In my time in Germany in the fall, I mainly stayed in the West of the country, and only traveled to Bayern on a few occasions. I was extremely excited when I discovered this program would give me the opportunity to experience a great deal of cities I had never been to before. Nürenberg specifically has so much history to offer, and even though much of it was bombed during WWII, we discovered that there were a significant amount of things the city was able to preserve. The windows of the church were especially surprising, that they had been hidden underground during the bombing and were replaced after the fact. I also was blown away that we saw Albrecht Dürer’s house, as I have a friend who did a presentation on him during my first abroad experience and loves his artwork. As a combined German and History major, this was my favorite experience to-date. Our tour guide was fantastic, and I loved how you could clearly tell he was extremely interested in everything he was telling us about. I would have loved to take a longer tour with him, in order to see everything else in the city he deems important. After the tour and the amazing views from the castle, we went to a restaurant near the castle, and I had the best Käsespätzle I’ve had since returning to Germany.

When we later went on a tour of the MAN factory, it was almost exactly what I had been expecting from a factory tour. We went specifically through the area of the plant that creates engines, and it was especially interesting to hear from our tour guide that a great deal of the workers very much enjoyed working there, and we saw him greeting many of the people we passed on our tour, suggesting it is a very welcoming environment. I was slightly disappointed, and our guide seemed to be as well, that there was a significant lack of women in the factory. He mentioned that it was likely a result of some men not being as respectful of women in a factory environment as in other places, but I was not sure if that was a good enough reason. My favorite part of the tour, aside from the neon green “Besucher” vests we wore during the tour, was the engine testing section. It was very interesting to see the workers, though somewhat stressed that day, completing the final check of the product.