Müchen (Part 2)

As much as I built it up, nothing much happened that Saturday night.

I had called Rainer, the Venezuelan dude Peer put me in contact with, and he and some friends were going out to this salsa club. Of note, I actually called him on Friday when I touched down in Munich, but because Thursday was his birthday, he was pretty much out of commission from the partying the night before. Anyways, we ended meeting up in front of the Hofbrauhaus close to midnight and me, him and 3 of his friends (his girl and another guy/girl combo) hopped a taxi to the first spot.

It was basically a hall where during the day I think its like a food court, but at night they set up a stage and hold events there. Tonight just happened to be salsa-night. So I got a mojito (yes, with Havana club rum) and made my way to the floor to pop my salsa cherry. It wasn't anyone on the floor, or even some lady of latin-decent, who ended up teaching me the VERY VERY limited basics of salsa dancing...but a German lady who looked to be in her late-40's. I would bore- (or even lol-) you with how much of a catastrophe I was on the floor, but I'll just leave it at "once the song was over she expediently fled the scene of the crime". Which was good cause everyone was ready to head to the main event, "Cohiba"--another salsa club (not one but 2 salsa clubs popping in Munich, Germany on the same night...go figure).

We hopped another taxi and were there I'd say probably around 1 or 1:30am. I stayed all of about 15 minutes. Not only was I done with packed clubs (this one was just as super-packed as Friday night's "Crowns") playing music that my body hasn't figured out the equation to yet, but my mind and body were just done--this was like the 14th day in a row where I had to get up early (and Sunday was going to be the 15th). So I politely bid Rainer and the crew adieu, and hopped yet another taxi home (the 3rd in one night--those that know me know that this is probably a record...I HATE taxis). I was asleep not long after hitting the couch.

Keeping with tradition, Sunday was gonna be my "cultural" day in Munich. And what better way than to visit...

3. BMW-Welt: (www.bmw-welt.de)

Museum just beside the BMW-factory and the Olympic Parc with
an interesting architecture.

Now, before I get to the picture reel, it is worth noting that BMW-Welt is just one part of the BMW headquarters/plant:

http://www.bmw-welt.com/web/portal/en/index_highend.html?content=http://www.bmw-welt.com/web/portal/en/home.html

Unfortunately,

• The BMW Museum is currently under renovations and won't be finished until Spring 2008. They had a temporary museum set up, but 1) it was a tent; 2) it supposedly didn't show half of the stuff the finished museum will show; and 3) they charged to get in. Needless to say, there are no pics of the museum.
• The BMW Munich Plant is only open to the public Monday through Friday, and you need to make a reservation far in advance (as it is quite the tour--I hear is ABSOLUTELY amazing). Needless to say, there are no pictures of this as well.

All that leaves is the newly constructed/opened (i.e. 2 weeks old) BMW Welt (pronounced "velt") building. Prepare for the picture reel...


As much as I tried to get the entire building in one shot, with the exception of one other shot (to be seen at the end of this blog), this was about the best I could do. On a good note, you can see the Olympic Tower in the background. On a bad note, the weather was dreary like this all Sunday (not to mention the weekend), so all of the pics outside have a bit of a "bleak" aesthetic to them. Sorry.


One flag for each of the models they produce (if you look closely, yes there is a 1 series...and as far as I know its only produced for/in Europe...and yes it is small).


Pic of the BMW Headquarters office building (left) and the BMW Museum to be completed Spring 2008). Please note that when you look at the BMW Museum from a birds-eye view, the roof of the building looks like the BMW emblem.


Before you get into the main portion of the building, you notice one of the most striking aspects of the building's architecture--the "connected-at-the-tip" cones that support one corner of the building. However, upon closer examination, you see that this area can not only be entered...


but is also used for functions.




I also saw what would be the first of many cafes where you can purchase all sorts of exotic desserts and sandwiches (I ended up getting a brie on baguette sandwich).

Anyways, onto the interior of the main building...

This area (showing every single BMW model on rotating floors) was not accessible to the public
The upscale restuarant located on the upper floor.

The book store on the upper floor.
The cafe adjacent to the book store.
The two-level gift shop...

...where you can buy rare model BMW's designed by Andy Worhol...

...and David Hockney (remember him from Haus de Photographie?).

Now, coupled with these pictures, if I then showed you this...


