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!!
Jack Lunger's Plus3 Blog
Friday, June 3, 2016
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
19th 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.
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