Bye-Bye!

We're about to leave O'Hare for a 13+ hour flight to Dubai. I just had a delicious salad - last one for 10 days - and now I'm going to devour this guacamole with bacon. Indian food will be good, but it's nice to have uncooked veggies, too.

On the Road Again

It has been less than two months since I returned from Germany, but believe it or not I will be traveling to India two weeks from today. This will be my third trip to India with the Kelley School and I will be accompanying 24 students and three colleagues. While the class has the same title as in the past, "Business in a Flat World," this time we have a different lead faculty member and a heavier focus on Indian finance and economics, rather than globalization. We're also traveling at a different time of year, going in late July rather than May.

I will attempt to blog more frequently than I did in Germany... It would be nice to have more real-time updates and not post everything on the last day of travel. However, I my past experience tells me that my internet access may be worse than in Europe, so we'll see. Feel free to check out my India photo albums from 2012 and 2013, linked on the right.

Trip Home

I don't have a lot to say about the trip home, which was largely uneventful, but of course I need a concluding post to convey that the trip did come to a definitive end. We woke up way too early Wedneday, meeting at 5 am to leave for the airport. A few students stayed behind to travel independently in Europe, or to go to their homes in India, so we didn't get a formal "goodbye" with them.

We were challenged at the train station by the ticket purchase process, as when we finally figured out the right tickets to get the machine would not take a credit card. Fortunately someone had cash so we could get to the airport.

There we said goodbye to a few students who were flying separately, and also to our faculty lead Jeanette who stayed behind ro travel with her daughter. After a quick flight to Amsterdam, me met up with our colleagues and students who were returning from the trip to Budapest, and we shared a flight with them back to O'Hare.

At O'Hare I was, as expected, flagged for the extra-slow, extra-scrutiny homeland security line. Only one Budapest student ended up in that line behind me, and by the time I got out of immigration about an hour later, almost everyone else who wasn't leaving us in Chicago was waiting on the bus. We shared a bus back to Bloomington with the group returning from Hong Kong, and we spent a portion of the trip relaying our travel adventures and experiences. After dropping off a few more students in Zionsville, we made it back to Bloomington at 10 pm following 23 hour of travel - just me, Clark and three of our 24 students. Another X272 class trip completed.

Going home.

Company Visits

Although we saw a lot of great cultural sites and enjoyed making new German friends, this trip was, of course, part of a business class and we had a lot of interesting business visits. Our student teams had researched and presented on all of the companies we went to, so it was neat to visit them and learn more about them first-hand.

Employee at Weurth packs orders that are brought to him automatically.

Our first company, on Wednesday,  was Würth Group, which seems to be known for fasteners but actually is a manufacturer, supplier, and retail seller of range of products. We were at the headquarters of the global business, which is also the location of a major distribution center, which we toured. Obviously people work in places like this all over the world every day, but it was really fascinating for me to see. We first saw a "picking" area with closely arranged, super tall shelves. People on movable lifts which fit exactly between the shelves would receive order information audibly from a computer and then maneuver to the correct spot to pull the product needed. From there we moved on through the facility to see more automated systems including a new system which automatically delivers items to stationary employees for packing. These stations included a number of systems for ensuring there are no errors, including infrared sensors which can determine if a piece is put in the wrong box. Then we saw robots stacking boxes of various sizes on pallets for shipping, robots which wrap the pallets in plastic,  machines that automatically fold boxes, and conveyor belts that automatically sort boxes and bins based on size and where they need to go.

Back in the headquarters building, we met and had lunch with the board chairman, a Kelley alumnus. The headquarters was beautifully designed, and consistent with the company's values and philanthropic interests, was filled with beautiful artwork. Würth actually considers its art collection as an investment designed to safeguard the company against poor economic times. We saw (only too briefly, in passing) a beautiful exhibit of Namibian artwork, including sculpture, painting, and photography.

Thursday we began the day at Kärcher, which makes cleaners and cleaning products. They make steam cleaners for the home (you might have seen them in Lowe's) but may be better known for their industrial cleaning machines. They are known for innovation, and change most of their product line every five years. In all they make thousands of products.

