Cernay, France and Maulburg, Germany

The last two days have been quite the whirlwind for the students on this side of the pond! 

On Tuesday, March 28th, the group traveled to Cernay, France to tour E+H Flow Cernay. They had a great time bonding with their tour guide. After their visit, they traveled to Baden-Baden, a hiking location in Switzerland. The students had the great fortune of experiencing European traffic firsthand as they sat at a standstill for an hour and a half. Thankfully, it provided an excellent opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep!

There is a replica scale model of the Statue of Liberty in the city in which the original architect was born!

It was a true joy to visit E+H Flow Cernay, and we were glad that the feeling was mutual!

Some students finished out the long day with Matt at a local sushi bar in Lörrach, Germany

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Wednesday, March 29th, took the group to E+H Level+Pressure in Maulburg, Germany. To say that the students learned a lot would be a sincere understatement! The day was packed with new information and many hands-on experiences that even allowed students to learn a useful new skill: soldering circuit boards!

Our hosts were incredibly generous the entire day! The students truly appreciated the food spread at various times throughout the day in addition to the wonderful lunch that E+H Level+Pressure provided. We could not ask for a better welcome! 

We divided into two groups. Each group intended to have the same experience, but time constraints made it so that we each did not see something that the other did. Ask your student about their hands-on experience in the apprentice area seen in the photos below! If your student isn't pictured below, ask them, instead, about how gamma rays are used to measure liquids like molten steel! They learned about Cesium-137 and Cobalt-90 and their respective half-lives and applications in measuring. They asked fantastic questions!

One of the bigger hands-on activities came after lunch. We had spent the day learning about a variety of different devices that E+H Level+Pressure use to gauge level and pressure for a variety of different industrial uses. For this hands-on activity, students soldered a circuit board to create an ultrasound distance-measuring device! Students were a bit hesitant initially, but they all dove in and learned on the fly. It was quite impressive! Ask your student to see the device when they return next week!

Even Dr. Worland participated in soldering a circuit board! 

Our hosts were fantastic and they continued their outstanding hospitality by inviting us to a restaurant in Lörrach to finish out the evening! 

The next two days are expected to be busy like the last two. Tomorrow, March 30th, the group will travel to Strasbourg, France to tour European Parliament and take a boat tour down the Ile river in the heart of the city. Friday, March 31st, the group will visit a local high school and spend the day with students learning about the differences in education and making new connections! Our time with Endress+Hauser will come to an end on Friday and then we are off to Neuschwanstein Castle and Munich. 

"Bonjour" from Paris and "Guten Tag" from Germany and Switzerland!

 I want to first apologize for not having the opportunity to update this blog until this evening. We have been going non-stop since we landed on Saturday, and sleep has become a priority for all of us when we have had the chance to do so. 

Paris was a whirlwind, but we were pleased to have had the opportunity to see some of it. We enjoyed the typical café experience and then we hit the basic highlights-- the Louvre Pyramids, Place de la Concorde, Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel tower. 

On Sunday, March 26th, we began the next segment of our trip. The students were really excited to be able to ride a bullet train! Reaching speeds of up to 200 mph, it took a little over three hours to travel from Paris to Basel, Switzerland.

In Basel, we ate at a local Pizzeria. It was difficult to make reservations for 19 people on a Sunday as most places are closed, which is typical in most European cities. However, the pizza was wonderful! It was a cold, windy, and rainy day in Basel, so we were all thankful to have brought our rain gear! 

Our coach picked us up in Basel and brought us to Lorräch, Germany, where our hotel is situated. We ate dinner together at a Lebanese restaurant a few minutes from our hotel before turning in for the night to rest up before our adventures the next day at E+H headquarters.

This morning, Monday, March 27th, we visited Endress+Hausser's headquarters in Reinach, Switzerland. Photos were not permitted within most of the E+H facility, but the kids learned so much about the various aspects of what E+H does. We could not have asked for better hosts!

E+H treated the students to some afternoon tea+lemonade as well as some sweet treats before we departed.

Following our morning and afternoon at E+H Headquarters, we traveled to the Lindt Chocolatèrie in Zurich. We walked through the tour that explained how chocolate was invented and made, and then had a fun time sampling dozens of kinds of chocolate before perusing the shop where most students spent what was probably the majority of their souvenir money! 

That is a real, flowing chocolate fountain...

There were three types of liquid chocolate to try: white, milk, and dark.

There were also 8 kinds of chocolate bars to sample-- some of us sampled each three or even four times. We are not responsible for any stomach aches that may have occurred... but there were no regrets!

The students spent almost an hour loading their baskets with goodies from the chocolate store. Many of these flavors are seasonal or can only be found right here at the Lindt headquarters in Switzerland.

Tomorrow, March 28th, students will tour another E+H facility in Cernay, France, and then take a hike in the Black Forest (weather permitting). We still have a lot planned out and we are excited for the coming days!