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| Erin's Journal for 10-08-02 Today was our last full day in Munich, and we decided to sleep in. After Andreas and Helena had left for work, we lazed about in bed till almost 10, then leisurely showered and ate breakfast before heading out to meet Andreas at noon at his office in BMW headquarters. This is in a landmark building at the top of Olympic Park, shaped like 4 engine pistons. We found our way to a reception desk and asked for Andreas. It took 3 people to figure out what we were asking, including having the guard call someone and have Glenn talk to an English speaker, before we were able to reach Andreas. This surprised me, as it's such a large international firm, but as I keep reminding myself, this is a failure also held by most American companies! We were privileged to get a personal tour of the manufacturing grounds by Andreas, who told us about which car models were produced in the Munich plant and showed us some of the assembly lines in motion through the windows. Guided tours inside the factory must be arranged weeks in advance, so we were very happy to get this inside look! We then shared lunch in the company canteen, which was a very generous portion of food for not too much (and a cool way of charging it to the employee badges). Afterward, Andreas had to get back to the grind so we said we'd see him later. We then went through the BMW museum, which had a lot of great floor models of their products since the company began producing airplane engines in 1918. There were a lot of info points where you could plug in a headset (provided) and listen to various items about the company or the industry, but we skipped past a lot as they seemed a bit oversimplified in order to cater to a large audience. We got some great shots of a few displays though, including a car cut in half to show all the engine workings, a design model of a new 3-wheel motorcycle, and the Z8 or James Bond model. Upon leaving, we grabbed the U-Bahn down to Marienplatz, to see more of the town center, including the Rathaus (town hall) with its cool Glockenspiel - like a cuckoo clock, it has figurines that parade about in time to some programmed bell tunes at specific hours of the day. We'd have to wait an hour for the 5pm show, so we went looking for thank you gifts for our hosts while we waited. One thing we'd talked about was the search for a name for their unborn baby boy, so we picked up a book with 4,000 names as a starter in their search. Then we found some great oil candles with flowers insdie, and remembered that they seemed to be candle fans. We even got it wrapped as a free extra at that store! Happy with our finds, we then climbed the tower of St. Peterskirke, which was exhausting but satisfying as it gave us a 360 view of all of Munich. It was cold up there in the wind, but we admired the vista until 5pm and then enjoyed a great view of the Glockenspiel in motion. The best part was the jousting knights, who on the 2nd trip around actually connected and knocked one to the rump of his frozen steed. We decided to head back and relax before our hosts got home, and jumped the U-Bahn once again. We read a bit, and Glenn typed journals until they got there, then we relaxed some more until almost 8:30pm when dinner was served. Helena had made us a fantastic lasagna, and Andreas and I shared a last bottle of wine together. No more partner for him for a little while! We stayed up chatting till almost midnight, then headed off to bed. |
| The BMW headquarters in Munich (what does the shape remind you of?) |