Reflection Blog: Saturday, May 24, 2016

After being home for a week I have some time to actually reflect on Germany. At the end of the trip I was in need of rest and was ready to go home and start my summer. However, after some rest and recovery, I would do anything to go back. The adventures, experiences and ultimately the memories made cannot be compared to those made in America. Yes there will be more memories and experiences in America, simply because I live there. However in just two short weeks I experienced a lot of what Germany has to offer, and would love to continue that exploration. I made some friends I hope to meet sometime in the future and stay in contact with in the meantime. All in all, first time to Europe: Huge success, and can’t wait to go back.

Day 13 Phtos




May 20th, 2016: Day 13, Friday

Today was our free day, which we decided would be spent in Augsburg. We got up at a reasonable time, but definitely sleeping in compared to other days. We went to a restaurant for breakfast, and by now I don’t need any more Bavarian food. Don’t get me wrong it was great, but I’ve had a lot. We wondered around town, packed, and relaxed which was much needed. We bought meats for grilling and went to a local park for a barbecue, and we found a soccer ball and played soccer. We bought a lot of food, and ate almost all of it. It was a good last time with the German students, many of which I’ve become good friends with. Tomorrow I go home. Crazy to think about, but there’s no doubt memories have been made.

Day 12 Potos





May 19th, 2016: Day 12, Thursday

Today we went to the city of Ulm, about an hour by train west. Breakfast by now is not as good as it once was. Eating the same thing every day for breakfast is getting old. Either way Ulm was really cool, with the best part being the climb of the Munster. There was 768 steps, 161 meters in the air, with an incredible view. The whole way was a tight spiral staircase which at the top was very scary. It was difficult for people who are scared of heights, luckily I am not. We went to a pancake house for lunch, but these were no ordinary pancakes. Basically it was a pizza with toppings, but instead of dough it was pancake. The first few bites were great but once I was ¾ of the way done it was a struggle. We took a train back for our goodbye dinner, where we exchanged gifts and had dinner. On the train, German Patrick requested to be featured in my blog, so that’s what this is. I hope he sees it… At night most of the American and German students hung out for the second to last time.   

Day 11 Photos


May 18th, 2016: Day 11, Wednesday.

Today the first thing that we had to do was presentations, at 5 pm. Lunch was optional, but it was free so I decided to go. We woke up fairly early to get a lot done on our project. By the time lunch rolled around, I was feeling very confident about our presentation and didn’t see much that had to be done. Lunch was at the Mensa at 12, and once again it was better and cheaper than market. After lunch I got changed into my dress clothes for the presentation, and my KUKA group and I practiced presenting many times. We had a 20 minute time constraint, and there was never a practice run when we were under 20 minutes. We couldn’t cut down because everything seemed very important and couldn’t be skipped. When presentations rolled around at five, we were kind of nervous, but being the second group going (alphabetical) we knew we could get it out of the way quickly. I believe our group did very well. There were things we could have improved on, and we did go over by two minutes. All five presentations took over two and a half hours, so we were starving when we left. There was a food court outside the university, and we went there for a quick dinner. Then, with all of the academics out of the way for this trip, we decided to celebrate.

May 17th, 2016: Day 10, Tuesday.

Our last site visit was PPG today, which included a 3 hour bus ride. Three hours there, three hours back. The site was kind of cool and we learned a lot about what they do. They also fed us so that was a plus. Their HQ is in Pittsburgh which is really cool, ties in the global reach of companies really well. After PPG, which was a long bus ride away from Augsburg, we had dinner in town, and it was really good as always. It was another really long day, so we decided to go to sleep early. Presentations tomorrow…

Day 9 Photos





May 16th, 2016: Day 9, Monday.

Neuschwanstein time! Turns out there wasn’t a great place to take a picture of the castle, but the view from up on the hill was great. It is a 20 minutes uphill walk if you walk quickly, and it’s worth it. We took a tour through the castle, but weren’t allowed to take photos which was annoying because inside was really cool. Lunch was a fixed menu again and I don’t know exactly what it was, but I know it was pork and potatoes of some sort. Not the best, but still pretty good. The desserts we had however in the town of Fussen were really good. People got ice cream, this animal cracker type ball with chocolate syrup on the outside and filled with Nutella, and fried dough covered in cinnamon sugar. I don’t know about the ice cream, but the other two were great, especially the dough. Then when we were finished we went to a cathedral with a lot of decorations which was cool to stop by and see. We got back to the hotel around 6, and now we work on the project for a while. We went to dinner at Salsalidos and I had really big quesadillas. I have eaten way too much food on this trip. We got back to the hotel and went to sleep at 11, which was fairly early for our early day tomorrow.

