The fourth day has rolled around and I just don’t know where the time has gone! Last week, I was stress packing for “The Big Germany” trip, but now we already have one week left before we come back home, which is absolutely insane!
Today, thankfully we had a later call time and so I was able to recuperate from a packed day and get some rest in. This morning, we went to a traditional Weisswurst breakfast in the outskirts of Augsburg. The vibes there were immaculate, right next to the restaurant was a beautiful yellow field of flowers stretching for miles, or should I say kilometers, into the horizon line. The sun shone on the small town, lighting everything and everyone up. The local people of the town looked at us when we walked in and at first I was confused as to what was so different about us and then realized that we were a group of 20 people coming to their very very small countryside to eat Weisswurst on a Thursday morning at 9am. Nonetheless, the experience was nothing but wonderful! Though I do not eat meat, I got a warm pretzel and Koribinan made all of the vegetarians a special vegetable bowl. It was served on a round charcuterie board with pickles, Swiss and brie cheese, and obatzda. The obatzda had the same consistency as hummus but fuller and cheesier. I loved it and with the warm soft pretzels, the flavors just melted in your mouth.
After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel, to get changed and headed to our company visit for the day – Faurecia. Since the company was relatively close, we took a Tram to their offices, which only took about an 1 hour. The visit opened with presentations about the technical aspects of their products, their overall product line and their current merges with Hella and how they are subsequently transitioning into Forvia. After the introductory presentations, we went into their factories. It was very interesting to see a large part of their machinery was automated. This was followed by lunch and then it was back to more information sessions about company and product specifications and we even had a conference call with an American associate that talked about Forvia’s connections in America.
The day ended with an individual dinner going to another Italian restaurant close to Maximiliansatsse. The catch was though, the owners did not know much English and well we didn’t speak much German, which led to a very interesting conversation with our new friends, Monica and Jean Paulo. Luckily, I could use some of my German that I learned in school and Google Translate to order our dinner and express our gratitude for the food to Monica and Jean Paulo. This will probably be one of the most memorable dinners for me!