Scene 18 - 7th July
Its very obvious we're in Germany. Firstly, if you recall, the train from Salzburg left late. It arrives on the dot in Munich. This impresses Gobi.
The primacy effect suggests that the first impression one gets tends to stick. So Munich, and Germany, has a very positive first impression.
Here I should point out that during the whole train ride, I was busy worrying about whether I had successfully booked the Meininger Munich Hostel because I hadn't received a confirmation SMS. Immediately after getting out of the train we find a huge sign directing us to the hostel. It also has the phone number of the hostel there, so we call and check. Turns out that I did book it.
Eugene's primacy effect was simply that the toilets were clean as compared to the toilets in Venice.
Lase, however, would fall in love with Munich only later. When we come back later to discover that there is WiFi. That sold it for him.
All of us unanimously agree that Munich weather is 500 times better than Paris, Rome, or Venice put together. In fact, on the way to the hostel, I actually find that I require my jacket. For the first time since my first day in London.
We leave our luggage at the hostel and make our way up to Dachau to see one of the most famous concentration camps in the world - the Dachau concentration camp. Its probably the saddest way to perhaps start our German adventure.
As Singaporeans, we aren't connected with the war in Europe. To us, Japan was the aggressor; Germany, well, was the bad guy in a distant land. Yes, in school we learn what happened in Europe, but its never emphasised on the human aspect of the war. We learnt the mechanism that triggered the war, but there was no emphasis on the human aspect of the European war. The plight of the Jews is just a story.
Today, as we visit the Dachau concentration camp, it becomes something more. Perhaps this is what travelling is all about after all.
Munich has played a very significant role in History, both dark and light Histories. Munich is where Hitler rose to power. And Dachau is where he built his second (by a day) concentration camp. Apparently there is a difference between "Concentration Camp" and the camp where the Jews were sent to. Those were "Extermination Camps".
Its when you learn about Hitler and his obsession with purifying the world, you realise the danger of acting on or even having stereotypes about a certain class of people. Human beings are prone to generalise. Even we, in Rome, would tend to be more aware of certain people and less aware of others. And then I flash to a scene in the movie Crash which was so moving when I watched it a couple of years back that I still remember it vividly. It was (to me) about how each of us has some sort of embedded racism even if we don't show it.
Perhaps it was this embedded racism in the people that madmen like Hitler managed to exploit. And then when we realise that its everywhere, you just wonder if this madness could happen once more...
Anyway, on to lighter things!
Apart from being the Capital of Hitler's 3rd Reich, Munich is also apparently the global capital for Bier! In fact, it is also where Oktoberfest was born.
So, after returning back to the Meininger Hostel Munich (which I would recommend to any traveller), and checking in, we rest for awhile, before going out to one of Munich's famed Biergartens (Beer Gardens, literally) for some home-brewed Bier.
If you don't realise this when you're reading this some time into the near future when this post is actually published, I shall remind you what today is. Today is WORLD CUP SEMIFINAL DAY! While that wouldn't be significant in England, France or Italy because their respective useless and severely overrated teams have been kicked out of the tournament very early on, this day is significant in Deutschland, where the German team are playing against the Spanish.
For one, I'm very impressed with the German team, and I think they're one of the best teams of this tournament. Their opponents, Spain, are pre-tournament favourites, and, despite losing their first match, are looking to fit that bill.
The atmosphere is crazy. I no longer think that English football fans are exclusively crazy. The outer garden in open air is packed to bursting point with Germans with their faces painted, wearing cloaks that are in fact the German flag, guzzling their home-made German Bier and generally being very very noisy.
There is no space outside, so we sit down inside; yet more crazy German fans with their faces painted, wearing clothes that are in fact the German flag, guzzling their home-made German Bier and generally being very very noisy.
We sit in our seats eating traditional German food and drinking tradition German drink (Bier, duh) and watch the match. One thing about German Bier. At least in Bavaria.
They come in 1-Litre glasses.
I'm not a drinker, but I'm convinced, now, that that's the only way Bier SHOULD come.