Day 8 Pictures




May 15th, 2016: Day 8, Sunday

Same morning routine. The weather is supposed to improve today after being really poor the last two days. Today we went to Dachau, the first concentration camp in Germany. Not the most “fun” days, but very important and informational. I always liked WWII history so I found everything very interesting. Wasn’t an easy visit either. After Dachau we went back to the hotel at about 3 and had the rest of the day to work on the project. Patrick (a German kid in our group) had a really nice room available in his dad’s company, which was empty on Sunday. We got a lot done, and later went to Carolina’s house to work some more and order dinner. Dinner was German Chinese food… very similar to American Chinese food. Still very good. So far I have eaten many kinds of food here, and almost nothing has been bad. I can think of one thing which was the potato balls we had at first dinner. The food has been incredible. In fact most things have been incredible. Tomorrow is Neuschwanstein castle, which I’m sure will be a good time.

Day 7 Pictures




May 14th, 2016: Day 7, Saturday

Today is Munich. I might as well skip the descrition of breakfast and wake up because it’s the same every day. However to get to Munich we took a regional train, and got dropped right off in downtown Munich. In that respect it reminded me of NY Penn Station, and also there was a bunch of underground stores and hallways with different street exits, and a lot of people, just like NY Penn. We took a tour of the historic city of Munich and it was amazing. One of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. The town hall was very interesting looking, and the marketplace had an enormous selection of basically everything. After the tour we had lunch and I had a different kind of snitzel than before. Then, we climbed the tower. 400 steps to the top, and it wasn’t as bad as we thought. So worth it though because by then the rain was clearing up and it was sunny, and the view was incredible. Before dinner I had time to get souvenirs for my parents and myself of course. Dinner was at a burger place in Munich which was really good, but different from an American burger. Our table also ordered way too many fries, which we couldn’t finish. They were really good though. We took the train back to Augsburg which only took 45 minutes. Getting a good amount of sleep the night before gave us energy for tonight, and we experiences a little more of the night life in Augsburg, our wonderful host city.

Day 6 Pictures



May 13th, 2016: Day 6, Friday

We got up at 9:30 and were ready for the BMW museum, but we weren’t ready right away. It took many of us a few hours to wake up and be ready, but took me a little less time. The museum and plant tour was amazing, as they showed us almost a step by step process of how a car is made. It’s incredible how quickly and efficiently everything is done nowadays in the car industry. Since we got up so late the day seemed very short, and after dinner we basically slept because many of us were so tired. Dinner was at a very good Italian restaurant where I had “Pizza Roma,” which was excellent. I’ve seen a trend that Italian food is very big in Bavaria, which makes sense because Italy is just south of here. With the anticipation of tomorrow we decide to go to sleep early (relatively) and rest up.

Day 5 Photos






May 12th, 2016: Day 5, Thursday

Six am wasn’t too bad being as I still got 7 hours of sleep or so. Breakfast was the same good food, and that was followed by a 3 and a half hour bus ride to Lear, a car seat and car electronics manufacturer. The site visit was unlike any of the others, because they really really took care of us. There was juice and water in the conference room, along with a notepad and pen for us. They had 3 presentations and a site tour, so the group covering them got a bit of everything, so their project is going to be easy to prepare. They also fed us lunch with an excellent soup with a ton of vegetables. One of the tours took us in a soundproof room, which was nearly completely quiet, and there was a sound system where he played us songs. The sound quality was incredible, but that wasn’t even the best part. Next we went into a Mercedes and it was one of the nicest cars I’ve ever been in. The sounds system in that car was also amazing. After Lear we went to Nuremberg and toured the city. The city was more compact than Augsburg, and I liked it. The overlook on the castle was amazing. If only it was sunny in the middle of the day and not cloudy with the sun setting. Dinner had a fixed menu of 3 kinds of sausage and it was amazing, and the sauerkraut reminded me of the kind my mom makes at home. Thursday night, to say the least, was a very late night. Since we didn’t have to get up until 9:30 the next day, being out late wasn’t a problem. And I would say it was a very fun night.

Day 4 Photos



May 11th, 2016: Day 4, Wednesday

7:30 wake up! Sleeping in felt so good… Same breakfast, similar bus trip to BMW in Munich. Still haven’t been downtown in Munich so I’m excited for that, but that won’t come until Saturday. It was just a talk at BMW, then back to Augsburg for lunch. We went to a local place, looked like a market with a bunch of different shops. I had a bratwurst sandwich with mustard and fries, and it was very good. The bratwurst here is so fantastic, I could probably eat it every day, but I must try other things. In the afternoon was KUKA Robotics, the company I am analyzing. The stuff they do is very interesting, but our visit was very short. There was very little business talk, and all engineering talk, so a lot went over my head. Regardless I got a good amount of info and so did my group, so Sunday we will be ready to work on our presentation. We were on our own for dinner and we went to another Italian restaurant, and I got spaghetti. Once again, very good. By these days I’m getting used to always being tired… I think that’s a good thing. However we are getting up at 6 am the next day, so I may be more tired than ever before, if that’s possible. It was an early night with the impending early morning ahead of us, but we did go to a beach. Well, not exactly. It was the closest thing we could get in southern Germany. On the roof of a parking garage there was sand and a restaurant where we went and hung out for a while, and it was really pretty. However it got cold when the sun went down so we didn’t stay past 10.

