The time between my first blog post and the start of the program flew by, and here we are now in Germany. I must say though, the journey was not easy at all, with an unexpected diversion to JFK two hours into our flight to Munich. It was frustrating at first but we all just enjoyed the 3 hours we had to rest and bond together on the floor of the airport. When we finally boarded, it was tough to get back on a plane and try to go to sleep, a lot of us would only fall asleep for an hour or two and then wake back up. I definitely did not expect it to be that hard to sleep on the plane. Nonetheless, we landed in Germany at 5 am our time so we were a little out of whack but very excited. The German airport was similar to those in the US, though I have never walked off a plane, and going through customs was a seamless process compared to what I was expecting. On the way to the hotel, I didn’t realize just how many open fields Germany really has, this really surprised me even though I heard things about it before.
The city of Augsburg was very interesting, to say the least, and nothing like I have seen before. I knew there was a tram but it was not as I had expected. It literally runs through the middle of the street where people walk and cars drive and the tracks are literally in the ground. I’m not sure exactly what I expected but it was pretty cool. Another thing that I noticed was the number of people driving cars that are considered a luxury to us in the United States like Mercedes Benz and BMW. There are a ton of these cars on the road when in the US there is only a given amount of luxury cars. The city was also very very quiet, but that may have been because we arrived on Sunday, when many people use that day to rest. People seem to stroll and whisper compared to us Americans who speak much louder. The streets were much nicer and cleaner than the ones in Pittsburgh.
After finally arriving, in typical American fashion went to McDonald’s. There are a lot of different options that you don’t see in America and a ton of different sauces that I was very excited to try, given that I am a sauce fanatic. We ate our McDonald’s and then headed on a tour of the Fuggerei, housing for those who can’t afford the high rent of the city. This social housing was very nice for something you only have to pay 88 cents a year to live in. We learned more about the history of the great Jakob Fugger and his contributions to the city. The tour guide was very passionate and that only made the tour that much better and more informative. I feel like this form of social housing for the respectable poor is great and something I would love to see in America. There are a lot of hardworking people in America that simply can’t afford the standard of living in certain states.
We then wrapped up the night with a nice relaxing dinner, meeting all of the German students for the first time. First impression: these people are so sweet, they literally went above and beyond to make us feel welcome. That was super nice after a really long day of traveling. At dinner, I had some pasta noodles with cheese that seemed kind of similar to mac and cheese in the US. After we returned to the hotel, we were exhausted and passed out, I’ve never been so happy to sleep in a bed. Until tomorrow!
Signing off,
An exhausted world traveler Sydney