We had a great host, Alexandra, who gave a nice presentation and Q&A before leading us on a tour of the factory floor. Kärcher makes everything themselves in order to maintain high quality standards, save time, and reduce waste (they can easily replace a faulty part rather than having to replace entire pre-made components). We saw the engine assembly line where workers assembled the engines piece by piece, and moved on to see product assembly lines, injection molding machines, and packaging lines. It was interesting to see the mix of human labor and automated processes. One reason they use more people than robots is for the ease of changing what products they are assembling. If one day they need to make a switch to make a machine for the Australian market rather than for Europe, they can simply tell the employees who know how to alter the products instead of reprogramming robots. Alexandra taught us a lot about how they use policy and workplace design to maintain high worker satisfaction. Employees can change tasks for variety, they get to interact regularly, and they take breaks at the same time, along other things like a nice team incentive program for high production. I really enjoyed the Kärcher visit.

Thursday afternoon we visited Klafs, a world leader in luxury sauna manufacturing. They make products for the home, but likely do a larger business with hotels and resorts. I noticed they built the sauna in our hotel, which seemed logical. We toured the factory, and what I remember most is a lot of automated wood curing, with high quality wood that is allegedly sustainably sourced. This is the largest wood shop I have ever been in, and it was surprising clean. They had large systems to remove dust, and they clean daily with a major cleaning once a week. We also saw an area where all of the component parts for sauna orders were pulled together ready for shipping and installation. As you can imagine, a lot of what Klafs does is very customized, and usually their own staff travel to the customer to install the product.

From the factory we went to the retail showroom and saw a variety of fantastic sauna and shower setups. There was a lot of fantasizing and envy involved, and I'm sure that if I ever build a house my standards have now been set outside of my price range. Among the unique  products were an expanding sauna which, when stored, is no larger than an armoire, and a bed which sways back and forth to help clear the mind and induce sleep.

Finally, our guide (whom I liked, but whose name I don't remember) took us upstairs, where they have a large, fully functional sauna where important clients can try different treatments before committing to a purchase. There, we marveled at the various treatment rooms: saunas, steam room, a snow room for cold treatment, a compete Turkish hammam, tubs with electrically charged water, a sleep pod/light/aromatherapy room, and more. After looking around we had a nice Q&A, where we learned that Putin is a Klafs client, the salesman uses the sauna with the clients (nude, of course), and he always makes a sale.

Following Klafs we went to Mobil Gunst, the furniture store. They also sell kitchens, since most flats and homes in Germany come without kitchens installed. Both the furniture and the kitchens were well designed, and once again I found myself dreaming about all of the cool things I could put into my house if I ever built one. Tom pointed out the back office areas of the store, and mentioned a challenge of being a small business owner - the building needs a new roof, but it will be several years before he can save enough to replace it.

Friday morning we visited Recaro, a world leader in manufacturing airline seats. The bulk of their business is probably for short-haul economy-class seating, but they do make long-haul and first-class seating as well. They sell world-wide, but in the U.S. they mentioned a contract they have with Alaska Airlines. A couple of execs gave us a very German-style presentation, which was challenging because by this point in the trip we were all pretty tired. It was interesting to learn that just a few years ago they had a huge problem with quality control and missed deadlines. They shared a number of changes and management strategies they implemented which flattened the management structure, improved efficiency, increased accountability, better identified problems and solutions, and made drastic improvements in quality and on-time delivery. I couldn't help but think this company would be a perfect case study in business management.

We concluded the Recaro visit with a factory tour, where we saw component parts being manufactured and several lines of seating being assembled. It really surprised me to see how manual this process was. While we saw some large press and stamp machines, every step of the process was done by hand by real people. Through the tour, we also saw evidence of the management and accountability systems we had discussed before the tour.

Not until Tuesday did we have our final company visit. And while it was more of a commercial tour, and not a meeting with any company employee or executive, we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing and comprehensive tour of the BMW factory in Munich. This factory was mind-boggling. Again, people build stuff like this every day around the world, but I never imagined the level of technology used and the logistical planning required.

BMW Four Cylinders headquarters building and BMW Museum. 

