Muenchen

Today is Sunday, and only my third full day in Munich, but we have already done so much! We arrived on Thursday night and we came out of the train station it was pouring rain…and we had to walk to our hostel. Since we arrived so late and since it was raining and we were all soaked, Dr. Cothran decided to postpone our greeting dinner to some other night. So after dropping our stuff off at the Hostel and drying off a bit we headed to a nearby Chinese food place to grab some quick dinner before heading off to bed. Our hostel was nice, but a little cramped. We had to get to bed early, because we were touring Siemens the following morning.

                Our hostel provides breakfast, and after a quick bite we took the subway to Siemens. The complex in which Siemens is located is remarkable. All of the buildings have a very futuristic Sci-fi look, and they are all situated among rolling green spaces.(I wouldn’t mind working there) Our first part of the tour was a presentation overviewing what Siemens does as a whole and what Siemens does specifically in Munich. After the presentation we were able to go into four different labs and learn about the different projects that were being worked on. I’m not sure how confidential the material was, but in short we were able to see a chemical sensor lab, and a couple different spectography labs. After the tour Siemens provided us with a nice lunch and then we were free to go.

                We had a short pause after the Siemens tour, and then we had a sort of scavenger hunt to acquaint ourselves with the city of Munich. We were broken up into smaller groups, and each group was given a guide to help them around the city. My groups guide was Dr. Cothran. Our scavenger hunt lasted roughly three hours, and in that time Dr. Cothran pretty much managed to show us the entire city…and then some. In that time we did get to see some pretty incredible things though. We saw a church in the baroque style (which I don’t think that I have ever seen before) which was indescribably ornate in its decoration. We also saw, the new and old rathaus, a traditional market square, a bridge where people were surfing, the white rose memorial at LMU, and the playing of the Glockenspiel. After our tour we were pretty well exhausted but fortunately we were treated to dinner at the Augustiner Bierhalle. We had kalteplatte, brezels, and of course Beer. I had my first Maβ of beer at Augustiner, and it was a delicious litre of hell bier.

                My family came to Munich when I was younger, and I don’t really remember that much about the city, but I do remember this statue of a pig and of a catfish that where just outside of the Bierhalle...

After dinner we ran back to the hostel and grabbed a few things for an outdoor viewing of “Die Tribute von Panem” (“The Hunger Games”). The screen was set up in a little amphitheater in the middle of a beautiful park and all was good, and then it started to rain. Luckily, we came prepared with ponchos and umbrellas! The movie was rolling rain or shine, and since the rain made it a little darker out they were able to start the movie a little earlier. (It doesn’t usually get dark around here to after 10). The movie was really good, but at the intermission we decided that we had had enough rain and cold, and headed back to the Hostel.

The next day we had the morning free, and we were given several options as to what to do with our time. One of our options was to tour the Deutsches Historisches Museum, but we were not told what was in the museum. We were only told by Ulla, our teacher from UGA, that Tech students like the museum…she was right. The museum was easily the coolest that I have ever been to. There were giant exhibits on nearly every topic imaginable. The first exhibit was on ships and sailing, and there were entire sailboats inside of the museum. Some had cutaways, so that you could see the interior of the ship. They also had a tiny little steam boat for one or maybe two people. After passing through the ship exhibit there were several possible directions that you could go, but I was drawn toward the engines exhibit. There was every type of engine imaginable on display with cutaways so that you could see the inner workings of the engines. They also had a piston from a 9 cylinder diesel ship engine that was two stories tall from crank to piston head!

Continuing through the museum we came upon an electrical exhibit where they had Werner von Siemens’ first Dynamo machine. (That is what put Siemens on the map around 1866.) In one of the stairwells there was a 60m long pendulum that was used in 1851 to prove the rotation of the earth. There were other exhibits for planes, space, cars, nanotechnology, music, and so much more. We spent 4-5 hours in the museum and probably didn’t even cover half of it. Oh yeah, A strange coincidence occurred while we were at the museum. While in the physics exhibit, I ran into my lab partner from Physics I. Apparently she was studying at Lorraine this summer, and a group of them went to Munich for the weekend. Anyways, we couldn’t stay at the museum any longer, because we were touring the Paulaner Brewery.

We began the tour by getting an overview of the history of the brewery, and then proceeded to navigate through the plant. The brewery no longer toasts their own malt, because they produce more beer than they are able to produce malt, but they still use the same well water that has been used since the founding of the brewery. The Paulaner Brewery in Munich is also the only Paulaner Brewery, so whenever and wherever you have a Paulaner, it will have always have come from Munich. We were able to see a couple of Hop vines (which I have never seen before), and we went into the actual brewery. About midway through the tour we stopped to sample the brewery’s wares, and I tried a lager, a weissbier, and a beer called a Salvator… all of which were exceptional! The Salvator is a strong beer that they produce for the fast, and it has a very hearty toasty flavor. (they toast the malt extra long.) We then toured through the rest of the plant which included fermentation and bottling. After finishing up at the brewery our tutor, Jula, was going to check out the Tollwood Festival, and a group of us elected to go too.

