5/8

Today was our groups travel day. The plane ride over to Germany was not that bad. The flight was about seven and a half hours but it only felt like four or five since I was luckily able to get a few hours of sleep on the plane. After arriving we checked in at our hotel B&B. Then we went on a tour of the city of Augsburg, and we also got the opportunity to meet the German students we will be working with over the next couple weeks. I was amazed at how well the German students spoke English. What also amazed me was the German tram car system. The cars are laid out in an easy grid like system. There is one main hub called Königsplatz where you can easily transfer onto a different line. More importantly, all the trams are always on time and almost never late. Later on in the day we toured the Fuggerie which is a local housing area for very poor Germans where there rent is only one euro per year. I had learned about the Fuggerie prior to departure for the trip, but I was surprised to see that the buildings were actually rather pleasant. Lastly, almost every car in Germany is a BMW, Audi, VW, or Mercedes-Benz. Obviously this is different in the US where we are used to seeing a larger variety of cars on the roads. Another key transportation difference is that Germans love to bike and it is considered a serious mode of transportation. There are actually paved biking trails along side the main roads and highways. I would not mind biking around Germany as the land is extremely flat and would seemingly be easy to navigate. Overall, I struggled to stay awake for the majority of the late afternoon since I had been up for almost two days straight.