Due to space limitations within the city, the factory has grown up instead of out. I believe it is five levels and we started at the top where, illogically to me, they use their heaviest equipment to stamp and cut body parts out of flat sheets of steel. After that, everything we saw was a highly automated and complex system of car parts moving from room to room and floor to floor while individual pieces were moved into place and welded together by hundreds of precisely choreographed robots. In one room we saw side panels mounted onto the undercarriage before the entire frame would be lifted and disappear into the ceiling above. There was a holding room with a store of a  hundred or so frames (still being held in line order) which would keep production running for about 90 minutes in case part of the line was shut down to make a change or fix. At some point along the way we saw the engine assembly room which was reminiscent of Kärcher but on a larger scale.

One fascinating area was the paint shop, there about five layers of primer, paint, and finish are applied to the body. In the initial stages the frames are dipped - completely immersed and rolled end-to-end in the paint so every crevice is covered. In a later clean room, the cars are grounded while the paint is charged and flung in fine particles at high speed toward the exterior of the body (by robots which can also open and close the doors).

The paint is actually electronically bonded to the metal. In the next room, the interiors of the frame are painted with airbrushing robots. In both of these rooms there is a constant high speed wind coming from the ceiling, and a rushing pool of water covering and draining through the floor. Any stray paint particles are captured by the water and removed from the room.

Eventually we made it to the final assembly area, where robots assisted people installing heavy batteries and the near-complete cars moved slowly along conveyers where people install the customized interior parts and trim. These conveyers are designed for the convenience of the workers, as the cars are tilted back and forth to provide access to the top or bottom of the vehicle as needed, and the workers do not need to bend or kneel.

All of this results in a new BMW every couple of minutes. They brag that every car being built is already sold. This means, amazingly, that essentially every car coming off the line is a custom order. One car might be a black wagon, the next a red sedan, the following blue with a sunroof, etc. All of these parts come together at the right time from wherever in the factory they are produced, in order, to build the final product. I can't even imagine how the engineers designed such a process and system, with what must include a million steps and hundreds of individually programmed robots.

Traveling with students can be crazy and exhausting. I certainly don't follow the same timeline or do the same things I would do if I were traveling on my own. But traveling with business students on behalf of Kelley certainly brings unique opportunities to learn and see things few people get to see. This was quite a trip. (And now I'm a BMW fan!)

At BMV Welt - some of the many cars on display. Some of the mini cars on display?

Munich

Munich is quite a bit different than Stuttgart. One thing I noticed immediately was a lot more diversity than we had encountered to this point. No one specifically stood out as refugees, but I do wonder if some of the people we saw were. The city is also historically Catholic, so that sets it apart from most of the rest of the country. It's a larger city, and I felt like there was a lot more traffic and activity. There are some great green spaces, but we didn't visit them so my impressions consist primarily of buildings and traffic The city is flatter, too, and while there are mountains in the distance, I never saw them while walking around. There are a few impressive buildings that pre-date the war, or were re-built following the war, but on the whole it didn't seem "pretty." In all, the city seemed less "scenic" to me so was less impressed. However my assessment may be unfair - we had just come from the spectacular Schwäbisch Hall, and by this point in the trip I was growing more tired and ready to go home. 

We had two full days in Munich, beginning Monday morning with a U-Bahn (subway) ride to Allianz Arena, home to the two Bundesliga teams in Munich: the multi-year and recently crowned champions Bayern Munich and the lesser-know second-division TSV 1860 Munich Lions. Our guide was good, and she took us into the stands to tell us a bit about the stadium, it's history, and the teams that play there. The stadium was built as a joint venture between the teams, but the Lions, being less successful, had to sell its stake to Bayern Munich,  now the sole owner. The Lions rent the stadium for the games they play there. The stadium was not clean and full of confetti, due to the big celebration after Saturday's game at which the won the league championship. We had just missed the city celebration downtown the day before. 