The festival was at the Olympia Park right across from BMW welt. The architecture of the park and BMW welt was something else! The fest itself wasn’t really my cup of tea…it was kind of an arts and crafts, and Hippy/70s, and Hipster thing, and it was very crowded. We stayed for a bit and watched some show being put on on a vertical stage, I think it was called “How the world tipped”, but it didn’t really make any sense so we left. They did have corn on a stick though, so that was good! The next days were museum days, one was a classical art museum and the other was a modern art museum. At the classic art museum we were able to see art from Dürer, Raphael, Da Vinci, and others, and at the modern art museum we saw art from Dali and Feininger. I actually enjoyed the art part of the tour, but some of the stuff in the modern art museum was pretty borderline “art”.

Luckily, after the modern art tour our tutor took us to an ice cream stand that had easily the best ice cream that I have had on the trip. I had a scoop of apricot and peach and a taste of lemon and basil. (I later went back and had a scoop of chocolate and ginger, a scoop of maracuja (passion fruit), and a taste of milch and mint) All of them were fantastic. Even better yet, in between the museums we went to BMW welt and toured the car production facility. Just like at the Mercedes plant we were able to see the car production from start to finish, and I was a very happy Tech student while touring. On our last day in Munich I realized that I had not yet been to the Hoffbräuhaus, and since it would be unacceptable to go to Munich without going to the Hoffbräuhaus - I went to the Hoffbräuhaus. It was a little touristy, but it was still a really good time. They had a good umpa band playing traditional polka and German music, and I actually knew a lot of the songs. Best of all…the beer was really good! 

Pro(beer)en

Pro(beer)en – To try different beers
The German word for “to try” is probieren, so whenever we try new beers we say that we are pro(beer)en. Last night we had a grill out at the Hedwig Pfeifer House to celebrate the 4^th of July and our last night in Weimar, and therewith came some pro(beer)en. There is a grocery store and a getränkeladen right down the street from the house, and we have frequented both. The getränkeladen is a store just for drinks, not just alcoholic beverages, but also juices and such. For some reason they don’t sell any types of drinks at the grocery store. But anyways, the getränkeladen has a copious selection of beers, all of which you can buy individually and for very little geld. They had one beer from Tschechoslovakia called “Budweiser-Budwar”, and it reminded me of America…so I pro(beer)end it.

The grill out was a lot of fun! We had an organ-player from one of the nearby churches in attendance, and she played our national anthem while we all sang along. We grilled some hamburgers, and I’m not sure a hamburger has ever tasted so good. (They don’t eat too many hamburgers in Germany.) I also found a small watermelon (from Spain) for the grill-out at the grocery mart and had to buy it, because you can’t celebrate the 4^th without watermelon. It was somewhat of a strange feeling celebrating an American holiday in Germany, drinking Tschech beer, and eating Spanish watermelon, but I guess that’s Europe for ya. Prior to the fourth we had a very busy school week, and therefore we did not partake in our usual excursions. Tuesday we had the finals for both of the classes that we took in Weimar, and Wednesday we gave our final presentations.

We did manage to get away from school a little bit though. I took a couple runs through the park, and a couple walks. On one of my runs I found a little orchard in which there was a cherry tree absolutely loaded down with ripe cherries - They were yummy. I also tried some different flavors of ice cream, one of which was not so good. It was blue and accordingly named “azzura”. Unfortunately, the name did a good job describing the color of the ice cream, but not so much the flavor. It was bubble gum toothpaste flavored. It actually tasted a lot like the fluoride mouthwash that my dentist used to make me rinse with. For some reason it was also very melty, and as a result it had a consistency similar to that of…toothpaste. The whole time I was eating it I had to convince myself that it is ok to eat toothpaste. But I survived and all is good, but I might just stick to pistachio from now on.

I am on the train to Munich now and getting some much needed rest. And by rest I mean physical rest, because our journey today has been rather arduous. Between the 25 participants in the LBAT program we have quite a bit of luggage, and after 7 weeks in Germany it is getting pretty hefty. Today I was on baggage duty, which entails loading and unloading all of the baggage on and off all of the various forms of transportation that we have traveled with today. We had to switch trains in some tiny little town and we were supposed to have a 12 minute layover, but our first train was 10 minutes delayed. Two minutes to unload some 30+ pieces of luggage and reload on a different train was kind of pushing it, but we made it, and we are now on a nice comfortable ICE Duetsche Bahn to Munich. I think we are scheduled to arrive within the hour, and upon arrival we will commence the third leg of this tour of Germany!