How authentic can we get? That’s no challenge for Dr. Feick. I woke up, put on my favorite Pitt t-shirt and headed downstairs to catch the bus to try real, authentic German breakfast. Obviously for that, we needed to drive to the countryside, where the wifi dosen’t work and the fields are a beautiful yellow instead of green. We sat down under the sun and feasted on some warm pretzels and weisswurst, a type of sausage that requires you to ”operate” on them in order to remove the casing, making the eating process an experience itself. But for the real MVP: The mustard. It was the perfect combination of sweet and salty, really emphasizing the flavors of the pretzels and sausage, if given the opportunity I would probably drink a liter of it.

After the most memorable breakfast, we headed back to the hotel in order to change and get ready for the next business trip. We left to tour Faurecia, and felt special as we walked around in our lab coats and protective eyewear, for a second it felt like I was a STEM major. We learned about how the company has overcome the hardships brought by Covid and the current strategy to deal with possible issues with the Ukraine crisis, in addition to general company history and strategy to be a dominant player in the industry. We also toured the factory after listening to more presentations about their different engineering processes and business plan.

After an overload of information, almost everyone hit snooze on the way back. I decided to go for a run and explore the city, I was extremely surprised when I saw so many runners and bikers (and respective trails, which were extremely clean). I absolutely adore the German culture and how much their value their health and environment. It is truly one of those things that you don’t truly understand until you witness it and realize what life is like on the other side of the globe.