Abiball in Wuppertal

In Germany graduation commencement is different. So much so that I need to blog about it.



In Germany there is no prom – there is an Abiball which combines the graduation ceremony and the prom. It’s really practical this way, and the kids don’t have to worry about their families staying for the prom part, by that time it’s really late and we grownups are ready to leave.

It starts at 5 pm and goes all night. This is my second Abiball accompanying my husband, who is a high school teacher. The event takes place in the Wuppertal Stadthalle, which is the building in these pictures I stole from the Internet.




The first thing I notice: Again I’m in a group of a few thousand people, and there is no apparent diversity. As an American, it always shocks me to be in a huge crowd of white people. Then my husband helped me with the facts: there was in fact one graduate who was not of European descent. One lone Vietnamese girl. There were also 2 Polish, 5 Turkish, and 2 Greek kids graduating. But mostly Germans. Let me clarify that my husband works at a Gymnasium. This is the highest of the 3 levels of schools. Mostly kids destined for college go to Gymnasium, other high schools send their kids to trade schools. Foreign kids have a really tough time at Gymnasium because you must have good German language skills to make it there.

I get to sit at the teachers’ table which is nice because some of them are curious who I am and some want to compare notes if they’d been to America.



From 5-8PM there are speeches, speeches, more speeches. The opening speech was about a Marlboro ad that says “Don’t be a maybe” that we’ve all seen on bus stops lately. I guess it inspired someone!

Then some were given the opportunity to perform songs. Two girls in long flowing prom dresses (it seems to me prom dresses have not changed the last 20 years) got up and sang “There can be miracles when you believe.” Let me tell you how hard the teachers were trying not to laugh as that duet assaulted our eardrums with their unskilled voices. One teacher even took a photo of my husband grimacing during that song. Then another couple sang, “Who doesn’t long for someone to hold, somebody tell me why I am alone if there is a soul mate for everyone.” Wow those songs were rough to sit through.


Finally we got to the passing out of the diplomas. Way more fun than those two songs.

This year was particularly cool because each of the 130 graduates got his or her own theme song as they walked up on stage. So cool! They all got 10 seconds each of their favorite song. I was excited to hear the songs they picked, and they were blasted really loud on huge speakers so some teachers covered their ears.

Two kids picked Star Wars theme songs, 9 students picked songs sung in German (most pop music is English here), 2 picked Queen songs (!!), one picked the theme from the TV show Friends, one had the 21st Century Fox movie theme, and then there was a lot of hip hop and techno. I was hoping someone would pick Depeche Mode but oh well. If I had to choose 10 seconds of a song to identify myself, I’m not sure I could. But imagine how it would feel to step onto stage in front of so many people with YOUR song blasting. This is the miracle of mp3 huh? If you have intense stage fright like me, that’s gotta help.

I was hanging out near one of those back doors in this photo and an old lady approached me and asked me for help, obviously thinking I worked there because I was dressed in a black blouse and black pants. I think she soon realized her error: the employees were all wearing white shirts and ties.


After diplomas the kids do a special honoring of the teachers they want to recognize. Usually my man has to go up there but this time he didn’t. A long line of teachers on stage waited in turn to receive their honors. The graduates awarded one a golden alarm clock, because she was late so often. The teacher who broke her leg got a golden foot cast, the golden hanger for the best dressed teacher, and so on. The graduates also told us what teachers had said to inspire them over the years.



At 8 pm dinner is served. It was a buffet this time and I waited until most people were on their seconds before even trying to attempt the mad food rush. Germans are very bad at forming lines, with much pushing and crowding, and I wasn’t hungry enough to fight for what turned out to be the blandest dinner ever served outside of a hospital. Tortellini with cheese, chili with absolutely no chili powder in it (or any other seasoning), corn, cabbage, shrimp (don’t go there), chicken wings (I think they were salted), calamari rings (don’t go there), and for dessert, 4 types of pudding/yogurt. There was one good thing out there: tiny little pieces of corn on the cob that must have caught all the missing seasoning - they were so salty! They were overcooked but really you cannot screw up corn on the cob too badly. I ate a whole plate of those and gave the rest of my dinner to my man.

BTW, if you’d like to read an awesome food critic, check out this 9 year old who honestly and succinctly reviews her school cafeteria food every day, and posts a foreign kid’s meal review/photo every day as well, and gives any money made by her blog to food charity.

Then a band started playing, and it was really good. I think they were Irish. Fathers started dancing with daughters by the stage. The place is huge so I couldn’t see that far clearly. The band was called Sound of a Sunbeam and they had a sax, bass, acoustic guitar, and drums. In the middle of their set a graduate jumped up on stage and took the mic and performed “Somebody that I used to know” – it was quite good but I will be happy if I never hear that song again, it is so overplayed here. Is/was it in America too? I heard it on AFN so I think so.

Students would occasionally come to our table and shake the hand of a teacher and say thank you – it reminded me of Dead Poet’s Society with these boys in suits behaving so formally. There is tradition in Germany, and in certain situations, more respect for adults.


There aren’t really yearbooks that I can tell – there is a “year magazine” instead.


Around 10:30 there was a comedian up there and that is where I draw the line, I don’t understand German humor so I told my man I’m going to the car. He didn’t make me wait long and the other adults started leaving too so the kids could take over the place with their dancing. I’m sure those kids love that they get to drink alcohol at their own graduation/prom!