Today was an early wake-up call for everyone. The bus pulled out of the hotel at 6 in the morning. My plan was to sleep on the way there since we had to get up so early, and it was a long ride. That is exactly what I did. As soon as we started getting off the bus, there was a guy handing out Skittles to everyone for Diversity Day. Pictures were taken, and I definitely do not want to see them because I had just woken up.

Going into the presentation, I really had no idea what the company’s focus was. They had recently split from the company Continental, which specializes in tires. After the presentation, though, I felt like I practically worked there. It was very in-depth and covered the ins and outs of their products. They are a very tech- and software-focused business, which can sometimes be difficult to visualize. Fortunately, they had physical models of their products that they passed around, making it much easier to understand what they were talking about.

This company visit had the most unique factory tour we experienced on the trip. It was a very sterile environment. We got to wear long coats and little booties over our shoes. No giant robots were carrying around large pieces like in the other factories we visited. They still had plenty of robots and machines doing the work, but in a completely different way. Most of the robots were smaller and contained within their own enclosed spaces. My favorite machines at Aumovio were the 3D printers. These were not your standard 3D printers, though. They were used to solder tiny components onto boards, and they moved insanely fast. I believe our tour guide said they make around 500,000 placements a day. I could have sat there all day just watching those machines work.

Regensburg has been one of my favorite places we have visited on this trip. There is so much history surrounding the city and its architecture. Before we toured the medieval town hall, we had a few hours to explore the city on our own. When talking to students from previous years, some of the girls mentioned how they had found a really cute purse shop in Augsburg. We were never able to find that store, so we have basically been searching for cute bag shops everywhere we go. While walking to our meeting spot for the tour, we found one. I made a mental note to go back and check it out, and that is exactly what I did. After picking out the perfect purse, we stopped by the oldest bratwurst stand in the city. I was surprised to learn that the sausages were much smaller than the large ones I had seen elsewhere in Germany, but they were still delicious. I think what made the day even better was that it was the first truly sunny and warm day we had experienced on the trip.

I really enjoyed the tour of the medieval town hall. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around how old the building actually is and realize that I am standing in the same places people stood hundreds of years ago. The tour concluded with the dungeons and torture chambers, which was honestly a pretty surreal experience. You could almost feel the pain and suffering people went through just by standing in those rooms. It was fascinating to see in person, but also very disturbing to think about. After the tour, we started the long bus ride back to the hotel.