Saturday afternoon in Munich

The morning consisted of sleep.  It felt good to get 12 hours of sleep with no deadlines to wake up too.

I knew I wanted to go to the English Gardens, but why take the direct route?  I took the SBahn to Marionplatz and decided to make my way north and see what I'd find.
I first happened upon a fountain and  seating area just northwest of Marionplatz.  It may very well have a name, but I didn't see one.  It had really cool metal artwork in the fountain in the shape of a mushroom patch.  You can't see it, but around the edges is a cascade of rocks, with small outlets for water -- so in effect there are 100 waterfalls surrounding the fountain.  It was really cool and covered with folks reading books, staring at the water, and enjoying the moment.

On the way out I noticed a bunch of people standing around a small eleveated table.  Further investigation revealed a really cool mini-map of downtown Munich -- probably created by some poor artist 150 years ago.

I proceeded north, keeping an eye on the map.  Along the way, just south of the southern most entrance to the English Gardens I happened upon a deserted square, with an epic statue of Maximilian.  I wanted a photo with this great character but no one was around, so I took a seat at the base of the statue.  About 2 minutes later, an older woman was walking by, and I walked up to her and just said "photo?" and motioned with the phone.  She struggled with it for a minute, but then said in clear english, "I don't think it took."  So much for Bavarians not knowing any English.  We quickly resolved this, despite a heavy German accent, and I got these gems.

It looks like on three sides people just live in apartment buildings around this thing.  What an epic view.  Despite tyranny, slavery, and oppression of the poor -- dictators really know how to build sweet monuments.  As a side note ----- see the smaller rectangular stones I'm standing on?  These things are everrrryywhere. Every sidewalk and pedestrian walkway is made of these things.  I have no idea where they come from but whoever makes them must be a billionaire.  Many of the roads are these guys too.  It must be some sort of local stone.  The downfall is that it makes cars about 10x louder for both the passengers and the people living on the road.  It looks nice though.  Oh, they are also incredibly uncomfortable to stand on if you aren't wearing hiking boots.

I continued my journey north and east, to the Englisher Gartens.  The English Gardens is like the Arb in Ann Arbor; except times 100.  And yes, I actually mean 100.  Its also comparable to Central Park in Manhattan, but it's bigger.  I have no idea what the history is, but its really really beautiful and totally free.
All of the pictures from today are available in my gallery here http://picasaweb.google.com/JohnMichael.Fischer/FirstTripToTheEnglischerGartens#

The English Gardens has a south extension that connects the park to the UBahn and lies along a slender corridor on the east side of the Isar.  I found a nice pond (with big fish!! I want to fish!), and got some folks to take another photo :)

Oh... and they have horse cops too.

Finally, I leave with you several panoramas.... I had them computer stitched so they aren't perfect, but hopefully you get a much wider field of view than my crappy cameraphone provides otherwise.  Enjoy :).

The highlight is the panorama of the Bayerischer Landtag, or the Bavarian Parliament.  Beautiful!!! 

If you want any of the originals, which scale to much much higher resolution, just email me.

First Friday in München

With jet lag still going strong and half the office gone, the first week of work was a long one.  When Friday afternoon rolled around, I was incredibly relieved it had arrived.  In order to celebrate the weekend I decided to do some more exploring.  For Friday evening I started by heading to Marionplatz, the city center of Munich.
At this point my sole map was a Fodors travel guide to Munich, in German.  My roommate was kind enough to give me hers until I could purchase an English one.  The good news was that maps are universal.  The bad news was that it was a thick book, and everything other than the maps was useless to me.  I was directed to the largest book store in Munich, the Hugendubel.  It is a 3 story book store similar to a Borders in America.  Hugendubel had lots of travel guides, even some in English -- what they didn't have was a nice and small pocket map.  I ended my search and started north.

After walking for several blocks I stumbled upon the first of many truly european intersections.  See the photos below...

I then headed west and into a beautiful garden enclosed by a large 3 story rectangular building.  It appears to be an old mansion built by royalty, although I can't be sure of its exact origins.  I took a few shots in the garden.

I then began a pilgrimage home as I wanted to walk.  It took about an hour.  The first wonderful sight was a subway station containing no vowels.  I checked the signs on all four corners of the intersection in case I was seeing an abbreviation.  I was in fact not.  Enjoy pronouncing this.

Also on the walk home I stumbled upon the Isarinselfest, a street fair along the main river the Isar.  The street was lined with German carney food, and after spotting a sign for 1/2 meter bratwurst my dinner plans solidified.  Add a little ketchup, mustard, and mustard powder -- yum!

I got home a promptly drank a liter of water and collapsed due to excess bratwurst consumption.

Exhausted and well fed, I hit the sack.  Tomorrow was Saturday.