Day 3 Pictures


May 10th, 2016: Day 3, Tuesday

Getting up at 7 again wasn’t easy. Yet if you want breakfast, you must get up at 7, and you don’t want to miss breakfast. This day was our first sight visit, SGL. We had a presentation and then a tour, and the tour took us into a chem lab at one point. Made me think of where my dad works, when I went in to take your child to work day. SGL is a carbon company, and we got to pick up a car door made of carbon fiber. It was very light but looked really heavy. After that we went to the Grand Hotel. It is a place for refugees and artists, with the rooms’ interior designed by artists. The people there are really nice, and each of the rooms are very different from each other. Our tour guide didn’t know much English and it took him a while to say what he wanted to say. I was impressed however with how his accent wasn’t difficult to understand. He was an interesting guy, and his beard was unlike any beard I’ve seen in America. We also got to have dinner on our own for the first time, yet I had no influence of where we were going, which I actually preferred. We ended up going to a Bavarian restaurant where I had bratwurst and schnitzel. We spent some time hanging out there for a while and went to a few other paces, but didn’t stay out late because we were all tired, and have to get up at 7:30 again. Another long day in the books, and needless to say I was pretty tired. Regardless, I can tell the rest of this trip is going to be a lot of fun and will be full of memories and stories.

Day 2 Pictures



May 9th, 2016: Day 2, Monday

Waking up at 7 am was difficult, but I managed. The breakfast however was so much better than the breakfasts in American hotels. The bread was amazing, the yogurt was great, and they also had cold cuts and really good juice. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. After breakfast we went to the University of Augsburg, which I though was small but supposed to have 20,000 kids attending. I liked it, but not as much as Pitt. We had a brief lecture going over some course requirements and then we had an hour to prepare an introductory presentation about our company, and since my company is KUKA, I learned a lot about what they do. I’ll learn more on Wednesday with the site visit. After we went to the cafeteria for the University (so Augsburg’s “market”) and it was so much nicer, and cheaper too. Not all you can eat, but the food seemed healthier and tasted better. After that was a tour of the university, which made the campus seem larger than before and larger than what the map looked like. We then had a scavenger hunt that took us all over the city of Augsburg, which gave me really nice pictures. I loved the bell tower, even though the 260 stairs wasn’t easy being as I was still tired. At least for the first two days, the weather was fantastic. 70’s and sunny, with no rain. I believe the weather is supposed to get worse at some point however. There was a bunch of questions about the city and we had to take pictures of many things for the scavenger hunt, even though my group came in last (we didn’t mind). Dinner was at an Italian restaurant, where if you knew German or Italian you were fine, too bad I didn’t know either. I had lasagna which was very similar to what I’m used to yet was still fantastic. After dinner we went to a few places to hangout and met a few other people, and ended the night a little later than the night before. Getting up at 7 am again is going to be rough.

Day 1 Pictures



May 8th, 2016: Arrival Day, Day 1, Sunday.

When I arrived in Germany at 7 am, it felt like it should be 5 pm. Then by 5 pm German time, it would be an understatement to say I was tired. Anyway the hotel rooms were very small for three people, probably smaller than rooms for two people in America. I didn’t mind. We met a few students from the University of Augsburg when we got into town, and they were all really nice and easy to talk to. Exploring Augsburg was fun because it was unlike any American city, and the churches are amazing. There is a center square where a lot of people hangout when the weather is nice (and for this day it was gorgeous out) so we saw many people. The main street, Maximilianstrasse, (or max. strasse) is packed with things to do, from the town hall and three statues to restaurants, we spent a lot of time there. The town hall has a third floor that’s called the golden chamber. This chamber has many paintings and sculptures covered in gold, which made for awesome pictures. The public transportation system is also very good, with trains taking you basically anywhere. Confusing at first, but not too difficult to figure out. The first day was a blast of new culture, but nothing too strange. Until we got to dinner, where everyone got the same meal. We had no idea what we were eating for some of the things, but found out later we had liver soup with fried dough pellets… apparently it’s a typical Bavarian meal. I liked it. But that was just the appetizer. The main course had pork (we could distinguish that) but also we presume was red pickled cabbage? Still not sure about that, but what the most confusing were the yellow rice potato balls, that I still don’t know what it was. I didn’t care for those as much. Dessert was apple strudel, which was perfect. By the end of dinner it was almost 8 o’clock, and we knew we had to get up early the next morning, so it was an early night with a lot of sleep. Overall nothing shocked me much, yet coming here I didn’t know what to expect so I wasn’t going to be shocked easily. And hopefully tomorrow I will be less tired.