Bumming Around Munich

The weather forecast in yesterday's Suddeutsche Zeitung called for morning showers, possibly thunderstorms, so I headed out for the Deutsches Museum. As soon as I got to the museum, the rain started and didn't let up until I left almost six hours later, much smarter, but tired of walking around. I saw almost every exhibit, skipping over telecommunication due to lack of interest and by that point attention span. The layout of the museum itself was a bit confusing. I found myself trying to find where each exhibit started and ended, in the hopes of following in the correct chronological order. At the end of the day, I wandered back out into the world, just in time for the sun to come out.

Next stop was one of the many beer gardens for some good old fashioned people watching, a beer, and a bretzel. It was an amusing game trying to pick nationality of tourists before I could hear an identifying language. Shocking . . . the Americans were the easiest to spot. I wandered around a little more before calling it a day, not without seeking out some gelato first.

Today I decided to head over to BMW-Welt which is a combination exhibit/convention hall and glorified dealership. The architecture is wild, mirroring the adjacent olympic grounds and taking some post-modern, neo-industrial, eco-space age turns all at the same time. Pictures describe it best, they'll follow in the post-trip picture dump.

Before I left, I tried emailing BMW about arranging a factory tour and found out they had none available for when I was going to be there. For kicks, I stopped at the ticket counter at BMW-Welt and managed to get a spot on an afternoon tour. While the sun was still shining, I headed over to the Olympic grounds since I had never been. You can see where the architect for DIA got their influences. The main buildings are metal and glass, tent like structures with large stays and supporting cables. Unfortunately, many of the buildings are undergoing renovation, but the grounds are spectacular. There are endless paths through the grounds, full of people running, strolling, and riding.

The BMW factory tour was pretty cool I have to say. Watching the process, especially for the body shop was incredible. There are robots for everything from moving things to welding plates to helping other robots. Soon robots will be building more robots. The only car they had available for a test drive was not really practical but . . .