Day 13: May 20th

Our last day!! I can't believe how fast this trip has flown by- how has it already been two weeks??

Today we went to Reigele's brewery today with most of the Germans for our last breakfast together.  The restaurant has a breakfast special called "Breakfast Pint," which is just a pint of beer, a pretzel and two breakfast sausages.  It was a very weird mix of food to have for breakfast, but it all tasted really good so I guess I see why it's popular.

My breakfast

It's hard to name everyone, but me, Veronica, Sophia, Lucie, Alex, Sam, Christian, Dennis and Lindsey

 After breakfast, everyone split up to walk around Augsburg and grab any last minute souvenirs that they needed.  I went to the mall with Lindsey and Katie, and I managed to buy everything I needed.

We went home and took a quick nap, and then we met up with a bunch of the Germans in a park.  German Patrick brought a grill, so we all grilled sausages and chicken and a bunch of other meats.  They also brought dough, and showed us how to wrap it around a stick to cook, like a bread version of a hotdog or a s'more.   This BBQ dinner was probably one of my favorite memories of the trip, because you could move around talk to everyone, rather than the people you're sitting next to at a restaurant.  Also, making our own food was a very fun memory.  This dinner is our last dinner in Augsburg, so I'm glad we made it a fun afternoon out, and we got to say another goodbye to all the German students.

Christian, Alex, Sophia and Patrick's girlfriend  Vanessa

Dan grilling some of the sausages with Caro and Dennis.  

The bread dough sticks

Grilling our bread and meat

Everyone hanging out while the food was cooking

Patrick decided to climb a tree here, and he got so high that I was worried a branch would fall off or something.

One final picture of our grill

After our BBQ dinner, we went out to this skybar that was decorated like a beach, with sand on the ground, and beach umbrellas and lounge chairs.  No one got any drinks, but it was nice to be able to look up at the stars and talk with everyone for one last time.   

As a whole, today was an amazing day, especially since it was our last day.  I'm glad that our last day will be a really fun day to look back on and laugh about with everyone, both the Germans and the Americans.

I got most of the German's facebook and instragram names, so hopefully we'll be able to keep in touch over the years.  Many of them plan on coming to America eventually, and I plan on being in Spain next spring, so we'll be close enough to get together at some point hopefully.  At the skybar, Caro said to me "Everyone always meets at least twice.  It's not possible to become friends and never see each other again."  I really like this quote, because it gives me hope that I'll see some of the Germans again sometime.  

Tomorrow morning we leave for the airport.  Goodbye Augsburg! I know I'll come back someday. 

Day 12: May 19th

Today we rode to Ulm in one of the high- speed trains, which was really cool because it only took us 40 minutes to get there.  As soon as we got there, we took a tour throughout the city.  It rained the entire day, so we all had umbrellas and raincoats on, but if it had been a pretty day I think Ulm would have been one of my favorite places to visit.  There were a bunch of rivers that went right through the middle of the city and in between houses.

The Ulmer Munster- the Lutheran Church in the center of town

Inside the church with the original stained glass that survived WWII

One of the walls of the church.  You can't really tell in the picture, but the wall on the left slants out.  The top of the wall is further out than the bottom of the wall.

The church from the back

Katha and I

Katie and I standing on the Ulm Wall

The Ulm wall, with some houses in the background

One of the rivers

After our tour, we went to a pancake house for lunch.  They served a lot of different pancakes, including sweet ones, savory ones and spicy ones.  I really liked this lunch, because I have only ever heard of sweet pancakes.  I got a savory pancake with ham and pineapple- basically the pancake version of a Hawaiian pizza.  The pancake was absolutely amazing, and I'll probably try and recreate it at home using crepes.   

The outside of the pancake house

This is how my pancake came

And how it looked after it was folded up

After the pancakes, we returned to Ulmer Munster, where we climbed up all 768 steps to the top of the spire.  768 steps is a lot, especially when you've already walked around all day!  The entire way up to the top we walked up a small spiral staircase, which had 2 different balconies and then the final top balcony.  I get very claustrophobic, so walking up over 700 steps in a small spiral staircase surrounded by many people and no windows was very, very difficult.  I was excited for the first balcony, because I thought I would have room to spread out and breathe, but it turned out to only be one little hallway only big enough for one person to fit through, and entirely closed in by walls and bars, which only made me more claustrophobic- at least the stairs gave me enough room to move my arms!

When we finally made it to the top, you could see all of Ulm spread out from all sides- it was beautiful!! I'm not sure that the view was worth 768 steps, but it was definitely really cool and it made for an amazing experience!  After we came down from the very top spire balcony, we all hung out on a wider balcony, where you could still see most of the city, but there was room to move around and lay down.   

