I have been back home from Germany for over a week now. After catching up on much needed sleep that I lost out on over the jam-packed two-week trip and jet lag, I am on my normal sleep schedule again. Now that I am back to my way of life before traveling, I can make a fair comparison of Germany and the United States for my reflection.

In the United States, there is nothing that even gets close to the historic, beautiful buildings and art we saw in Germany. This is something I really appreciated while I was there, and I won’t be able to experience again until the next time I travel to Europe. Additionally, something that took me for surprise was that prices in German grocery stores were cheaper than here in the United States. For example, a 360 gram bag of Haribo gummy bears costed me about $1.50 at a local convenience store in Germany, while back home a bag half the size costed $3. This is a trend I saw with a lot of food actually. I found this surprising because typically Europe is known to be more expensive than the States. Cheap prices in grocery stores is certainly something I will miss now that I am back home.

That being said, there are a few things that I won’t miss about Germany. The first thing is that stores closed at 8pm every day and everything was closed on Sunday. Although this is probably good for the employees, being used to American stores with late hours makes it feel very inconvenient, especially considering how busy our schedules were on Plus3. There were many days we got back late from the program and had very little time to do any shopping because of their short hours. Something else that I won’t miss is paying for water at restaurants. Dining out got expensive quickly on the trip because of this.

Besides these cultural things, we learned a lot about business in Germany through the company visits. I think this had the largest impact on me since I have been to Germany before and I knew little about German companies. Overall, the companies seemed to place emphasis on hospitality, providing meals and drinks to us in addition to their presentations. Something new I learned about Germany through these visits is that often times companies will sponsor students to write their thesis with the company. In a way, this blends the line of student and employee much more than in the United States.

This trip was an amazing opportunity to learn about German industry, giving me an insight that I otherwise would never have gained. I want to thank all of the faculty between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Augsburg that made this program possible.

Nate