Aachen Not Believe It!

            We’ve been in school for a week now (it sure feels like a lot longer though)! Each class is 75 minutes long with a 15 minute break in between each. On our first day of classes, we had 4 classes in a row, and it certainly wasn’t easy to get through whatsoever. One of the AIB student workers took us on a tour of Friedensplatz, the central area of Bonn, which was very helpful so that we could get a better sense of direction in case any of us were to get lost. We stopped by the old AIB, which was a lot smaller than the current one, but the moment I walked in, I had the feeling that if I opened the correct door, I might find myself in Narnia! On Friday, we took a day trip excursion to the city of Aachen, which is about an hour west of Bonn by bus. Aachen was amazing! The moment I stepped off of the bus, I saw the magnificent Cathedral of Charlemagne. Next, we had a guided tour of the cathedral; our tour guide was fantastic; he would give such thorough information that we had no unanswered questions at the end of the tour. We saw Charlemagne’s sarcophagus (without Charlemagne’s remains because they were in the cathedral itself); we also saw numerous golden items that belonged to the treasury of Aachen Cathedral such as an arm or castle or bust all of which had relics of Charlemagne within it. For instance, the golden arm had Charlemagne’s wrist bone inside of it! After the tour of the museum, the tour guide brought us into the cathedral itself, and it was breathtaking. We were able to see the tomb that was rumored to contain the rest of Charlemagne’s remains as well as the Throne of Charlemagne. After the tour finished, we stopped by Nobis Printen, which sold Aachener Printen, which is somewhat similar to gingerbread but better J. I bought a bag for myself….however, I finished most of it before I made it back to Bonn haha, so I’ll definitely need to restock whenever I return at the end of the semester. Our last stop before returning to Bonn was to enmodes, the company that we will be working with throughout this semester. I can’t disclose too much information due to privacy rights held by the company, but I can definitely say that the designing of the device this semester will be extremely challenging. This project is very different than any other classroom device design project because the device that we design could potentially be used to help construct the final product that the company will send to market. We should be heading to Heidelberg tomorrow for a weekend excursion, so fingers crossed that everything goes well!