A hundred thousand cheers and sighs later, the German team lies defeated. Spain was cheering their first semi-final appearance. Now they're cheering their first final appearance. And I'm secretly happy. Because the team that I'm supporting, Holland, probably has a better chance to beat Spain than they have of beating Germany.
Spain played their usual passing football, and the ultimate joke is perhaps, they beat the Germans via a header from a set piece. That's probably the way that you'd expect Germany to score.
Anyway, after the match, crazy Spanish fans finally decide to show their faces and drive around the streets of Munich with their Spanish flags soaring high and their horns blaring.
Crazy Spanish fans.
Wonder if Singaporean fans would dare/bother to drive around like that in Malaysia if we ever beat them in a match.
One of the effects of drinking 1L of Bier is that it makes you quite tired. So while I am walking around Munich at night with Gobi and Eugene, I'm practically a zombie.
Ah sweet home. Goodnight.
Scene 19 - 8th July
Yesterday, there was a debate on where to go today. Gobi and Eugene wanted to go for a trip to the BMW Museum and plant, Lase only wanted to go if there was a plant tour involved, and I just wanted to go for the Sandeman's Tours around Munich.
I've heard a lot about Sandeman's Tours, where the guides actually bring you around on walking tours and tell stories about the various places in the city involved - in this case, Munich.
We couldn't confirm a tour at the BMW Plant, so Lase and I go for the Sandeman's Tour while Gobi and Eugene go for the BMW Museum.
A little later, though, Lase gets a call from Eugene saying that they managed to book the tickets for a plant tour. Lase wants to go for the BMW Plant tour, and I don't want to walk the Sandeman's Tour alone so I agree with him to go to the Plant. Personally, cars do not appeal to me as much as they appeal to most people. Sometimes that does beg the question of why the heck am I in engineering.
But on the other hand, I'm travelling with 3 engineers. We are The Big Bang Theory on Eurotrip.
The guide, Marcin, brings us around Munich starting with, what he claims to be the second most overrated tourist attraction, as ranked by tourists, in Europe. The Glockenspiel.
Apart from telling us briefly what the Glockenspiel is supposed to be, a clock chime telling two stories - one of a royal wedding and one of the end of the black plague, he tells us the story of what will happen on the ground floor.
Tourists with their camera's up waiting to take a photo and then tiring when they realise there isnt really a photo to take.
He says don't bother to take pictures of the Glockenspiel because plenty of videos have been uploaded over the years of it onto youtube. So, Youtube!
After the second-most-overrated tourist attractions in the world (by the way, the first is in Prague), we go to abit of the darker side of German history. Back to the usual villain. Hitler.
Hitler first came into public eye way before the onset of World War II - in 1933, during the Munich Beer Hall putsch. This would be the first time in his life that Hitler would try to take over the government. Thankfully, thanks to idiocy on the part of his idiosyncratic right hand man, the putsch failed. Hitler was shot at 11 times; but the bullets all went into his bodyguard who had dived in front of him.
The world might be a very different place had that not happened; and had Hitler died. But we never know, because honestly often the evil in the world is not caused by the evils of one man.
Marcin shows us a gold streak in the ground which was put up as a tribute to the resistance to the Nazi party so long ago. As with most dictators, their path to power is paved with the remains of their political opponents - so Marcin ensures that he points out that German people suffered at the hands of Hitler as well.
After all, everybody suffers during a dictatorship.
The streak was placed in an alley just before a plaque in Munich that the Nazis forced everyone to salute to. Resistance fighters would, as a sign of rebellion, purposely dodge this plaque by ducking into this alley to avoid the salute.
The plaque was a tribute to the 20 Nazis who had died during the beer hall putsch. This is despite the fact that only about 13 of them were in fact Nazis. The rest were either innocent bystanders or policemen who had died fighting the Nazis.
Its gone now, of course; but its clear where that plaque had been.
Later, the German government retributed the policemen in the right way.
Just like yesterday, the story of Munich, although starting off depressingly, will take a light upturn. We walk down this street
till we reach a building which has the portraits of all the previous dukes and kings of Bavaria.
The locals on the street as they walk by usually rub 3 out of the 4 lion's noses in the picture above. Tourists, seeing that, usually tend to rub 4. Rubbing 3 gives you good luck, 4 means you're greedy and hence you get bad luck.
