What’s going on bloggers! We are five days into the trip now, and the days are sadly flying by. I wish I could live here forever, but one can only dream… We still have one more week, though, and have many fun things still left to do!
Today we visited the company Faurecia and then had the afternoon to ourselves again. But, today started off a little different. Instead of eating the hotel breakfast before heading to Faurecia, we headed to the village of Baindlkirch for a Weißwürstfruhstuck: a white sausage breakfast. It is a traditional breakfast where you drink beer while eating pretzels and white sausage with sweet mustard. Sadly, we did not drink the beer with the meal. For vegetarians, you have the option of eating a cheese and fruit tray.
I really enjoyed the white sausage breakfast. The place we ate at was like one big cafeteria room, and it was packed inside. It was nice seeing everyone congregate together for a breakfast early in the morning. While eating, I learned how to cut sausage links and how to take off the casing of a sausage, as the pork on the inside is the edible part. It is now one of my favorite German traditions and if I ever come back to Augsburg in the future, I will definitely participate again.
After the amazing white sausage breakfast, we then went back to the hotel for a bit to take a nap. Every day has been packed and really long, so we were all very grateful that Professor Feick let us relax at the hotel before our company visit. When our nap time was over, we all took the public train to Faurecia.
Faurecia is a German-based automotive supplier of car parts for car manufacturers such as Porsche, John Deere, and Volkswagon. They supply car seats and do interior design, but the location we visited today was the factory which focused on building exhaust systems. Unlike Grob and Hoerbiger, Faurecia had a huge security guard which signed us into the facility.
Right after we signed in, we were given lab coats and safety glasses as we went straight into the factory tour. As of right now, Faurecia’s factory tour has been my favorite. The factory consisted of multiple sections, and my favorite section was the fully automated assembly line which consisted of robots welding pieces of metal together into valves. It was very cool seeing these giant robots moving so fast and being so efficient and precise. The factory also had sections for manual welding zones, conveyor belts where workers screwed pieces together, and a pickup zone with all the finished products. Like Grob, their machines can be modified into building parts for electric cars, so their future still looks bright.
After the factory tour, we had lunch while they presented an overview of the company and pitched internships for their US locations. For lunch, I had mini roast beef sandwiches, which were really good, and tried German Fanta for the first time. It is very different from American Fanta as it is way more sweeter and tangy. Once the presentations were over, we headed back to the city.
Overall this week, it has been cool seeing all the processes that go into making a car. All companies so far are suppliers of car parts for manufactures, and tomorrow we are actually going to see all the pieces come together at Audi!
This evening, we just relaxed as we are all very tired from this week. For dinner, though, us guys headed to this nice restaurant in the Königsplatz to get Schnitzel again. We all loved Schnitzel the first night, so we had to get it again.
We have to wake up early tomorrow morning, so no exploring the city tonight! But, tomorrow is going to be a very exciting day at Audi and I cannot wait!
Nicholas Monetti