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.