We learned that the field is something like 3% synthetic grass and 97% natural, with the synthetic pieces tied several inches into the ground. There is a system of lamps providing artificial sunlight which are used for 48 hours at a time. The current coach keeps the field well-watered and damp. We also learned a bit about the synthetic shell of the stadium and saw a small piece of the thin but sturdy plastic it's made of. The stadium can be lit, theoretically, in millions of colors using a system that was recently switch to LED lighting, resulting in a 60% energy savings. Primarily the stadium is only lit in red or white or blue, depending on which team is playing, and it's only lit for a couple of hours before sunrise and again after sundown. If the stadium is lit in other colors, it requires special approval from the city, due to safety concerns on the nearby highway. Recently it was lit in orange for a visit by the King of The Netherlands.

We had the opportunity to go inside to see the press room, the Bayern home dressing area, and the tunnel leading to the field. What was fascinating to me is that the stadium is considered "neutral," so anything in public areas with Bayern Munich branding is changed out for Lions games or German National Team games. And we saw a lot of branding in the hallways, player entrance, and press room. When the Lions play, everything in the stadium is branded for the Lions. Even more amazingly, in my opinion, is that the stadium name can be changed, too. Because Allianz is not a sponsor of Bundesliga, the German National Team, or FIFA, the Allianz name must be dark, covered or removed for any German National friendly games, tournaments, etc. During the world cup, they removed the giant lettering from the side of the stadium and re-named it the "Munich World Cup Stadium." We ended our visit with barely enough time in the huge gift shop, and a quick bite to eat so we could make it to our next thing.

The tour took longer than expected, so we were pressed for time to get back into the city center and transfer trains in order to get to our arranged tour at Dachau. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to us in advance, it was a holiday (Whit Monday - who knew?!). That meant a change in the train schedule. We were supposed to transfer trains at Marienplatz, which has to be the most confusing station. The platform was on a level that could only be accessed from certain other levels, and it was not easy to find the level or get off of it if you didn't want to be there. A couple of the escalators bypassed the level altogether. Finally we all got to the right place, only to discover that the schedule was changed. So we waited... and the train never came. There were no S-Bahn employees around to offer assistance, but we finally found someone who told us that the train had been re-routed completely for the holiday and wasn't even stopping at this station. We had to go the the Main Station to catch the correct train, which we did. I was not happy with all of the chaos, and we were heading out of the city to Dachau for a tour which I wasn't even sure we would be able to take, considering how late we were going to be.

Eventually we made it to Dachau, and our guide Michael was there waiting for us. By this point, it was quite chilly and we were enduring a steady rain... It didn't make for a pleasant tour, but I think it was strangely fitting considering what a solemn place it is and there is nothing happy about the horrible atrocities that took place there. It was also a stark reminder of the horrible weather the prisoners must have had to endure, year-round, wearing nothing but thin striped uniforms and made to work outside, and stand at attention for hours at a time. Or even worse, being hung by their wrists for punishment.

Michael was a no-nonsense tour guide. We were surprised to learn that the tour was scheduled to last two and a half hours. Jeanette tried to tactfully tell the guide that we were tired and asked if the tour could be shortened a bit. That didn't go over well, and we basically ended up with a two and a half hour tour. We barely saw any of the museum exhibits themselves, which is a good thing because I'm sure it would take more than a full day to see it all, and it would probably be way too overwhelming. However, we did see the grounds, the Maintenance Building, the Bunker (camp prison), Crematorium, the re-constructed barracks, and a devastating home move shot by a young U.S. soldier during the liberation of the camp. Michael knew his stuff, he shared a lot of stories and could answer any question, sharing some very specific details about the concentration camp system outpost near Schwäbisch Hall. (There were thousands of concentration camp sites, overall.) He asked us what movies and documentaries we had seen related to the Holocaust, and then mostly reacted in horror telling us how unrealistic they were. He seemed to especially hate Life is Beautiful ("a comedy!") and he didn't have much good to say about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He didn't hear me mention Bent, so I don't know his opinion on that one. At the end of the tour I asked Michael what motivated him to give tours at Dachau. He said he's always been interested in history, and he was motivated by the stories of his grandparents. He went on to decry the rise of right-wing nationalism occurring around the globe, from Russia to France to Donald Trump. He's not sure what will happen to trans-Atlantic relationships if Trump is elected; I agreed the prospect is unthinkable.

