Welcome to Day 2! After the very long day yesterday, today was also very long. I was definitely feeling the jet lag earlier in the day, but as the day went on, I started to feel like my normal self.
We started off the day with a hotel breakfast and let me tell you, that was the best hotel breakfast I have ever had. Here in Germany, they serve meats and cheese along with croissants, pastries, hard boiled eggs, and other traditional breakfast foods such as cereal and yogurt. As Germany places many regulations on all their foods, the hotel breakfast tasted very natural and “healthy”. I also tried a multi-fruit juice, which was also really good. Overall, I am excited to eat breakfast the rest of my time here.
After breakfast, we started our itinerary for the day. As today was the day we started our big company analysis project due at the end of the program, we headed to the University of Augsburg by taking the train. In Germany, instead of a public bus system, they have a public train system with tracks running through the middle of the streets. Every 7 minutes, you can hop on a train and get wherever you want to go in a short amount of time. I am really impressed with how organized the train system is.
Once we got off the train, I was surprised by how the University of Augsburg was structured. As all universities are free to attend in Germany, the buildings were all very outdated and dark-colored, simple, and had vines growing all over them. The layout of the campus also reminded me a lot of Penn State as it was really big and isolated from the city.
Today at the University, we worked on our company projects in the school of business. Since we just got to Germany and just met the Augsburg students, we created a short presentation introducing the company we will be analyzing for the next two weeks. The company I am working with is Hoerbiger, which creates compressor technology, hydraulics, and drive technology for automobiles. That is also the company we will be visiting tomorrow, so I am really excited. While working on the presentation, I was surprised by how much older and smarter the Augsburg students are compared to us. For example, one of the students is 21 years old and fluent in 4 languages!
After presentations, we went to the dining hall for lunch. This was the highlight of my day:
Let me tell you, the dining hall food is way better than the dining hall at Pitt. It reminded me of a home-cooked meal. The chicken and rice was really good, and I had to try the popular potato wedges. I also tried Mezzo Mix for the first time, which is like the German Coca Cola. During lunch, we talked about the fashion culture in Germany and how no one wears sweatpants and sweatshirts to school: they are all very well dressed.
We then ended the day with a scavenger hunt, led by some of the Augsburg students.
For the scavenger hunt, we had to answer questions based on specific landmarks all around Augsburg. During the hunt, we were given a tour of the university, saw the Augsburg Futbol Club’s Stadium, and made our way back to the Rathausplatz, the town hall square. Pictured above is the basilica of St. Ulrich and Afra, located near the Rathausplatz. I was very mesmorized by the architecture and the many different altars located all throughout the basilica. We also went to Dom, the cathedral of Augsburg, but no phones were allowed inside. Both structures have a lot of history behind then and it was very cool to see all the portraits and statues throughout. The scavenger hunt then ended with time at the Riegle Brew House, which was our first introduction to German beer.
Lastly, we finished off the day at an Italian restaurant, where we had to order our food all in German. Most of us ordered pizza, and it was actually pretty good. As a surprise, the German students all handed us a bag of German candy, and the candy is really good. Most of the candies reminded me of American sweets, so it is really cool to compare and contrast.
Overall, today was another awesome day. Tomorrow, we are starting our professional events. I got to get my sleep because we have to be up bright and early.
Until tomorrow…
Nicholas Monetti