Some pictures from the very top of the Ulmer Munster 

Me, Sydney and Veronica still looking energetic (mostly)- at the beginning of the climb

The three of us again at the end of the climb, at the very top

mid- climb (still alive but we're barely breathing!)

Me, Veronica, Sydney and Sam at the biggest balcony

Looking up from the biggest balcony- the column on the far left is the final spiral staircase up to the top

How small the staircases were- this one had plenty of windows!

Laying down at the top balcony

After we all got down from climbing, we took the train back to Augsburg, where we ran back to the hotel to change and then went to our last goodbye dinner with all the German students. This dinner was very fun, but very sad.  I sat next to Ben (SGL Ben) and we talked for a long time.  Tonight was probably one of the first times I had heard him talk, outside of talking about the project.  He only came on two different company trips with us, and no cultural trips, because he had signed up late.  The only time I saw him all week was during group project meetings.  I really liked talking to him and getting to know him, but it was bittersweet because this was our last dinner.  The other two boys in our group, Jan and Christoph, I had seen from the beginning so I already knew them pretty well and had the chance to talk to them.  As a whole, the goodbye dinner was really fun and we all had a great time, but it was sad to think about how I'll probably never see them again.  The German boys brought us gifts too-  a beer mug full of German candy and an energy drink version of Spezi.

As we walked home, the sunset was absolutely beautiful, and for me it kind of summed up our entire trip-  very unforgettable and beautiful, and I thought this sunset was a good way to start to end our trip.

Day 11: May 18th

Day 11 was a very relaxed day.  We started off the day by going to the University at 10 am to work on our group projects, and then broke for lunch around noon.  Working on our projects today was very frustrating, because we presented tonight at 5 pm, so everyone was stressed out and very snippy with each other.  The Germans kept reverting back to speaking German, which was very frustrating for the Americans- they were talking about our project, but we could not understand them at all.  And since they were talking in German, they developed a habit of figuring everything out in German, and then switching to English to tell us what to do, so it felt like we were all employees rather than groupmates.  We eventually figured everything out, but it was very annoying for a while.

After lunch, we went to a little coffee shop on campus to wrap everything up, before going home to change.

The bakery

Their amazing muffins and coffee

Our presentation ended up going very well I thought.  During the presentation, I went to change the slide and somehow shut off the entire PowerPoint and computer monitor, which was very embarrassing but I guess everyone else thought it was funny so it wasn't that bad.  I had to speak without the PowerPoint for a few minutes, but overall everything else went very smoothly.

After the presentation, we went to Peaches, where we all relaxed and talked about the next two days of our trip.  

Day 10: May 17th

Today we took a really long drive up to the PPG factory, which is where they experiment with different paint colors and techniques.  This tour was one of my favorite tours so far, because I thought the process of making paint was very interesting, and I particularly liked all the different paint swatches they had on display.

They walked us through the different laboratories, although I was slightly confused because I was expecting large batches of paint and huge mixers and boxes of different chemicals, etc.  Instead, their laboratory looked like a high school chemistry room, with long rows of desks and random buckets of paint thrown on the counters.  However, the tour was very interesting, and they showed us the mini factory line they had where they could test different paint batches.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures while we were there, so the only picture I got was of my name tag.

Also, the PPG guys fed us lunch, which was very nice.  Every day for this entire trip our lunches have consisted of either pretzels or weird little sandwiches.  Today there was both but I had one of the weird sandwiches.  On the roll was brie cheese, one single slice of pepper, one end of a tomato, one slice of a hard boiled egg, and lettuce.  Although the combination of food is strange and ill- assorted, the sandwiches always taste good and they feel re-energizing, instead of heavy like American bread.

After we got back from PPG, our SGL group met up at a really cute bakery on the university's campus, where we finished up the PowerPoint and assigned different slides to different people.  I loved working at the cafè because I felt like a real Augsburg student.  From there, I went to Capitol for dinner with Sam and Katie, where I got one of their famous burgers.

The burger was amazing, and the potatoes it came with almost reminded me of the breakfast potatoes at Market.

After dinner, I came home and hung out in Sam's room to work a bit on my part of the presentation before getting ready for bed early.  Today was also very relaxing, and I had a lot of time to do all the work that I needed to get done, and still had time to socialize and hang out with some of the girls on our trip.  

Day 9: May 16th

Day 9 was a more relaxed day, especially compared to Dachau yesterday.  We went to visit Neuschwanstein castle today, which was absolutely beautiful.  The ride was a little over an hour and a half long, and I slept for most of it.  When I woke up, I looked out the bus window to see the Alps towering over us, right off of the highway.  The view was absolutely astonishing.  When we got to the castle, you could see a neighboring castle sitting on a small cliff, which is by where we parked.  Across the parking lot was a gorgeous lake that was so flat that you could see a perfect reflection of the Alps in the water.  If you looked closer, you could see straight through the water down to the bottom of the lake.

