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!