Friday was our first extremely chill day. All week, we had been constantly on the go with so many events planned and things to do. It was also the first day we were able to sleep in since we did not need to be at the university until 1:30. I use the term “sleeping in” lightly since I still ended up getting up around 9 a.m. A little after waking up, I headed downstairs to start working on my blog posts. Pretty much everyone was already down there by the time I joined. After a couple of hours, we were all pretty burnt out from working on the blogs, so we decided it would be a good idea to check out one of the art museums nearby.

I was surprised to learn that if you are under 27, you can get into most of the museums for free. I think 27 is kind of a strange age cutoff, but maybe that is just me. I love walking around and looking at old art. My favorite thing I saw at the museum was, once again, a painted ceiling. The amount of detail and the gold accents amaze me every single time. This particular ceiling belonged to a ballroom, I believe. I would love to have grown up in a time period where I could have experienced something like that myself.

After the museum, most of us started our journey to the university. Before meeting in our groups to begin our projects, we had a presentation from a reporter at Bloomberg News named Will. He focused on the European automotive market and some of the current struggles companies are facing within it. I think the most important issue he discussed was how Chinese competition is reshaping the market. This has resulted in European car brands losing some of their top positions to these competitors. He is not the first person who has mentioned China being a major factor in the European market, which really shows how significant of an impact they are having.

After meeting with our groups, some of the German students took a handful of the American students to grab a snack since the Mensa was closed by the time we finished meeting. They brought us to this really cute hole-in-the-wall matcha place. I had never tried matcha before, so I decided to give it a shot. I got a strawberry cloud matcha, which was regular matcha with strawberry cold foam on top. For my first time trying it, I thought it was pretty good, and I would definitely get it again.

After the matcha place, we walked around a farmers’ market. All of the fresh fruit smelled delicious. Soon after, we headed back to the hotel for dinner. Some of the girls went to a restaurant called Picnic, and it was really good. I definitely want to go back before I leave. After dinner, we returned to the hotel to work on our blogs and finally get some much-needed sleep.