It's a shame that we can no longer consult the oracle at Delphi. Sometimes it would be good to be able to look into the future. In ancient times, people often travelled long distances to get there. This brings us to the topic of "Travelling in Antiquity". We, the grade 10 Latin class, took part in this theme day at the University of Konstanz with Mrs Neeff and Mrs Thien.

The topic was introduced interactively by Latin students, who divided us into groups to go through a course with different stations. There were five different areas of knowledge to learn. These were "The Seven Wonders of the World", "Late Antique Pilgrimages", "Encounters with Exotic Countries", "Travelling to the Pythian Games" and "Travelling in the Roman Empire". The two groups from our school started with the topics "Seven Wonders of the World" and "Journey to the Pythian Games".

We started with an exciting introduction and immediately got creative by writing a poem about the origins of the Pythian Games using Latin expressions. We then moved on to the Greek gods and learnt that there were different gods for travelling, such as Hermes and Zeus.

Then, as now, there were reservations about other cultures. This was the content of the next station, where we learnt from ancient letters that even then there were prejudices against different customs and the unknown from other countries.

Thelast two stations focused more on translation. Here we worked our way through Latin texts one by one and solved crossword puzzles using word fragments hidden in a box of sand. In the end, we managed to open the lock of a treasure chest containing the solution word and got our hands on small bars of chocolate.

Finally, we had to use our newly acquired knowledge skillfully and, above all, quickly. We took part in a little translation race where we had to translate Latin texts in the shortest time possible, moving one place for each correct answer. This race symbolized the journey to the Oracle at Delphi and was therefore based on that theme. In the end, we were the first group to cross the finish line and we were all rewarded with a fortune cookie.

After each station we were given a little puzzle to solve on the way. The letters were then used to form the Latin word "hospitalitas", which means hospitality. In ancient Rome and Greece there were friendship tokens. These were symbols or tokens that represented a bond between two people. If you could identify yourself abroad with a token, you were often allowed to stay with friends of friends for free. The principle of the token was therefore based on social relationships and networks and gave you access to all sorts of things.

At the end of the day, each of us received a homemade wooden friendship token from the university, which was the crowning glory of the day.

It was a very successful trip and you could see how much preparation and thought the students had put into it. Above all, we really enjoyed the combination of fun and learning.