...you would think that this was THE place to see not only every single model that BMW produces, but also that rare-breed BMW automobile that would make even the most jaded of car-enthusiasts salivate. Well, you'd be in for a very big let down.

For all of its architectural hype (not to mention location at the BMW Headquarters in Munich), this place didn't really show any "ooooohh/aaaahhhhh" cars...other than this M3,


with a V8 engine...


And this 650...


with the maroon guts that did actually make me go "oooooooohhhh".


In all honesty, it really just seemed to me like a BMW dealership on steroids (and yes, each one of the car displays had a BMW representative present to open the doors/hob-nob with the apparently well-to-do, while simultaneously non-verbally shunning away the non-German speaking layman (I'll let you guess whom the latter is)). However, to their credit, I'd say about a third of the building was dedicated to explaining/demonstrating the superior mechanical and safety aspects of their vehicles (i.e. their braking system, hybrid technologies, etc.). Below is this cool set up where I believe you can construct your own BMW.

They also had a video game type simulation where you drive a BMW on this snowy road (not pictured).

Well, kiddies, that's about it. After this I went back outside and took a couple more photos of the exterior...



...then went back to the condo, got my already-packed belongings and missed my train trying to find postage and a mailbox to send off ya'lls post cards.

Yeah, I had to mention that. :-) No worries though, they run on the hour...I just found a spot at the bar, got a beer and wrote the outline for these excruciatingly long blogs.

Cheers.

Müchen (Part 1)

As much as I'd love to talk about tonite...

I owe ya'll last weekend's adventure.

I'll prolly cover this on another blog, but many European cities sound, are spelled and are pronounced completely different than their American counterparts. I don't know if this is, yet again, attributable to American obstinance, but Müchen (i.e. Munich) is one of them (along with...

• Koln (Cologne)
• Lisboa (Lisbon)
• Wien (Vienna)
• Praha (Prague)

...and the list goes on).

Anyways, shortly before leaving for Hamburg, I had mentioned to some colleagues at work that I was thinking about going to Munich the following weekend. Luckily for me Julia was within an earshot.


[And yes, this is the same girl from the first picture]. As it turns out, her parents own a condo in Munich. All she needed was advanced notice and, provided she could get the key from them in time, I could stay there. Well, luck was on my side, and last weekend it treated me to 2 free nights in Munich (I could go on here how in America its doubtful that coworkers would loan their place to someone from another country that they've only known for less than a month, but I'll save you the America bashing skip to the picture reel...besides, this is prolly gonna be a long blog anyways).

the bedroom (unused)

the bathroom

living room


kitchen (unused)

Before I continue, there's another supporting character that without a doubt deserves mention in this blog. His name is Thomas, and he not only sits next to me in the office, but he also started the exact same day I did...



As it turns out, he is from Munich. So, during the entire week leading up to my Munich trip, he compiled a comprehensive email of all this things I needed to do during the weekend I was to visit (replete with links to each venue's respective website). As you will see, I was able to do all but one of his suggestions...

5. Marienplatz, City Mall at 12:00 !!! (chimes)

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienplatz

It is important to note, however, that I definitely went to Marienplatz (pronounced, "marine platz") on more than one occassion, its just that I was unable to make it there before 12pm.

The plan was to leave work and take the 6:5-something train to Munich, get there about 10:30 or 11, get settled in the condo and head to...

1. Hofbräuhaus:

Drinking beer, Bavarian Live-Music, Waitresses wearing bavarian clothes

(www.hofbraeuhaus.de)

before it closed at midnight.

Unfortunately, I got there at like 12:01 and the security people did not oblige to my American tourist attempts to get in. Fortunately however, the Hofbauhaus is centrally located (not that far from Marienplatz actually) and there were several places to choose from to spend a Friday night, including...

7. "Atomic Cafe" (night club): (http://www.atomic.de/)

on friday, they play indiepop (4 DJs & Guests)
on saturday: Beat, Soul, Garage & Powerpop (div. DJs/Teams changing),
every 6th saturday: Funk

opening: fr & sa 21:59-4h

I must admit, I felt like Josh for a second. See, Josh, having done 2 tours of duty in Iraq, can go into any bar in America, show that he's a soldier, and get the royal treatment. Now, I'm not saying I got the royal treatment...but I will say that a Florida (Tallahassee) license is quite the rare occasion in Munich. Add to that a German bouncer who used to play for a band that once did a show in Tallahassee, and you not only get in with a smile, but you also find out all types of interesting stuff. Like which beer to drink...

