After staying up all night, two flights, a nine hour layover, and a full day in Germany, I’m writing my first blog post.  This is where I will describe each day of my two week long trip to Germany over the summer of 2017.  Today is Sunday, May 7 and I just got back to my hotel room to write.  It’s 10pm right now, but we first got to Munich at seven in the morning.  After an hour long bus ride, we got to our hotel and checked in.  We  then got some information about the program and almost immediately got down to business.  We took a tour of the city of Augsburg, seeing some of the famous sights like the golden room, Fuggerei, and the Dom (all while realizing just how bad American public transportation is).  

My favorite thing we saw today was the Fuggerei.  The Fuggerei was founded in 1516 by Jakob Fugger the Rich.  It is a small social housing complex still in use today.  I learned that the Fugger family was so religious and so terrified of not getting into heaven, that they built homes for people to live in nearly rent-free in exchange for their prayers.  The residents, even today, have always had to pray for the Fugger family three times a day and the rent has always been the modern equivalent to .88 euros a year. I just can’t believe that someone would ever come up with the idea of having other people pray for them as the best way to ensure their place in heaven.  We then ended the day at a traditional Bavarian restaurant called “Zeughausstuben” where we had turkey, fruit salad, and something resembling matzo ball soup.  After that I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel, write this, and fall asleep.  I’m almost at that last part, and I’ve been up for too long, so I’m going to end my first entry here.