Visit to Hamburg

We arrived in Hamburg after a long journey from Berlin at approximately 12:00 pm. We then had two hours of free time to explore the city and get a bite to eat. Since it was extremely cold out, we decided to try and find a restaurant inside to warm up. A shopping mall sounded like the perfect place to warm up and eat some food.

After the free time was done we hopped back onto the bus and headed to the Hamburg port. This is the third largest port in all of Europe. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide that gave us a lot of insight into how the port operates.

It was really cool to see the cargo ships up close. The tour guide told us that an average cargo ship was around 360 meters long. This can really be put into perspective when driving by one in a 20 meter long boat.

After the tour we were able to see a car elevator that was right next to the river. This elevator was connected to a tunnel that led underneath the river. This might not seem to impressive with today’s technology but this was built in the early 1900’s! It was a great to experience Hamburg and the very important shipping industry that is there.

Sunday Morning Church

This morning we traveled to Dresden for a worship service at Church of our Lady. This church was destroyed during WWll and eventually rebuilt in the 1990’s. It was very cool to see how a city that was in rubble after bombing in the world war has been completely rebuilt. 

The church was Protestant and the service was completely in German. Other than a couple words, I didn’t understand most of the service but I still liked trying to sing the songs in German. But to be honest this usually ended with me humming along with the people next to me. On the bright side, this church was heated unlike most of the cathedrals and churches we have been to. I found it very distracting to be freezing cold in church, so I enjoyed the warmth today. 

Another odd thing I noticed during the service was how many people were coming and going. Typically in the USA, I don’t see anybody leave church during the service unless it is a quick trip to the bathroom. But in this church there were around 20 people that left before the service was over. 

Church services are a great way to experience a places culture. It was cool to be a part of the people and take communion with them. In instances like that you become a pilgrim more than a tourist.

Steelcase Visit

After an exciting visit to Neuschwanstein Castle in the middle of the mountains we made our way to steelcase. Steelcase is an American company that specializes in office furniture. Unlike most business visits, steelcase showed us their innovation center that focused on the productivity of their office environment.

The visit started off with some refreshments and snacks followed with an introduction to the company.

Our tour guide Klause focussed on how their product developed an environment to promote the best workplace and work ethic. Steelcase originally focused on integrating technology into the workplace but now focuses on integration of technology and communication. He talked about how large spread out businesses resulted in a segregation of employees. The mission of steelcase was to connect all employees. Informal information exchange is a really important aspect of business. This means that a lot of information is passed along employees when they are passing or brief encounters. Our tour guide used a metaphor of a get-together in a kitchen. If everybody is close in a business they will be forced to interact with each other and information will be passed much faster and more efficiently. Steelcase recognizes costumers as business partners and after extensive information and talks, tries to provide a floor plan that best suits their company. 

A main priority of steelcase is to incorporate both creative thinking and decision making rooms in one. Some examples of how they do this is through round tables, hands on communication and media platforms like microsoft workplace. 1/3 of the employees in the world are highly engaged in their work and steelcase focuses on making employees more engaged in their workplace and company. 

Throughout the visit, it was interesting to see how a company that specializes in office furniture can improve work ethic and productivity in a company