(Augustiner Muenchen)

I really didn't spend that long in here cause this was really on some electronica/indie music/crowd stuff. But I did discover the piece of German clothing I was going to get from Munich. For the short time I was there, there was this dude "dancing" on the floor that was dressed in 'typical' Munich garb. The piece-de-resistance...the scarf...


I remember in high school, I used to see dudes that frequented the go-go rocking this exact same scarf, but I never could find it. Now was my chance. I took the beer "TO THE FACE!" (shout to Thomas) and headed out to the next location...wherever that was.

As it turned out, to back up a little bit, I ran into 3 women on the subway over from the condo to the Hofbrauhaus. Although the one that stood out was half North Carolinan, half Greek (she looked west indian), the one I ended up conversing with basically the entire subway ride was from Germany. Unfortunately, all I remember from the conversation (now as well as when I was leaving the Atomic Cafe) was that there were suppposedly a number of clubs (one of which they were going to) along this street called "Maximillianplatz". So that's where I headed.

After getting lost a couple times, I found this building, reminiscent of Hotel Monaco in DC, that had three clubs in it (all of which had separate entrances from the street. After asking a couple people if they played hip-hop inside, I ran into this one dude who seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about what was going on around there. He told me that of the three clubs, the one to check out was called "Baby." However, and this is the first time I ran into this in all of Germany...this club was guest list only. And the lady at the door wasn't having it. American or not, if you weren't on the list, you weren't getting in (I didn't even get a chance to flash my Florida license). I tried to walk around and use my mission impossible skills to sweet talk this security type dude guarding the back door, but my German wasn't good enough (my American came off to him like..."dude, I know what you're trying to do and I ain't finna risk it on some American dude...I heard about ya'll"). So I left.

While walking I thought about a conversation I had with a chick in Berlin at the Cut and Paste thing where she broke down the "stereotypical" attire for men in each of the major German cities...(its on tape, I believe)

• Frankfurt - dudes in suits (cause of the European Central Bank, investment banking crowd)
• Berlin - conservatively stylish (cause of the eastern German influence upon western Germany and vice versa)
• Hamburg - jeans and hoodies (cause of its industrial/shipping location and character)
• Munich - uber chic (while I don't know the exact reason, I would venture to guess cause of its proximity to the countries to the south that border the nearby Alps (i.e. Swizerland, Italy, Austria and France)

So, I thought to myself, it would make sense that this was the first German city in which I encountered a "guest list only" club.

I was about to give up on finding another club to go to that night, when I randomly ran into this dude with an English accent that told me about "Crowns".

"It's wack!" he said. "They say they play hip-hop, but their idea of hip-hop is playing hip-hop lyrics over dance [i.e. techno] music." Still I went, and it was exactly how he said it was. Of note, I got my shoes stepped on (it was BEYOND packed) and there was this black dude dressed head to toe like Blade, that about 5 bouncers made a circle for. Then, the DJ stopped the music and played this "Blade-type" music so this dude could do his little corny "Blade" routine on some techno-dance stuff.


I had to leave after that.

The plan for Saturday was to hit up Marienplatz (where all the name brand shops were), then head a little to the east to...

6. Go Shopping:

Tal (downtown, there are some 2nd-Hand-Shops),
Herzogstrasse (in Schwabing, there are a lot of small shops)

Then to the northeast where the following was located...

4. Englischer Garten, Chinese Tower/Beergarden
(if the weather is fine, e.g. on sunday!)

Unfortunately, I didn't heed Thomas's advice (although the weather wasn't that good on Sunday either) and I found out the hard way that the English Garten (i.e. beergardens (i.e. benches outside where people drink beers)) was closed. I could go about how I carried 4 pint beer glasses basically the greater portion of the afternoon and evening, only to have them break as I left the Hofbrauhaus (later on) and the subway on the way back to the crib (even later-er on), or how it got dark at about 5pm and the Chinese Tower in the English Garten was not only closed, but its restaurant was too boosie to give me any service once they sat me (and this isn't some American impatience stuff, I really believe they just wanted to me to leave..and offering no service was the sure fire way to do that). But I'm not. Long Saturday short, this is what happened.

• I got to Marienplatz around 12:30 / 1pm, and got my first taste of gluewein (warmed up red wine with other spices in it (I believe)).
  

