We landed at Frankfurt Airport in Germany at 7:49 AM and promptly proceeded to procure a German breakfast. I tried a Gouda cheese pretzel from Heberer’s Traditional Bakery. While the pretzel was nothing to write home about, observing the norms and customs that the employees and customers followed was fascinating. For example, I noticed one characteristic of German culture: the emphasis on efficiency. When ordering, the employee did not spend any time on pleasantries and promptly moved through the perpetual line of customers. Similarly, the customers sitting in the cafe area left immediately after finishing their meal, even leaving their dishes on the table. This emphasis on efficiency was reiterated when we boarded the plane, where instead of having a flight attendant manually scan our tickets we went through automatic turnstiles. As an aspiring global engineer, the few hours we spent at the Frankfurt Airport taught me the importance of observing the little details because they can spill over into the business culture.

Following our short stint in Germany, we arrived in Cyprus around 3:50 PM, where we met with Christina and went on a bus to the Alinea hotel. While I expected to be driving on the left side of the road, I was not expecting for the inner roads to be as narrow as they were and for cars to be parking on the curve. The Old Town of Cyprus was the epitome of modern technology coexisting with historic architecture. For example, since the roads are extremely narrow, pedestrians and cars often shared the same path and had to be extremely wary of each other.

Once we settled into the hotel, we went to dinner in the Limassol Marino. While we walked there together as a group, we split off to explore different types of cuisines. My group went to Jamie Oliver, where we experienced Cyprian hospitality firsthand when the chef and host came over personally to ensure everything was up to our standards. At the restaurant, I tried squid and halloumi cheese for the first time, both of which were incredible.

After dinner, I went to the top floor of the hotel where the pool is located. I was soon joined by other students and we spent the next few hours sitting together working on our blog posts. Near the end of the night we saw a red moon emerge from behind the cathedral.