Waking up on this day was horrible. This was one of our earliest wake up calls yet. We all dragged ourselves onto the bus for our first company visit. We went to Hoerbiger, which is a company that produces valves that are made of automobiles and machines used in the medical field. When we arrived we had a presentation on what the company was about to prepare us for our tour. We had to put on silly shoes that would protect our toes if something fell on our feet and lab coats that made us all look like scientists. One of the rooms we went in was very loud because of the pressure machines doing a trial run, but it was very interesting to see. This company visit was more on the engineering side, so as a business student I did not find every aspect of it to be too interesting. After the company tour which brought us to two separate factory location each focusing on different types of products, we had different presentations addressing the afterwards of production and the selling aspect. For this being our first company visit it was a good introduction for the next following days.
After our long day at Hoerbiger we had a long bus ride up to the Swiss Alps in Oberammergau. The drive up was so pretty, the mountains kept getting closer and closer. It started to sprinkle which brought in fog, but honestly it made the mountains look so pretty. I put on door classical music and stared in awe out the window. When we got to the town it started to downpour so everyone was running in the streets trying not to get soaked. This was a very traditional German village with a lot of old buildings. There was a Christmas store that we all went into. Yes it was very overpriced, but everything was made very well and it was all so cute! Next we went to a little bakery and got bread and treats. After the rain calmed down we got back in the bus for a quick little bus ride to a gondola. There was a little cart that you stood in and it brought us to the very top of the mountain. Half way to the top the cart stopped for a minute and it was swinging because of the wind so that was a little spooky. When we arrived at the top it was a lot colder, but the view was spectacular! You could see so far and everyone took so many pictures and videos, but they don’t justify the real beauty of the landscape.
We rode the gondola back down and went into the village for dinner. A group of us went to a German restaurant and I got schnitzel, it was good, could have been better. We walked around the town again until it was time to head back to our hotel. I instantly fell asleep the second we got on the bus, so the ride went by quick. We had a fun rest of our night walking around the city and got much needed rest for the next day!
See y’all for the second company tour tomorrow!