The good thing is that they serve it to you in these souvenir "Weihnachten" (Christmas) mugs. Over the course of the day/evening, I bought 4 and, needless to say, was already buzzing by the time I got to...

• The Hofbrauhaus (from which the preview video was shot).
  

Basically, this is a traditional Bavarian (the German state in which Munich is located) beerhaus where the male servers wear leiderhosen (the get up Snoop wore for the MTV European Music Awards) and the female servers wear durdels (the get up the girl wears on the label for St. Pauli Girl beer--which is funny cause St. Pauli is a district in Hamburg. In other words, that's like saying Maryland crab cakes and having a California beach bunny with two crab cake sandwiches in each hand).

• In between these two, I walked along the Marienplatz (with its name-brand Zara and H&M type shops) and took pictures of the numerous sites...

drank some beer at the Paulaner Beer House (my favorite beer in Germany thus far and from where I bought the 4 pint sized beer glasses that subsequently broke)...


and even met some cool people at the Nike store on my way to the Englisch Garten.


(I gotta give it to dude though, we was really the type of salesman you want to run into. He wasn't pressuring me to buy anything, but he made me want to buy something...but they didn't have my size in any of the shoes). Shortly after leaving the Nike store, I found a small little shop that sold the scarf I was looking for.

Jumping forward, after I left the Hofbrauhaus, I headed back to the condo to take a shower and meet up with this Venezuelan dude Peer put me in contact with.

To be continued in part 2...

Cheers.

Wie übel!

Yeah, I'm making ya'll wait for the Munich blog cause I'm still smarting over the fact only two people actually read my Thanksgiving blog and responded with what they had for dinner :-(

In any event, this is yet another video clip that circulated through the office today.



The literal translation is "how sick!"

Cheerx.

Today's Blog has been Postponed in Remembrance of...

Devoted father, husband and Redskin Pro-Bowl Safety.

Yeah, I didn't know the man, but #21 for the 'Skins was my favorite player on the team.

Moreover, it goes to show the senseless violence that plagues our society (specifically American society) these days.

It truly makes me sad...real talk.

Rest In Peace.

Müchen (preview)

Cheers.

Man, I Took Some Good Pictures Today...

It all started at the Hauptbahnhof ("main train station") as I was coming up from the U-Bahn. I caught my first glimpse of sunlight since sometime in the middle of last week (if not before that)...

Then, as the Monday morning status meeting began, I realized the only thing missing from this picture was my camera. So I politely excused myself, and when I returned...


Towards the end of the meeting, while in deep focus trying my best to pick out as many German words as possible (i.e. head down while staring intently into the face of my watch), a sort of "Magic Eye" thing took place where I saw the "image behind the image". I thought to myself, This would be a raw picture...too bad the camera can't get in that close. Wait...it just might....Can't hurt to try. Lemme turn the sound off first [the camera makes beeping and clicking sounds as you take, select and delete pictures].

Once the sound was off, it took a couple tries but I got it...


The guy to the left is Pascal, the spontaneously cooky guy in the office, and the guy to the right is Peer, the stylish paisan who always wears a scarf around the office. I love how I got the pen, the cup, the clouds and the sunlit silhouettes all in one shot from the reflection in my watch...at a Monday morning meeting much less.

Heading back to the office after lunch, I was treated to this...


The big cylindrical building in the background of all the traditional German apartment buildings is the building that is not only next to our office, but also constructed by the same architect. You can sort of see it from here, but all of the windows are triangular just like ours--only our building is shaped like a trapezoid that juts out towards the water. Aww shucks. I didn't take this picture today, but just so you know what I'm talking about, here...


The day progressed and I found out I was to accompany one of my colleagues on an inspection tomorrow. So towards the end of the day, I headed to her office so we could go over the specifics. I saw her desk, and those of the two adjacent to hers, and it reminded me of the cluttered appraisers' desks back home. But in typical European fashion, there's was done a bit more tastefully...


A couple hours more past, and it was time to call it a night. But not before I caught "Reflections (pt. 2)". See, the funny thing about the office is that regardless of the weather during the day, the view from the office at night is always beautiful. The blue lights of the nearby bridge and surrounding buildings never fail to perfectly frame the Main river with its wavy tranquility and reflected lights. Here you get a glimpse into my world as well.


And like that [*poof*], I disappeared into the night.

Cheers.