Back in Munich, the rain finally let up and I had dinner with Jeanette, Erika, and Clark at an expensive (but good) Vegan restaurant. Later that evening I took advantage of my only opportunity to check out the Munich gay nightlife. On a Monday. On a holiday. Anyway, I found my way to the right part of town and, although things weren't busy, I enjoyed myself. I had a single beer at each of two bars. The first (Bau) was smallish and trendy with an attractive clientele, and a great painting on the wall. The second bar (Moro) was larger and is also a restaurant, had a slightly more traditional, classy decor, with several nice paintings on the wall and a friendly bartender. I concluded that nightlife is one area in which Munich beats out Stuttgart.

Tuesday began with a U-bahn ride to BMW Welt (BWM World), which was nothing less than amazing. Across the road from BMW's iconic "Four Cylinder" headquarters building, the BMW museum, and the manufacturing plant, BMW Welt is a stunning example of contemporary architecture on the edge of the Olympiapark. The building is large and I'm not sure what all happens there, but it is where they deliver new BMWs to new owners and there's a cafe, gift shop, and beautiful displays of some of the latest BMW, Rolls Royce, and Mini cars. And this is where the tours began. We had very knowledgeable, and funny, guide named Peter Bosch. He took us on a thorough tour of the factory, which blew my mind. It is a multi-level, high-tech manufacturing plant and assembly line. The logistics, robotics, and engineering used to produce hundreds of individually-customized cars daily is unbelievable. More on this in an upcoming post.

Once again, our tour took longer than expected, so we had limited time for the gift shop and we didn't get to explore Olympiapark or see its trümmerberg (the hill made of rubble from the WWII destuction). We had to rush to make it to our next visit at UnternehmerTUM, the Center for Innovation and Business Creation at the Technische Universität München, There we enjoyed a really good lunch at their cafe before learning more about the place from a graduate student who coordinated our visit. He then toured us around and we got to see the MakerSpace filled with all kinds of fantastic tools which can be used to make product prototypes. These included a 3D printer which can print fabrics and objects with moving parts, and a machine that can cut designs and patterns out of 50 mm steel using high-pressure sand and water. We also met a couple of entrepreneurs in their business incubator and heard (very very) briefly about the work of their business accelerator. Aside from the cool tools and good lunch, this visit wasn't as great as we hoped it would be. I'm sure it didn't help that everyone was tired to the point of being easily distracted and silly.

We took the train back to the city center and most of the students went to the hotel to pack. Jeanette, Erika, Clark and I met two recent Kelley graduates who were traveling on their own and walked around the Marienplatz area looking for souvenirs. We left the students in the market and went for our final dinner at a wonderful German food restaurant. After dinner we headed to the famous Hofbrauhaus for a final informal gathering with some of the students. There I chatted with two IU students who were in Germany on a SPEA program. One of them I had met in Bloomington this spring and we had talked about being in Germany at the same time. Some of the students on my trip are in his fraternity, which is how we ended up at the same place at the same time. I had one (very large) delicious Dark Radler as we talked and listened to the talented polka band perform throughout the evening. We went back to the hotel before it got too late, and I spent more time than expected packing up, ultimately getting a few hours of sleep before our 5 am meeting for departure to the airport.

Castles!

On Sunday the hotel opened breakfast for us 45 minutes early, because Sasha came way too early in a brand new Mercedes-Benz bus to take it to the Germans' most despised tourist attraction, Neuschwanstein!

I planned to blog on the bus, but I was just too exhausted and I slept most of the trip, noticing that I almost felt the beginning of a cold coming on. I woke up when the bus came to a stop at an intersection in a town, and I noticed the time: I was supposed to already be at the ticket office picking up our tour tickets. I called them, and was relieved to learn we had an extra half hour to get there. We were there within 10 minutes.

This place was crowded with tourists so I can understand some of Germans' attitude, but on the other hand the forest, mountains, waterfalls, lakes, and castles are absolutely gorgeous so I think they should get over it. They will never know, though, because they won't go there.