After looking at the lake, we started the half hour hike up the Alps to visit the Neuschwanstein castle.  From the castle, there was a breathtaking view of the Bavarian countryside down below.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures of the interior of the castle, but it was decorated with a lot of dark wood  and dark paints.  Everything was dark and gloomy inside the castle-  I liked looking at the exterior and the surrounding views much better.  

 Me and Veronica

Katie, Lucie and I

After visiting the castle, we drove to a smaller town to eat lunch and walk around for a little bit.  It was a very cute downtown, and we got gelato and some weird type of dessert dough ball covered in chocolate.  I really liked walking through downtown, and I ended up buying a really cute scarf and some souvenirs for me and my family.  

Our lunch

The gelato from a small local gelato shop

One of the main streets of the little town

Our doughballs that we got

When we got back to the hotel, I ended up falling asleep for three hours, before getting a pizza for dinner and spending the rest of the night in the hotel, eating and blogging.  Today was very lowkey and relaxing, which is really nice because I needed a day off to catch up on sleep and recover a little bit from all the other crazy- busy days!

Day 8: May 15th

Our visit to Dachau was today, which made today a very somber, heavy day.  We left in the morning, and arrived at Dachau around 11 am.  Our tour guide walked us through the concentration camp, and then we watched a short video about it.

Our path through Dachau mimicked the path that a prisoner at the time would have taken, so we started off by walking through the main gates of the camp.  These gates were very big and made of heavy metal, with several lookout posts.  After the gate building, you could see the barbed wire stretching around the exterior of the camp to keep everyone in.  I immediately felt very dark and heavy- this was where over 206,000 prisoners walked into the camp. Everyone in our group was silent as we walked through the camp gates.  Dachau is a place where you don't want to talk; too much has happened here to say anything.

A lookout stand on the perimeter of Dachau

The opening gates

From there, we walked through the registration building, where all the prisoners would have been showered and beaten and given numbers tattooed on their arms.  Some of the original floors and walls remained, and they had put pictures of what it originally looked like up on the wall. There were pictures of very skinny prisoners being walked through the room, as well as people being tortured.  It's hard to comprehend that I stood in the exact place where so many awful, inhumane things had happened.  There's really no words to describe the feeling of standing in a concentration camp and staring at a picture of a man hanging from the ceiling that now stands over your head.  

After the registration building, we walked through a hallway where the "special prisoners" were kept.  These prisoners usually had committed crimes against the Nazis, and were given individual cells, rather then being kept in the long barracks.  This hallway really creeped me out.  It felt almost as if all the prisoners were still there with us, watching every move we made.  Most of the cell doors were cracked open, and you could see the building's original paint still peeling on the walls.  

A map of all the concentration/ extermination camps

Outside of the registration building

The door of a special prisoner's cell

The hallway for the special prisoners

After the special prisoners cells, we walked along a wide stretch of openness where the 34 barracks had once stood.  All of the barracks had been destroyed for health and safety reasons, although the preservation committee had reconstructed one of the barracks for an example.  The prisoners lived in awful living conditions, with over 1000 men living in a space meant for 250 men. 

 Once we passed the barracks' foundations, we crossed a small bridge to visit the extermination building.  Although Dachau was supposed to be just a concentration camp, they had an extermination building where they tested different gasses before sending the gasses out to extermination camps.  This building was by far the worst experience of my day.  We were allowed to walk through the extermination building, and eventually we got to the gas chamber room.  Everyone else in our group stopped to look around, but I had to walk straight through to the next room.  The atrocities committed in that room, and the sadness and pain that still lingered, was too much for me to handle.  After the gas room was the cremation room, where the ovens still stood.  This room was just as hard to look at as the gas room, so I walked out of the building quickly.  Standing outside and looking back at the extermination building, I started to  cry a little bit.  In a place with so much history, there is really nothing you can do other than cry.

I have no pictures for these parts of the tour, or for the rest of the tour.  It felt wrong to take pictures of everything we saw- almost as if we were mocking the prisoners in a way.  Some things are best to simply experience, and let live in your memories.  To take pictures of everything would feel like I was belittling the camp and making it more of a tourist destination than a concentration camp.

The rest of the day we had free, and my SGL group chose to meet up and finish up our powerpoint.  We had a good time, and afterwards all of the girls, plus a few of the German students, chose to order Chinese food before going to an old warehouse- turned club.  I had a really fun night, but what I will remember from today was the Dachau trip and all of the emotions that went along with it.