We slept in this morning (didn’t have to be ready until 9:15)!! It was a small victory but was definitely key in keeping me awake throughout the entire day. Today we visited Continental, a company that is commonly known for producing tires, though they do produce vary other technologies for automobiles as well. We were treated like royalty- given juices and waters upon arrival and gummies during the presentation. During the factory tour, we had to wear long jackets and plastic coverings over our shoes to prevent us from conducting any electricity and causing problems with the machines in the factory. We all wore the same sized coat, so you can probably imagine me, trying to appear professional, while swimming in this huge plastic gown as I walked through the factory. Despite my amusing appearance, I really enjoyed touring the site.  In my last post I wrote about how amazing it is that robots have such a big presence in production, but the robots in the Continental factory were even more surprising. In the BMW factory, the robots were stationary while performing their tasks. At Continental, there were robots traveling autonomously throughout the site delivering parts from one side of the factory to another!

After departing Continental we travelled to my favorite place thus far, Regensburg. My love for Pittsburgh stems from the beautiful combination of a city and body of water, which explains why I fell in love with Regensburg. The city is on the Danube river and was one of the richest cities in Germany during its peak. The streets today were still lined with beautifully colored buildings along cobblestone streets. Regensburg is now home to a large portion of students studying in University, and homes that were once houses for millionaires of the city are now dorms for college students!! Specifically, there was one set of housing that our tour guide pointed out is used today to house study abroad students from a partner University, the University of Colorado at Boulder. One of my best friends studies here so I immediately told her about it and how badly she needs to study abroad here!

At dinner tonight I finally tried the infamous “spezi.” A German soft drink that is a combination of Coca Cola and Fanta. I must admit, it did live up to the high expectations I had set for it. The German students haven’t steered me wrong when recommending food and drinks yet, hopefully they have many more German classics hidden up their sleeves!