Saturday, May 21

            What a trip! As we embark on the flight home, I could not think of a better way to start my summer. I made a bunch of new friends, both American and German, and I was able to see parts of Germany, and especially German companies, that I would have never seen if I had not gone on this amazing journey. I have taken so much away and learned so much, and Dr. Feick and Hillary really made the trip so enjoyable in all aspects. Augsburg will now always have a special place in my heart. Till next time Germany!!

Friday, May 20

            Friday was our first and last off day, and unfortunately it was also the last day of this amazing trip. That being said, it was so nice to wake up late and just hang around for the first time. With some of the Augsburg kids our whole group headed over to a beer garden to have the traditional Bavarian breakfast weisswurst, which means white sausage, and a pretzel. In my opinion it was just okay, and didn’t really fill me up, but at least I can check it off the bucket list. After that I walked around Augsburg and did some shopping and got gifts for my parents and sister, then went back to the hotel and started packing. We then headed over to the park across from our hotel for a final goodbye barbeque. It was so fun and really nice to see all of the Augsburg students one last time, and just made it harder to leave.

Thursday, May 19

            Thursday was our final day trip to Ulm, about a 45 minute train ride away. Like always, the first thing we did was take a city tour and look at old churches, but what was different about this tour was that the old church we looked at was the Ulm Muenster, with the world’s highest church steeple at 530ft high. We eventually trekked all the way up, but I’ll talk about that later. The tour guide showed us around the main parts of the city, and while it was kind of boring I found all of the little waterways really pretty and cool, and it reminded me of Venice because the buildings were right on top of the water. After the tour we went to lunch and ate an Ulm classic, potato pancakes, but they were really just crepes. While they were very good, it took so long for our food to come, and some people had even eaten lunch and dessert before others had their appetizers. We then had about an hour to digest our food and walk around before heading back to the town square to conquer the Muenster, and it was quite the hike. It took about 20 minutes just to get up to the first of three balconies, and the stairs only got more narrow the further you got up. The very top balcony was so narrow that you could only fit one person across, and that became a big issue when people wanted to get down at the same time as people were coming up. It was actually kind of scary trying to get down, squeezing by people on extremely steep and short stairs, but it was all worth it because the view was amazing. You could see where the city ended and farm country started, something I had never seen before from the top of a building. After climbing down, we got back on the train and headed back to Augsburg one last time, as Friday is our off day. I’m sad it’s coming to an end, but I think I’m ready to get my summer started back home.

Wednesday, May 18

            Today was the big day! The only thing that was on the schedule were the presentations at 5, so every group pretty much worked on their presentations right up until the 3:00 deadline. I thought our group presentation went okay, as there were a couple of technical things we could have fixed and the biggest thing was that we went over the 20-minute max by about 2 minutes. Going in we were not really sure if the 20 minutes was a recommendation or requirement, and realized too late that it was a requirement. But besides that I believe everyone spoke well and did their job, and everyone was so happy it was over with and we were finally able to fully enjoy the cultural side of our trip without the presentation hanging over our head. After everyone went, we all went out and celebrated the official start of summer for the Americans, which was very fun!

Tuesday, May 17

            On Tuesday we made our final company visit to PPG, which was a little more significant than the others because it’s a Pittsburgh-based company and one of the senior people from the supply chain department who we met in one of our pre-departure meetings actually flew all the way to Germany to meet with us again on the company visit. It was another long bus ride though, and thankfully our last, but just like every other one pretty much all of us slept the entire way. The plant was in a small town like Lear’s plant, and from the outside it looked old and boring. But once we got in and had a look around the facilities it turned out to be really cool and interesting. The presentation was really good because it gave an overview of not only how they make the paint but also the challenges the company faces on the business side and the way it deals with all of their complex supply chains. Following the presentation we were given a tour of the manufacturing facilities, and I was so impressed by how many different colors they were able to make, 1500 different colors to be exact. They also told us that they have to predict when and where a color will be popular, and plan almost 5 years ahead when making some of the colors, which is quite impressive. I was relieved to finally be done with all the company visits because while they were interesting, they began to get very repetitive and long. When we got back to Augsburg I just hung around with a couple of kids from my group and then went to bed, as everyone else was finalizing their presentations.

Monday, May 16

       Monday was the complete opposite of Sunday, as we went to one of the more happier places in Bavaria which is Neuschwanstein, the castle built by King Ludwig II in the 19^th Century and the same castle Disneyland in California based their famous castle off of. In my opinion the sights from the castle were more beautiful than the castle itself. King Ludwig built it halfway up a mountain, so there are beautiful views looking out from the castle across the valley below. I was so focused on taking pictures of that view that I even forgot to get in the group picture we took! Honestly the castle was a little less impressive than what I had expected, but I guess that was because I was comparing it to the Disneyland castle. That being said, the inside was jaw dropping, and I could see why King Ludwig’s relatives got so mad at him for spending all of their money on this unnecessary extravagance and why Ludwig “disappeared” after only completing 15 of the 80 rooms in the castle. Each room was so detailed and so extraordinary, and the tour guide told us that Ludwig’s master bedroom took 5 years to complete, which is insane. After a short tour of the 10 or so completed rooms we were allowed to see the group headed back outside to walk back down to where the bus was and head to a little town called Fuessen. Fuessen was about 15 minutes away from the castle and we were given about an hour to walk around and look at all the little shops in the city center. It was really nice and cute, and the dessert we got was amazing, but at this point a lot of those small towns began to look the same for me. When we got back to Augsburg at around 5 my group worked some more on our project and make sure we had everything we needed for Wednesday’s presentation.