Schloss Hohenschwangau

We first walked up the hill to the original castle, Schloss Hohenschwangau. It is impressive and beautifully furnished, and has great views of the surrounding countryside, and I concluded it must have been good to be the king. There were other people on our tour, though, and one tour was right after the other, so the tour didn't feel very personal and the guide stuck closely to a prepared script.

We didn't have time to grab lunch before climbing the even bigger hill to the much larger, way more elaborate and impressive, somewhat over-the-top, and never fully completed Neuschwanstein. King Ludwig was a friend and huge admirer of Richard Wagner, so the walls of every room were outlandishly painted with scenes from Wagnerian operas. The poor guy only lived there for six months before dying mysteriously. I think the Germans are still upset he bankrupt Bavarian building this extravagant place just for himself.

Views just outside of  Neuschwanstein.

At the end of the tour, we had a difficult time ushering the students out, as they all wanted to buy souvenirs. On the way out there were two souvenir shops still inside the castle, then one more right outside, all of which held us up before getting to our planned souvenir and snack shop 15 minutes walk back down the mountain. We finally got there, and I enjoyed the most delicious brat for lunch. In all the chaos we lost a student and were left with no choice but to walk down the mountain and hope we found him at the bottom. Thank goodness we did.

It was a pretty drive on the bus ride to Munich, but unfortunately I couldn't stay awake. I woke up as we entered the city and we made our way to the Arthotel Munich, our home for the next three nights. There we checked in and met up with Jeanette's daughter Erika who led us on a long walking tour of the city. (According to FitBit, I walked over 11 miles that day!)

Our tour took us to three different Catholic churches, the Marienplatz and glockenspiel at the New City Hall, and a (by this time closed) marketplace. Then we walked past the intentionally unmarked first meeting place of the National Socialist Party, the Hofbrauhaus, the Munich Residenz, the site of a failed assassination attempt on Hitler, the former headquarters of the Nazis (also not memorialized in any way), and the site of many large Nazis rallies. By the time our tour ended and we walked back toward the hotel and restaurants it was after 9 pm. The only place we found that was open was a nice Chinese restaurant, so ten of us went in and sat down for a good meal. I returned to the hotel exhausted.

Bundesliga Soccer!

Saturday was one of the most anticipated days of the trip. We took a group of students to the final match of the year for the Bundesliga teams 1899 Hoffenheim and Schalke 04. I got up just a few minutes early for my only chance to check out the hotel's salt water pools, even though I'd had a late night at the festival. Again, I found a uniquely German culture surrounding the pools. The area had two indoor pools, one of which was essentially a giant swirling aerated whirlpool bath with built in lounge chairs. There was also an outdoor pool with a bench overlooking the hills on the opposite side of the river. There was a juice bar, and the pool clientele appeared to be mostly old people socializing as they soaked. No lap swimmers here! Except maybe outside.

Headed to the Bundesliga match!

Couldn't enjoy that scene for too long, because we had to walk to the train station to take a three-leg trip to the town of Sensheim which is oddly (but for known reasons) the home of a top tier soccer team and 30 thousand seat stadium. The train ride was fairly uneventful, and as we went along there gradually came to be more and more of the opposing team's fans getting on the train. Any time we questioned when to get on or off a train, we just followed the Schalke jerseys.

I wasn't sure what we would find when we arrived at the stadium site, but the exit from the platform led to a bustling street with some businesses, a souvie stand, a bratwurst place with a beer garden, a döner stand, and a Burger King. The BK has quite handy due to the availability of free public restrooms. Clark and I ate at the döner stand with a few students, then I got a  Spaghetti-Eis from a street vendor before re-connecting with the other students to walk to Rhine-Neckar Arena. (It's ice cream made to look like a bowl of spaghetti, BTW.)

Dӧner stand in Sensheim.

Dӧner Box for lunch.

The walk to the arena went through a very odd-looking Auto and Technik Museum featuring, among other things, used concord aircrafts mounted as if they are taking off. Just past the museum, we passed under a big highway through a graffiti-covered tunnel (very German). On the other side of the tunnel, we entered into a countryside of rolling green field with a huge stadium sitting a few hundred yards away. Immediately upon exiting the tunnel, we could hear the thunderous chants of the fans coming from inside the stadium.

