May 4th-5th, 2019
Today is the day! After a rough night of intermittent sleeping in Nordenberg Hall, the Plus3 Germany crew woke up early to get a great last Pittsburgh meal. We agreed to eat at Pamela’s, and the group enjoyed some quality bonding time.
Before we knew it, we were loading our bags into our motorcoach, and we were off to the Pittsburgh Airport. We arrived early, and we had plenty of time to explore. The walkways at the airport were dubbed “velocity additionators” by several witty members of the group, and they were used many times. After about a two hour wait, our plane to O’Hare International Airport arrived, and we were off. The flight was uneventful for most aboard.
Upon arrival in Chicago, we experienced the longest taxi of our lives (about 15 minutes) before our three hour layover. During that time, we all had some pizza from Wolfgang Puck, which we made sure to blog about, and played the Umbrella game, another fun way for us all to bond.
Finally, the time came to put our passports to good use and board the flight to Munich! The boarding process was lengthy, but we were all settled in before our 6:00 departure. Thankfully, the 777 we were flying in came with an entertainment package, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Venom during the first two hours of the flight.
To be frank, the next seven hours were excruciating. My legs began to cramp, the engine prevented me from sleeping for more than two hours, and my ears absolutely refused to pop. The views of Germany made the long flight worthwhile as we prepared to touch down in Munich.
After another long process, the team disembarked and took our first steps in Germany! We boarded a very nice Mercedes coach for our ride to Augsburg. On the way there, my friend Lucas and I had a great time admiring the variety of European vehicles we never get to see in the United States (my personal highlight for the day was the Euro-spec Ford Focus RS).
We arrived at the hotel at about 12:30 PM. I was initially impressed by the modern style of the hotel, but after a long wait, my friend Brett and I still were unable to get our room before the group left for the evening. Before our tour of Augsburg, we stopped at a bakery and had our first experience ordering German food (it was daunting to say the least). We didn’t let that get us down; we had a great time touring Augsburg, and I was in complete awe of some of the sights, with one in particular being a standout:
We additionally took an in-depth tour of the Fuggerei, the longest-enduring social housing in the world. It was amazing to see the history of the Fuggerei and their evolution throughout history, and our tour guide was very well-versed about them.
It was time for our first true meal of the day at König von Flandern, where we met our Augsburg University partner students for the next two weeks. We had great conversations with them about our cultures, and they were very accommodating to our lack of expertise with the German language. I would be happy to work with any of them on our projects during the remainder of our stay!
Our dinner marked the conclusion of our first two days on the trip. I am really looking forward to our tour of Augsburg University tomorrow (but rather apprehensive about our first presentations)!