A few days later... May 24th (a follow up)

        I have now have been home for a few days, and my bags are unpacked, clothes are washed, chocolate and gummy bears are eaten, but the memories are going to last a lifetime. I can't even put into words how amazing this experience has been for me. I want to thank Hillary, Dr. Feick, my parents, The University of Pittsburgh, The University of Augsburg and lastly to all my friends I have made the past 2 weeks for giving me this amazing experience. Without any of you this trip wouldn't have been possibly and I am truly grateful. It is a little weird coming back to the US after being in Europe, but it just has made the culture difference more visible to me. From being home I would say a major part of the Germans lifestyle that isn't seen much here is how much people ride bikes. Since their land is really flat it makes riding bikes a lot easier, but I was shocked to see that they literally rode their bikes all over place. Also I realized that the European lifestyle of dressing is a lot different then here in America. The German students were always very well dressed. With that it was a little weird to see, how at some jobs it was acceptable to wear jeans. After being home and having time to ponder about my trip it really makes me want to student abroad again in the future. I hope to travel back to Europe, in-particularly Spain.

Day 14- Saturday, May 21st

         Today was a very long day of traveling back home. First we had to meet in the hotel at 7:45 am to take the bus to the airport. When arriving at the airport I was a little nervous because I never had to go through customs before. Also I was scared about my suitcase being to heavy, it turned out it was 4 kgs underweight. We checked our luggage, and were asked some questions about the luggage before doing so. Then we had to wait on the line at passport control which was very crowded and took a long time. We finally hit security and everyone made it through. This is when we all began to split up since there were various flights for each persons destination. Luckily for me I was able to fly right to Newark without any layovers. I had about an hour and half before my flight left. Finally, after getting on the plane, and sitting down it really hit me that I was leaving. I got kind of sad as I was no longer around the friends I was constantly around for 12 days straight. After a long 8-and-a-half-hour flight filled with many naps and movies, I finally arrived in Newark. In Newark I had to go through customs twice, passport control and get my luggage but surprisingly it didn’t take long at all (maximum 15 minutes). I finally met my parents in the airport, and then hit a lot of traffic on the way home. As I finally got home, it was nice to see all of my friends at my house who made me a nice sign on my front porch. Between a long day of traveling and the time difference, I knocked right out. 

Day 13- Friday, May 20th

          Today marked our 13^th and final day here in Dutchesland. I have an amazing time and I love all of the new friends I have made, it is really crazy to think that its been two weeks here and we have accomplished so much. It was really touching to hear the German students talk about how much they will miss us and that it was truly a great 2 weeks to have us, and we made impressions and memories that will last a lifetime.  Today we were able to do anything we wanted to do, even though last night was the goodbye dinner the German’s arranged a breakfast for us at the Riegele Beer Garden Restaurant where everyone had sausages and pretzels and then we got our gelato. It its literally so amazing, then we spent the rest of the day walking around Augsburg for the last time and getting souvenirs. It was a beautiful day we chilled in the town plaza enjoying the nice weather. Then went back to the hotel to get some of my stuff together and then headed over to the park/ beer garden across from our hotel to have a BBQ that the German students organized. 

Day 12- Thursday, May 19th

        Now that we successfully completed our projects, the rest of our time was all tourist attractions. With only two days left, I really wanted to appreciate the time we had left with making the best of every moment. We took the tram to the train station downtown in order to catch the ICE train to Ulm which was about a 55-minute train ride. I was excited to see a new city and at the same time curious to see what it would be like since every city we have seen has been different from the rest.

            Once we got to Ulm it was raining a little bit but it wasn’t too bad, and it was pretty quite as well. We got to the city center, and what do we notice the tallest church in world. It was beautiful, and then we realized that in a few hours we would have to be climbing up 768 steps to get to the top… 768 steps. We had a few hours to keep that in the back of our minds as we took a tour of the city. We started with going into the church and learning about the history, the part I thought was the coolest was that it was built from the east to west in the order that the sun rises and sets. This part became a little dry as it was dragged on for a while. The rest of the tour was truly amazing with how beautiful this city really was even in the rain. I think architectural wise this was my favorite city out of all the ones we visited.  I think the houses on the rivers were amazing and this is exactly what I pictured a perfect city in Germany to look like. We ended our tour where we were going to eat lunch which was at a restaurant known for its German pancakes. When I heard this I got so excited, my grandma always made German pancakes for us and then in grade school my dad would make them in the morning for us before school. We usually ate them with jam or butter but this time it was a little different. The menu was filled with various filled pancakes from sweet pancakes with ice-cream and bananas to pancakes filled with pork and eggs. Every option looked so good and wish I could’ve tried all of them. I was stuffed after lunch and knew the climb was coming but luckily we had a free time to go around and explore. We went to a few stores and looked around as well as went to a coffee shop and hung out and talked. Then I stopped by H&M to do some shopping as well as a few other stores, and then we made our way back to the city center. Now it was time to climb… I was a little anxious... nobody knew what to expect, basically the whole time we walked up a small tight spiral stair case, just going in circles. Even though it was draining, I didn’t really have any problems getting up besides it was a little tight at some points. It took everyone different lengths of time to get up, but there were a few balconies to stop at for some air and to walk around a little bit. Once you got to the last balcony, there was one even smaller staircase for both people going up and down from the top, this is when everything got jammed pack and there was a back-up of people. Once at the top it was so cool, you could see the entire city and and luckily it wasn’t raining and was pretty clear (pictures below). As I went back down, going down was actually harder for me then going up. Once I reached the bottom I was a little shaky and I really enjoyed it and would do it again. 

            We then went to catch our train to find out it was delayed, which was fine with me because got another hour to go out and shop and explore again! Another crazy thing is in some places you have to pay for bathrooms which is kind of crazy to think about. We finally got the train back to Augsburg, and everybody was knocked out on that bus after all of those steps.

            We then made it to the Ratskeller, which is the restaurant underneath the town hall to have a final goodbye dinner, since tomorrow was our free day. Everyone from the trip including students, professors and chaperones all gathered for one last horary. At this time, we exchanged small gifts with our presentation groups and it was a little emotional, because we have become so close with them and everyone was truly going to miss each other. All of the Pitt students gave the Germans, Pitt t-shirts and they all put them on during dinner and were so appreciative and loved them so much. Once we got back even though we were tired we only have 2 nights left in Germany, so we went and hung out with the German students downtown.

Day 11- Wednesday, May 18th

          We slept in today (well just a little later than most days) and then headed to The University of Augsburg to continue to work and continue preparing our projects. We worked for a while in the library which is pretty similar to the libraries in America, but the weird thing was you weren’t allowed to bring backpacks into it which was pretty annoying. All students carry bags around but you needed to leave your jackets and bag in a locker outside the library and put all your personal items  in a basket and bring that into the library. We worked all morning and then went and got lunch, which was again extremely good just like last time. We then went through our project a few more times and then headed over to the room right by the Mensa to gather and watch everyones presentations. Everyone was pretty nervous, including myself but I knew my group had worked extremely hard and we were ready. The presentations themselves went really well, everybody’s projects were so professional and well organized.

            After the projects we were free for the rest of the night and we gathered at Capitol to have dinner together and then all hung out to celebrate our successful projects!