Day 7: May 14th

Today we drove down to Munich for a city tour, and then we had a few free hours before meeting back up for dinner and taking the train back to Augsburg.  Today was probably one of my favorite days so far, because it was very relaxed and I just got to hang out and spend time getting to know everyone better.

Our tour was of the historical section of Munich, which was gorgeous.  I have never seen a city so large, but so pretty.  Most of the buildings are historical, with lots of fountains and towers.  All the streets are cobblestone, and although there are a few cars, it's mostly pedestrians and bikes.  Munich was exactly the opposite of New York City, which was very cool and refreshing to see.  I definitely prefer the historical downtown of Munich to the more industrial- type downtown of NYC.  The first building we saw was the city hall, which was absolutely beautiful.  Outside of the town hall was a big open square for pedestrians to walk around on.

The city hall

From there, we made a big loop around the city, seeing a few churches and historical sites, as well as a giant market square.  The market was very loud and crazy, with a very enthusiastic atmosphere.  I liked standing there and people watching.  Some of the stands sold over 350 kinds of cheese, and there was a beer garden right in the middle of the square, where people could hang out and eat their own lunch.  Our tour guide had several interesting stories and legends about Munich, which I found really cool.

After the tour ended, I grabbed a sandwhich to go with Sydney, Katie, Alex, Lindsey, Veronica and two of the German boys- Ben and Dennis.  The boys took us to the English gardens, which were gorgeous.  It's a giant park right by downtown Munich, so we walked around for a while before stopping by a beer garden for a little bit to hang out and people watch.  While at the beer garden, I couldn't figure out the bathrooms at all, and had to go back and get Dennis to help me figure them out.  In the end, you had to pay a machine and go through a little side gate, but it was hilarious.  Veronica called this my "struggle of the day" and we all laughed about it.  

Veronica, Ben, Dennis, Katie, me, Alex, Sydney and Lindsey

From there, we wandered back through the park to a spot where the river turned into rapids and people were surfing in the rapids.  Apparently this is a small tradition in Munich, and there are always people surfing in the river whenever the weather is nice.  It was funny to watch them surf back and forth across a small river, but it was so much fun!  Everyone would clap for the surfers, and you could hear them all laughing and teasing each other while they surfed.

Surfers in the river

We left the park after watching the surfers for a few minutes, and finished our last few free hours going shopping for souvenirs.  I didn't find much, but Sydney and Veronica tried on a dirndl, which was hilarious.  The workers did up their hair too, so they looked like traditional Bavarian girls.  

We went back to the city hall to meet everyone, and then we went to dinner.  The restaurant was a burger place, and it was nice to have American food after so many Bavarian meals.  We rode the train home after dinner, and everyone ended their night early because it was a long day.  Tomorrow we go to Dachau too, so I want to be well rested.  

Day 6: May 13th

Today was the BMW day,  so we drove to Munich to tour the BMW museum and BMW Welt, which is kinda like a giant show room.  We had a few hours off to tour the museum/ show room by ourselves, so I hung out with Katie, Sydney, Veronica and Lindsey for most of the time.  We stopped in the museum to have a quick breakfast, which was really good.  I liked seeing all the old cars and the progressions as the years went on and the cars got more current.

In the showroom, we were allowed to sit in a few of the BMWs.  

BMW headquarters

While writing this blog, I realized that Ben (in the blue raincoat) is in nearly all of my pictures.  He is very tall, so every time I take a picture of something his head is usually in the picture- or in this case, half of his body.  I laughed about this with Katie for a few minutes, because it's nearly impossible to find pictures without him in it.  

After the museum, they took us on a tour of the productions factory, which was my favorite part of the trip.  We started off with plain sheets of metal, and our tour guide showed us how they're pressed into the right shape, and then the entire process from there- including painting, coating, putting the pieces together and welding.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures during the tour, so I don't have any to put in my blog.  However, when we passed the welding room we got to see all the KUKA robots in action.  I really liked this, since we went to see KUKA the other day.  At KUKA, we got to see robots making other robots, so I liked seeing the robots in action and actually making the cars.  

When we got back from BMW, the Germans took us out to eat for my birthday, which was very nice of them.   Thanks to Lucie (and Sophia and Dennis!) for organizing everything!  After dinner, we went out to Peaches for a more relaxed night out, which was very fun.  We all danced a little bit and the Germans bought my drinks for me.  I didn't expect them to, so it was a really fun surprise.  While at Peaches, I talked a little bit with Lucie, and she wanted to make sure that I was having a good time. She told me how she had spent one birthday abroad, and how she felt so out of place, and she didn't want me to feel like that at all.  This was so sweet of her- and I ended up having an amazing birthday!

Lucie and I at Peaches

Day 5: May 12th

We started today really early, leaving around 7 am to take a three hour bus ride up to Kronach to visit LEAR.  Although I slept for most of the drive, when I was awake I noticed how breath taking the German countryside was.  As we drove along the highway we passed miles and miles of open fields and farm fields, and in the background were huge, rolling hills.

