, but I had such short notice to present that I didn’t really find a way to make it exciting.  I did a better job as Cinderella in a twisted version of the fairy tale.

DIVERBO gave us a taste of German culture…

On one afternoon, we took an excursion into the historic part of town where there’s a local guide  that thoroughly enjoys giving the village tour.   At one point, one of the program directors got these licorice bites at the corner store.  They were really good, and you can only get them in this part of Germany.  We munched happily as we walked along.  The town has an Evangelical Lutheran Church with a Baroque organ.  To our delight, an organist was playing it when we went inside.

The courtyard of Solms Castle in Laubach, Germany

Afterward we explored the courtyard of the Solms castle. Its library one of the largest private libraries in Europe, with over 120,000 titles. An original Gutenberg Bible, on display in the Johann Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, came from this private collection.

In the evenings a lot of mingling…and, on occasion, some drama…would take place.  One night there was a bonfire and everyone had to sing a song representative of their country.  Kathy and I sang a pretty awesome rendition of Sinatra’s NY NY, a cappella.  On another night, a party turned into a birthday celebration for Celia. She enjoyed using her birthday as an excuse to get closer to Andreas than I think he was comfortable with.

Turns out the innkeeper at Englischhausen (a surly overweight man standing about 6 feet tall) is more than happy to tend bar for you til the wee hours of the morning…and one of the native English speakers fell down drunk at one point (not an American, thankfully – our reputation was tarnished enough already this trip).  But this was an isolated incident; and over-all I enjoyed the social atmosphere.  It was an interesting time.

Definitely an experience I will never forget…

Kat and Kathy on the tour of Laubach village

Kathy and I did our best not to congregate together.   As a matter of fact, we did it so well that it wasn’t until the end of our time there that people actually realized we were traveling together.  It was funny when the light bulb came on.  They would say “Oh – Kathy is from the States too, do you live near one another?”  I explain we are friends and it surprises them that they weren’t aware beforehand.

The diversity here was refreshing.  A few of us ran in the early morning, and some did yoga to stay focused.  It’s nice when people WANT to learn English and to speak it well.  I had no idea what to expect, and I left the program very impressed.  Their English improved greatly by the end of the week.  What a great experience!  I look forward to doing another program – maybe in Spain this time!  When I boarded the bus back to Frankfurt,  I was kind of melancholy.  I will miss the people I bonded with at Englischhausen and all the fun we had.

July 3,2016 – The Englischhausen program impacted me very positively; it enriched my life.  I smile whenever I see the group picture, and I feel like I was just there yesterday.