MBA in the USA – Cultural consulting by Grayson Leverenz

I thought it would be fun to share my experience as an international student with MBA in the USA readers. Below is my first post from the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. I hope it makes you smile…

Ummmm…burgers

Name the first two things you do when arriving in a new place. If you guessed “find the big blue i for tourist information and find something to eat,” you’d be in good company with me.

Brandon and I landed in Frankfurt after a beautifully uneventful flight. We took the train to Koblenz and splurged on a cab to our apartment in Niederwerth. Click Here to See Map After dropping our bags, we went in search of (you guessed it) the big blue i and something to eat.

Our first big blue i sighting was at the end of the bridge connecting Niederwerth with Vallendar. We wandered up the cobblestone pedestrian zone main street with our eyes peeled for restaurants and another big blue i. As the street wound around, we lost the trail of the big blue i and began to focus solely on food. I must tell you that finding a suitable first meal in a country where you don’t speak the language is tough enough. Now imagine that difficulty compounded by intimidating wooden doors that are so heavy they appear locked even when they’re not and you’ve got Germany. We scanned the menus of a couple of places, but weren’t feeling brave enough to gamble on the totally unfamiliar. After about half an hour, I spotted a sign across the street that read Burgerhaus. “Ummmm…burgers. Let’s go there,” I drooled.

We forged ahead to discover the building in no way resembled a restaurant, but surprisingly there was a big blue i in the window! Go ahead and laugh when I tell you that a Burgerhaus in Germany is not a BK Lounge; it’s the mayor’s house, or seat of local government that houses tourist information among other governmental type things. Mayors, not burgers. Welcome to Deutschland!

To check out the rest of our German blog, click here.