The view from the highway

The LEAR company visit was interesting, but very long.  Over 4 hours, they gave us a few presentations, then took us on tours of the finished product line, the production line, and the sound  testing rooms.  My favorite by far was the sound testing part- they took us into a room that they use to compare car speakers to ideal speakers.  The man who was showing us around let us listen to a few songs on the "perfect" speakers, including "Feeling Good" by Michael Buble.  Listening to this song in the sound room was absolutely an amazing experience- I have never heard a sound system like that before.  I could feel every note echoing in my body, and I heard a bunch of new rifts and instruments in the song that I had never noticed before.

After the sound room, our guide took us to a testing room, where we got to sit inside a Mercedes- Benz S class and listen to a brand new sound system, which was awesome.  I have never heard car speakers sound that good before.

My name tag from LEAR

From LEAR we drove an hour and a half into Nürnberg, where we took a city tour and then ate dinner.  Our tour guide was very nice and interesting, but it was hard for me to focus because I was so tired.  My favorite part was when he said that a building was "only 400 years old."  I often forget how old German towns are compared to cities in the United States.  It's crazy to think how Nürnberg's youngest building is older than our entire country.

My favorite building was an old church that was half Gothic style and half Baroque style.  They had originally built the church as a Roman church, but then they needed to expand so they built the second half of the church in the current style, the Gothic style. 

The Baroque half

The Gothic half

After our tour we went to a traditional Bavarian restaurant, where they gave us sausage and sauerkraut.  I don't like sauerkraut, but the sausages were amazing.  However, I wish we had more than sausage for dinner,

Bavarian sausage

After dinner, we took a quick tour of a castle right next to the restaurant, where we could see most of the city laid out.  

 Lucie, Katie, me and Sydney

The ride from Nürnberg back to Augsburg was two more hours, so we got home around 11 pm.  As soon as we got back, we all got ready and went out to the club.  Since my birthday is the 13th, everyone sang happy birthday to me exactly at midnight, when we were standing in line to get in.  I had a lot of fun, and I felt like tonight really helped to bond the German and American kids.  I spent a lot of time with Tabea and Tami on the way to the club, and Lucie and Sophia were with me for most of the night dancing.  

Day 4: May 11th

Day 4 started off early, because we had to ride an hour long bus to get to Munich to visit the BMW offices.  We only got to listen to a presentation today, and the factory tour will be later on the trip.  I liked the BMW presentation, because the presenter talked about BMW's different business models and new ideas and programs.  For example, BMW is started to include ride- share services and new apps for their customers.  I really liked how the company is analyzing their environment and changing their company services to fit their customers' needs.  They are even tailoring different programs, apps, and lines according to different market segments.  BMW offered us water and cookies after the presentation, which I thought was very considerate.

After we got back from Munich, we had a free hour for lunch.  A few of the German students took some of the American students to a little market type place, and there was a building that had several different meat shops inside. I got to meet Caroline and Sophia, and they helped us figure out the German menus and find something good to eat.  The food was amazing, and I had a great time befriending the German students and eating in a very typical food market.

From there, we took the tram to KUKA, where they took us on an extensive factory tour and presentation.  I thought the robots were  fascinating.  This was the first time I have ever seen robots that high- tech working and moving.  It's amazing how they can practically run themselves, and manage other robots at the same time.  The technology that goes into making these robots must be incredibly advanced, especially considering how many different types of robots were there.  The presentation consisted of a lot of different applications for the different robots, including artwork and movie appearances.

Once the KUKA visit was over, we were free for the rest of the day.  Katie and I just went to get pizza and sit in the plaza.  It was nice to have a very relaxed night, since we have been crazy busy and we have to wake up at 6 am tomorrow to go to LEAR.

Day 3: May 10th

We started off today by going to SGL, which is the company that my group is focusing on.  SGL makes many different things out of carbon, specifically carbon fiber (for the automotive industry- carbon fiber is used to make lighter car bodies).  I am really glad that I ended up on the SGL team because I thought the process of making carbon fiber was fascinating, and the strength that is has is unbelievable.

During our tour, we got to see the pilot factory, where they test different ways of making carbon fiber.  After this tour, they took us to see the show room and some of the chemistry rooms where they test the fiber for different things, like strength, bendiness, and different elements.  This part was the hardest part for me to understand, because I didn't quite get all of the different chemical processes and words that our guide was using, but it was my favorite part of SGL because the chemist was very excited to explain everything to us.  He was clearly very passionate about his work, and it made me excited to listen to him explain his work.

I also got to get to know the rest of my team better.  I knew Katie from the start, and she's my roommate while I'm in Germany, but I hadn't really gotten to know our other American team members- Dan and Pat.  The three German members, Jan, Christoph and Ben, I also got to get to know better.  It was cool talking to them and seeing how their lives our different from ours, and how similar they are.

