Like I mentioned at the end of my last blog, I was definitely jet-lagged. My body decided to wake me up at 6 AM. Although I tried to fall back asleep, I soon had to get up to meet with the rest of the group at 8 AM. The breakfast at the hotel was delicious, and I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the hotel food. In America, I am so used to runny and poorly-made eggs, old muffins, nearly-expired yogurt, and bad food in general. This morning, I was able to enjoy fresh bread/croissants, kiwi, freshly made coffee, and an organic egg. Although it wasn’t a big meal, I could really taste the difference in the quality of food. This even correlates to the food we ate for lunch at the University of Augsburg. I’ll reference that in a second though.

After breakfast, the group departed for the University of Augsburg. The difference in “vibes” was drastic compared to the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. With Pitt’s campus having such a city-feel, and busy-social life (outside of students), Augsburg’s campus was very different. It was a lot more unified, peaceful, and green. Although Schenley Plaza at Pitt has some beautiful green space, there was green almost everywhere you looked at Ausburg’s campus. Walking through campus, I noticed that there was a little stream of water under the mini bridge that we walked over, and on the bridge, there was a sign (pictured below: )

After we walked around campus more, we stopped in a classroom and met with fellow German-speaking students. We split up into four groups and presented about different companies: Grob-werke, Hoerbiger, Faurecia, and Audi. It was very interesting listening to the presentations, but I thought the better part of this experience was being able to meet the German students and get to know them even more. Although we had dinner with some German students yesterday night, we didn’t get to meet everyone because the tables at dinner were unevenly split.

Talking to the German students in my presentation group, I learned how important learning different languages in the European education system was. Although the American education curriculum for most high school and middle school students prioritizes learning a secondary language, the execution is not as efficient in students being proficient compared to European students. I think the key difference here is because European students are surrounded by the other language completely, and are thus forced to practice speaking the language way more than American students are. As a bilingual speaker, I definitely can attest to the fact that experience definitely strengthens one’s second language better than just books and lectures.

After we finished with the presentations, it was about 12 PM… AKA time for lunch! We ate at the University of Augsburg, and at its version of the “Eatery” (the main dining hall at Pitt). I feel strongly as if the food is of much higher quality at the University of Augsburg compared to Pitt. At the same time though, I understand that any person who repeatedly eats the same options for food on a daily basis will tend to get “sick” or “tired” of that food options, so since this was a new option for me, I enjoyed it thoroughly. We were given tickets as our payment for our meals, and with the tickets I was able to get as much food as I could get… the following picture shows what I got/shared with my friends:

Following lunch, we met with more German students, and proceeded to go on a scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt pretty much is what increased the amount of steps I had in the day overall. I think in total I had about 18,000 steps by the end of the day. The scavenger hunt was really fun and bonding as a team, but it was also definitely very tiring as well. Additionally, I got to explore Augsburg a lot more, and get to talk to more German students! I thought it was really cool how we got to walk through parts of Augsburg yesterday that was previously empty, but was now filled with people (because it was now Monday). It was amazing to see the contrast in movement. I am curious to see how filled it would be on a Saturday (weather-permitting) because I feel like everyone tends to go out more on a Saturday. Throughout the scavenger hunt, we got to ride the bus a lot more, and visit a lot more historical sites too. I thought the church inside was beautiful, and it felt really peaceful and calming inside. Although the church was built hundreds of years ago, the heart put into the structure was able to be felt just by walking through the church. Shown below are some fun pictures from the scavenger hunt.

Through some slight rain and fun, we finally reached the end of our scavenger hunt and our final destination of the day: dinner at Dragone! Almost everyone got the Pizza, and Colleen and I shared a Pepperoni pizza. Back in Pittsburgh, we learned how Pepperoni pizza in German would lead to us having green peppers on our pizza, and Salami pizza would have pepperoni pizza (as expected). What caught my friends and me off guard was that there was an English menu and a German menu. On both menus, the pizzas were ordered by numbers with the same corresponding pizzas. However, both the pizzas labelled #4 were both called Pepperoni pizzas on the German AND English menus. We were puzzled, but after talking to the waitress, we realized that the english menu writing Pepperoni pizza still meant green pepper pizza, so those who wanted Pepperoni pizza had to order the “Salami pizza”.

After dinner, we all headed back to the hotel, and had a little debrief to summarize up how our days went, and address how tomorrow is supposed to go! Tomorrow, we are visiting Hoerbiger company (the company I have to make a presentation on next week), and we have to leave the hotel by 7:15 AM. Wish me luck in waking up time…

Talk soon!

Kaylee