Due to a student issue, a few guys and I were arriving a bit later than anticipated, and it didn't help that I couldn't read the sign correctly and led us all to the wrong gate. We were turned away and directed to the right gate, entering the stands just as a bunch of flags were being taken off the field and the game began. Things continued to go wrong, as I didn't know that the seat numbers start in the middle of the stands. There I was like a pied piper leading three students up and down the aisles, interrupting fans and looking for seats 1-4. We missed the first goal by Schalke before finding our seats in the dead center of the row.

Finally we were in our seats and watched the game. It was quite cool, but the sun actually came out which I thought made the game pleasant, even though we were seated in covered stands. Schalke scored again in the first half, which was a fun goal to watch. But Hoffenheim scored and showed some life for the rest of the half and much of the second half. We saw some good soccer. Hoffenheim had a lot more opportunities than Schalke from corner kicks, but they didn't convert any. After the world's most boring halftime, play resumed. I loved the constant, rhythmic chanting of the fans, which alternated between the opposing sides, along with people in the stands dancing and waving flags (although not near us). It was almost soothing. I hoped Hoffenheim would tie it up, but near the end Schalke scored again, and the Hoffenheim sealed their own fate by scoring an own goal. Final result was 1-4. The loss wasn't unexpected, but it didn't have to be that bad.

Halftime at the match.

After the game we went out near the concession area to collect the group, and one of our students noticed that they were giving the beer away for free. Yes please! We thought it was completely un-American, but I guess the Germans don't want to waste beer. And, we guessed, fewer people drive home from the stadium. Although we benefited from free beer, our waiting was in vain because some of the students had already walked back to the train platform. Eventually we all found each other and managed to get on the correct train back.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, everything on the ride back was uneventful until we got to Heilbronn, where we had to change trains. I'll explain here in greater detail: We had about 10 minutes, so some of the students ducked into the convenience store in the train station. I swept them all out so they could get on the train, and we managed to confirm it was the right train and hurry on just as the doors were closing. That's when Clark told me that we were still missing two students who went to Subway. I quickly jumped back off, walked into the station and found the students coming toward me just as the train pulled away. They were shocked. They apologized profusely and blamed a slow Subway worker.

I knew they felt terrible, so I accepted their apology, didn't make a big deal out of it, and quickly went about trying to come up with an alternate plan. We looked at the schedules posted on the wall, which might as well have been printed in German(!) and were of no help at all. I pulled up Google Maps, and my heart sank when the only train itineraries it came up with would put us back in Schwäbisch Hall at 7:30 am the next day, an hour and a half after our bus was set to leave. Suddenly, the railworker appeared at my side, looking at me incredulously because he had been urging ne to get on the train. In the end, he was super helpful. He helped us buy tickets for an alternate route that put us back in Schwäbisch Hall by 10:30 pm.

Outside the Heilbronn train station.

We went to the Subway so the guys could sit and eat their sandwiches. They were still shocked and embarrassed and ate in near silence. Eventually one of them suggested I could eat supper and, since we had an hour to wait, I went to get a sandwich. I experienced first-hand the frustratingly slow sandwich artist! He did three or four orders at a time before completing a single sandwich. Ugh!

Before long we were back on a train and the rest of the trip was uneventful, but it proved to be a good bonding time. 

When we got back, they went straight back to the hotel while I went to see if I could find Jeanette at the final night of the Festival. No luck there, but I enjoyed some käsespätzle from a food vendor (traditional cheesy Schwäbian noodles), ran into Tom Gunst, saw the procession of the salzherstellers (even larger than the night before), walked around the carnival ride area (which they don't call carnival rides), watched an animated marionette play which was completely in German, and walked a good way past the festival along the river on the path through the park. It was way too late to be out, but it was my last chance to take in Schwäbisch Hall. 

Covered bridge leading to the festival grounds.

Käsespätzle. I accidentally forgot to have onions added, because I wasn't sure what it was or if it cost extra.

Some of the festival rides and games.