The First Day of Work

I arrived still tired, but on time -- at 9am sharp.  Thankfully work is about a 5 minute walk from my place, so getting to and from the office was not going to require a leap of faith.  Another man was new to the company and starting this day as well, so we met each other and began our newbie training.  We began with a 2 hour meeting about the company, the products, the philosophy, and a bunch of other things I could barely keep my eyes open for.  Jet lag sucks.
The rest of the day was very slow as installing software and configuring email clients and learning about phone systems.......... blah.
After I got home, I decided to go on another walk.  One of my first goals was to at least familiarize myself with my neighborhood so I didn't need a map every time I took three steps out the front door.  I ended up taking about a 60 minute walk.  Since the city has no semblance of organization or "block" structure, I made to sure to make all right turns or all left turns until I knew where I was again.  Getting creative could've put me in Paris, and with the dim light reading the map was hard.  I was sure I was lost about 6 times, but kept to my plan and sure enough made it back to my street corner.
I had a few long video chats with mom and dad, a nice shower, and embarked to bed exhausted and still very jet lagged.
To make matters worse I was low on money since basically nobody accepts travelers checks (including banks) and I hadn't had time to open a bank account.  The next morning I was set to open one up at the local Deutsche Bank. The difference between having no money while not knowing if your banker will speak english, and having enough money to eat for a month are two different things.
Between the money, the sleep, the new job, and the crushing realization that I knew no German and was living in Germany -- it was a very very long night.
Surely -- tomorrow would bring a new day.

Arrival in Deutschland!

We departed ATL around 4:30pm EST and were headed east-bound and down (up actually).  In my mind I knew I was flying to another continent far away and in a different time-zone, but the reality of living and working there hadn't quite set in.  I was fortunate enough to be sitting in a business class seat and enjoying the good food and free booze while I was trapped in a tube with 400 other people.
We were to arrive around 8am local time.  Sleeping on planes is hard, to anyone who can do it -- you are lucky.  I awoke several times through the night eager to see the sun with the expectation of landing.  When that finally did happen, breakfast was being served and the agitation on the flight was palpable; everyone was eager to arrive.

Upon landing I made it through immigration, and customs is really a breeze (if you have nothing to declare).  You simply walk through the green door labelled "nothing to declare" and you are done.
I found a company man waiting for me with a sign, and after an awkward introduction in what I would come to know as german conversational skills we were headed to the parking lot.
Upon entering the parking structure I was immediately taken aback by all the nice cars.  BMW, Audi, and Porsches everywhere!  I think I saw one ford fiesta and it looked quite out of place.

After a short car trip in a nice and brand new BMW wagon, we arrived at the office.  I did a quick change of shirt and was headed up stairs to meet everyone in person for the first time.  Until now it was only skype video chat's connecting us.  Most of the office was very busy as several folks were preparing to leave, but everyone was very nice and delighted to meet me.  Operating on only 3 hours of real sleep in the last 36 hours and adrenaline I was off to the races.  I was told that I would go to the government office with one of the assistants, in order to secure my work visa.  She was very kind and explained to me how the train system worked, and where we were going -- the "Kreisverwaltungsreferat München".  Upon arrival I realized it was a 4 story secretary of state from hell through which all government permissions must go.  After spending 3 hours going counter to counter and grabbing number after number and waiting in line (and 60€) I had a work visa.  We returned to work by 1pm and when asked if I had enough energy to go to lunch I promptly answered no, and they kindly took me home.  One of the IT guys drove me home, and helped me find my apartment and get my bags up to the 4th floor.  After he left I promptly collapsed and took a 4 hour nap.

Around 18:00, my new roommate arrived home and we introduced ourselves and she proved to be very nice and helpful in answering all of my many questions about the city.
I then realized that my laptop had no charge and I had not yet contacted anyone at home to let them know I made it OK.  She directed me to where I needed to go in the city, and off I went on my first adventure walk into Munich.  Fortunately she equipped me with several maps, otherwise lord knows where I would've ended up.  I found the store and then eagerly found the plug adapter I needed, knowing that I wasn't going to be asking for any help since I spoke zero german.  With a few € in my pocket I went through checkout, oblivious to what the lady behind the counter said, and handed her a bill large enough to cover the cost and expecting a boat load of change.  I made it, and promptly hurried home before dark lest I get lost on the first night.
On the way home I walked passed a Müller, and thought of Fritz, so I took a picture.

It wasn't until today (Sept 6) that I learned and explored Müller your local, we have everything, department store.
I got the laptop power, made a few calls and was quite exhausted.  Sleeping proved to be difficult due to jetlag and anxiety, but I made it.  Tomorrow was the first 'real' day of work with a 9am call-time.

The new blog from Germany

Hello everyone,

  I am a little bit late getting started, but I wanted to chronicle my new time in Germany in both pictures and in words.  Hopefully I can consistently post about new adventures and sights, while keeping the picture count high.  I'm going to try and catch up with the first few days of the experience.