Our first mystery Skype session was with Lithuania, and it was pretty ace. We – our little group that was divided into people who were asking the questions and our very own research group – had been freed from the chains of our Biology/Math/etc lessons and were ready to go. It was kind of awkward at first, to be honest. The whole atmosphere of this Skype session seemed to be very forced and uncomfortable, with our teachers standing behind us, anticipating a new grammatical mistake from us to correct (English is, in fact, not our native tongue, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone but me, as I was the only one talking). But after a while, we got pretty into it. We started asking all the right questions ( “Has your country ever won the Eurovision Song Contest? If so, was it a terrible entry that was good for ESC standards?”) and soon our research team (consisting of our two members Fabienne and Emil) figured out that we were, in fact, skyping with students from Lithuania. After they, too, had figured out where we come from it got pretty chill – we’d ask questions about their town, their country, free-time activities and we asked the most important question of them all: “Backstreet Boys, One Direction or N’SYNC?”

Our second Skype Date was with our pals in Greece. I have to say that that session was way more comfortable than the one with Lithuania – we didn’t have nearly as many as teachers with us that time and it wasn’t the awkward “um what do I say” situation. We asked the questions, figured out that they’re from Greece and then, all of a sudden, the connection stopped. The screen was black. They were gone. …. Just for your information – they hadn’t been swallowed by the black abyss of the void but one of our fellow students, Carolin, leaned back just a little too much and had accidentally hit the emergency “power-out-flee-the-school-and hide” button with her back. Well, the button itself wasn’t as dramatic, of course, and we didn’t have to run and hide from an inevitable alien invasion or likewise, but the power went out and our connection was gone. Thankfully, our teacher managed to regain the power and we had a few more minutes of the lovely Skype Date with Greece.

The last Skype session was with the lovely group from Italy. It wasn’t that hard to figure out where they came from, as we already knew that there were three countries we’d skype with. Also, we knew that the three countries were Lithuania, Greece and Italy so, yep, that was really easy. Nevertheless, we still got to ask each other questions (as our group did not want to go back to their lessons) and the other group, too, figured out where we came from. Actually, they happened to ‘cheat’ a bit as well – they saw our German email address right before our Skype meeting.

In conclusion – the Skype Dates were a lot of fun and a nice opportunity to get a first impression of the other pupils in the Erasmus program. We certainly look forward to meeting you all!

These are the questions we used to find out who we are talking to:

YES/NO

1.       Does it snow in your country this time of the year?

2.       Does it rain a lot in your country?

3.       Is it a cold country?

4.       Do you have islands?

5.       Is there the colour RED in your flag?

6.       Does your country border the sea?

7.       Do you live in a mountainous country?

8.       Do many tourists visit your country?

9.       Is your country’s population more than 10 million?????

10.   Do you have any particular goods which you export?

11.   Have you ever won the Eurovision song contest?

12.   Are there Kings and Queens in your country?

13.   Do you have a good national football team? Have you ever won any international championships?

14.   Do you have a long history?

15.   Do you have any heavy industry?

16.   Is it later than ……… o’clock right now?

17.   Has your country participated in any wars during the last 100 years?

18.   Do you go to school around 8:00?

19.   Do you use Euro????

20.   Do you live in the countryside? In a town/city?

21.   Are you Catholic?

22.   Is your country wealthy

23.   Do you learn other foreign languages except English?

24.   Do you speak German? French? Russian?

AFTER 20 MINUTES

1.       Which hemisphere do you live at?

2.       What is the most popular sport in your country?

3.       What are the colours of your flag?

4.       Which is the most important monument in your country?

5.       Can you name a historical figure of your country?

6.       What is the most typical food of your cuisine?

7.       Which is the longest river in your country?

8.       Are you close to the Atlantic Ocean?

9.       How high is your highest mountain?