My Group

After the SGL tour, we went back to the hotel for a quick nap, and then went to the Town Hall for a refugee lecture.  The lecture was interesting, and she talked about different migrant groups in  Germany and how there are different ethnicities in Germany.  For example, many people living in Germany have ancestors from Turkey, yet consider themselves German because they were born in Germany.  However, other "ethnic Germans" refuse to acknowledge these people as German, and consider them Turks instead.

 From there we went on a tour of the Grand Hotel.  This hotel is very unique because they offer hostel rooms and house up to 65 refugees, as well as hotel guests and a few artists that live in the hotel for free.  They "pay" for their stay by creating murals on the walls and designing various hotel rooms.  I thought this was a really creative idea, and the designs were very unique, but the tour went on for way too long, especially since it had already been a long day to begin with.  I was very tired and couldn't focus on what the man was saying, especially since his English was not very strong.

Some of the art at the Grand Hotel

We ate  dinner as one group at a little Bavarian restaurant in town, and the food was amazing.  After dinner, a few people went out to the town plaza to hang out and write blogs.  We had a great time, and on the way home we accidentally missed our tram stop, and the next one was a mile and a half away.  We had to wait there for the next tram to come from the opposite direction, which took 15 minutes.  The whole ordeal was hilarious, especially since Dr. Feick had warned us about not missing our tram stop.  We eventually made it back to the hotel, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Day 2: May 9th

We woke up early today and took a tram down to the University of Augsburg, where we had to give brief presentations.  This was the first time meeting the three German boys in our SGL Group, and they all seem really nice- they took us to a different building to work on our presentation, and showed us a little bit of the university on the way.  After the presentations, we had lunch at the Mensa (the university's cafeteria place).  I loved eating here because the architecture was very modern and open, not to mention the food was great!  After lunch, we went on an official tour of the University.  I really like the Augsburg campus- it is very different from the American campus' I am used to.  Augsburg's campus was very open and quiet, with several different grassy fields where students could work or relax.  As a whole, the campus felt very quiet and calm.  The student dorms and downtown Augsburg are both a tram ride away from campus, so the only people on campus were either headed to class or relaxing between classes- all together a very studious feel.

Pictures of campus

We left the Augsburg campus to start our scavenger hunt.  My team was lead by a grad student at the university, and we had a lot of fun running through the city trying to find everything.  The scavenger hunt lead us down into a few crypts of churches, and we got to climb the Perlach Tower that I talked about yesterday.  We also went to a brewery, the University's soccer stadium, and a few fountains within Augsburg.  After our tour, the grad students led us to an Italian place where we ate dinner without the German students.  The food was very good, and we ended the night early after walking through Augsburg a little bit.  

Today really made me glad that I chose to come on this study abroad trip.  The Augsburg students showed us again how nice and welcoming they are, and I got to know the American students a lot better.  I feel even more comfortable walking around the city and taking the trams to different areas- it feels very safe here.  All of the locals are very helpful and will usually switch to speaking English for us American kids.  The German kids too try their best to speak in English, although they always switch back to German when they're talking to each other.  They always ask us if we are happy, and how we are liking Augsburg so far, and it's nice to know that they're trying their hardest to make sure we are having a good time in Germany.

The view from Perlach Tower

Different fountains in Augsburg

The main street, plus a church in the background

Day 1: May 8th

Today we landed in Munich around 7:30 am, and then caught a bus to Augsburg, which was about an hour's drive.  I was very excited to drive through the German countryside, because it was something I had never seen before.  I hadn't realized how much greenery Germany had- it was so pretty!

After we arrived in Augsburg and dropped off our stuff in the hotel room, we met Sonja, one of the Augsburg leaders, and then we went on a tour of Augsburg with a few of the German students.  They were all very friendly, and it was cool to talk to them while we walked through their town.

We walked through the main street of town, and got to visit one of the main churches in town- the Dom.  The Dom was built in the Romanesque style and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.  Outside of the church is the foundation from an old Roman building, as well as a small exhibition with different Roman remains.  Down the street from the church is the Perlach Tower and the town hall, and across the street is a huge open square.  This is probably my favorite part of Augsburg so far, because the square is very open and airy, and it feels very friendly.  During the day, there are tables set up where people can sit down and drink coffee from the shops lining the square, and many people also  chose to lay down on the cobblestones next to one of the fountains.  We briefly stopped inside the town square and visited the Gold Room, which is completely covered in gold and holds many town meetings.

The Gold Room

A panorama of the square, with the Perlach Tower and Town Hall on the right

After the tour, we had dinner with the German students and then they showed us a bit more of town later in the evening.  I got to talk to a few of them and really get to know them, and it was really neat to be able to make friends with people who lived completely different lives than you.

Between the overnight flight, long day of touring, and jet lag, today has been exhausting.  It was all a whirlwind of cool buildings and new faces.  But today has made me very excited for the rest of the trip- all of the Augsburg kids seem really cool and friendly, and Augsburg itself is a very welcoming city.  I feel like I already have a hang for how the city is laid out and how the trams run.  Hopefully tonight will burn off the rest of my jet lag, and I'll be able to start tomorrow completely refreshed!