I would like to start this post with a quick summary of my day on May 6th, as it further contributes to the series of unlucky events which plagued all of the students on Plus 3 Germany. 

I began the day driving to Newark airport with my parents, and we left at about 7:15 A.M. My dad told my mom and I that my flight left at 9:00, and neither of us bothered to check the flight confirmation that my dad had sent us. I tried to check in to my flight  at 7:34 A.M, and the United app displayed the message: “Error: Flight has departed.” I knew this had to be a mistake, and I checked my ticket. The flight had left five minutes ago, and it landed in Pittsburgh at 9:00.

After a relatively quick and painless process at the airport, I was put on standby for a flight at noon and guaranteed a flight at 3. I got super lucky here, as I was the only person on standby out of about 10 people who was able to board the earlier flight. I got to Pittsburgh just in time to find Liam at the airport, another student partaking in Plus 3 Germany, and hitch a free Uber ride back to the Pittsburgh campus. 

After spending a single night’s slumber in the spectacular Nordenberg hall, Plus 3 Germany officially began as all 21 of us boarded the airport bus, unaware of the grueling 21 hour journey that lay ahead of us. 

At first, everything went as planned. The 2 hour flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte went by without a hitch. I enjoyed a quick, semi-comfortable power nap on the plane. 

But everything went awry on the 9-hour flight from Charlotte to Munich. After about 2 hours, I realized I was getting sleepy and decided to take a nap. I was comfortable. Everyone was at peace. It was at this moment that the passengers were graced with the pilot’s voice over the intercom. 

“My radar is down. We need to land at JFK.” 

This information was truly shocking. I exchanged glances with my fellow Plus 3 students, like did we really just hear that? After we landed in JFK and sat in the plane for about an hour, the pilot decided to kick us off the plane, and we walked towards a new gate, waiting.

We continued to wait for about 4 hours at JFK, where we spent our time playing Among Us, listening to the harmonious fire alarms, and teaching each other various card tricks.

Once we finally got on the new plane, our trip to Munich was more or less back on track! Oday discovered the seat-to-seat chat feature, and soon enough a group chat was made with a few Plus 3 attendees. I realized that we could change our in-chat name, and I changed my name to “Pilot,” and asked the chat if anyone has seen my radar. 

I unfortunately was not able to sleep on the plane, and we arrived in Munich at about noon on Sunday. I wanted to look out the bus window on the 40 minute drive from Munich to Augsburg, but the weight of my eyes decided otherwise. We first dropped off our bags at the hotel and briefly met Korbinian Knoll, a professor at the University of Augsburg who organized the plus 3 program for the students at the University of Augsburg. Professor Knoll first gave us bus passes, a small booklet of our trip itinerary, and 160 euros!

After meeting Korbinian, I went with a few people to a Döner Kebab restaurant and ordered a beef gyro. Ordering food in German was more stressful than I expected, as I realized I knew the important words in German but not at all how to correctly pronounce them. I wanted to order number 7 on the menu but didn’t understand that “sieben” was pronounced “see-bin.”

The gyro ended up being very good, but I didn’t eat it the right way and purple cabbage juice leaked all over my hands, which was pretty embarrassing.

Following lunch and more formalities with professor Knoll, we headed to the Fuggerei, a community of residential homes for Augsburg citizens with low income. The Fuggerei was started by Jakob Fugger, a ridiculously wealthy German merchant, in 1521. 

I knew that the yearly rent of the Fuggerei was under a dollar (about 93 cents), but I was surprised by how large these homes were, as well as the fact that the Fuggerei continues to be funded by the Fugger estate, and not by the government. This is because the Fuggerei requires its inhabitants be catholic and to pray 3 times a day.

After visiting the Fuggerei, we ate dinner with the students at the University of Augsburg, who we’ll be partnering up with later this week to make our company presentations. I coincidentally sat next two of groupmates, Elena and Clara. 

We’re a part of a 6-person group reporting on Faurecia. The presentation is next week on Wednesday, and we’re visiting Faurecia this week on Thursday. 

I ordered “cheese noodles” from an abridged menu, and was given a pan of what looked like mac and cheese. I was like “In America we just call this mac and cheese” and all the German students laughed at me. I realized that they already knew what mac and cheese was, and I was told it was offensive to compare the dish to mac and cheese.  Mac and cheese is honestly much tastier.

I’m sorry that my first two posts are absurdly long. I’ll try to better summarize my day in the future! Bis morgen!