However, the time now is 12.45pm and we have to rush to BMW Welt for the plant tour at 1.30pm.
Upon entering the BMW Welt, I wish that we had more time in Munich. The Sandeman's tour under Marcin was definitely too interesting to be missed. But in how many countries can you actually tour a BMW factory.
Unfortunately, just in case we're corporate spies from Proton or Mercedes, we aren't allowed to take pictures inside. On the other hand, there really isnt much stuff that needs to be photographed.
I realise as I'm going through the plant that I look at the process moreso from a management science perspective than from an Engineering perspective. Now I'm completely confused and yet very grateful that I am doing a second degree in Business, even if I'm not scoring as well in that.
Probably what is coolest about the BMW Plant is a look into what life as an engineer incorporates. Or perhaps its the robots.
Definitely the robots.
They're one thing I wish I could have videotaped. It really does look like a scene out of Terminator 3 or something, except that the robots in BMW-Welt are behaving while their counterparts in Terminator 3 weren't.
The visit to the Science Museum is out, mainly because its late, but also because there are science museums everywhere and we had gone to the ones in London and to CERN.
So we walk down to the English Garden (don't know why its called so). The English Garden in Munich is one of the attractions, and we'll see why in a moment. But first, I should say that in the middle of the English Garden is the Chinese Tower. What these things are doing in Germany I have no idea.
Anyway I'm getting too far ahead.
If you recall this is technically the second English Garden that we're going to; neither of which is in England. The first, of course, was in Geneva - the Jardin Anglais. This, the Anglischer Garten, is in Munich and looks nothing the like.
Munich's English Garden is divided by rivers. Rivers flowing from under the city itself. Munich is more than 500m above sea-level; perhaps this is what caused the amazingly awesome weather. I bring this up because the rivers flowing through the English Garden actually are flowing very fast.
In fact,
If you missed it the first time, YES! there are people SURFING on the river. In the middle of the city. Due to the extremely small size of the channel, only the most skillful surfers are allowed to surf there. And they're really good. There is this one guy who was Supreme Master of Any Wave That Came Through. In fact, possibly he could have stayed there forever if he wanted to.
In any case, what's perhaps even more amazing about the surfers place is that the water just came rushing out of this tunnel.
Apparently all the water running underground of the city comes gushing out of this spot, thus creating these waves.
Number one benefit of surfing in a river: no sharks. Probably a huge plus point over Australia. Apart from the fact the the Ozone layer above Germany is, well, there.
All along the English Gardens are German people basking in the Sun. These poor people don't see the sun as much as we do in Singapore; so we have to excuse them when they just lie down enjoying its brief presence. Some of them have barely any clothes on. Slightly more than half are topless; slightly less than half are guys. Deduce whatever.
We see the sun every day, even when its piercing through thunderstorm clouds, so we're probably the most dressed people in the English Gardens.
Anyway we want to see the Chinese Tower in the English Garden purely for the fact that it is a Chinese Tower in the English Gardens in a German City; but its nothing more than a tower that looks marginally oriental in nature.
Oh yes, there is a Bier Garten at its base, but thats where its excitement ends.
Previous - Act 6 Venice
Its very obvious we're in Germany. Firstly, if you recall, the train from Salzburg left late. It arrives on the dot in Munich. This impresses Gobi.
The primacy effect suggests that the first impression one gets tends to stick. So Munich, and Germany, has a very positive first impression.
Here I should point out that during the whole train ride, I was busy worrying about whether I had successfully booked the Meininger Munich Hostel because I hadn't received a confirmation SMS. Immediately after getting out of the train we find a huge sign directing us to the hostel. It also has the phone number of the hostel there, so we call and check. Turns out that I did book it.
Eugene's primacy effect was simply that the toilets were clean as compared to the toilets in Venice.
Lase, however, would fall in love with Munich only later. When we come back later to discover that there is WiFi. That sold it for him.
All of us unanimously agree that Munich weather is 500 times better than Paris, Rome, or Venice put together. In fact, on the way to the hostel, I actually find that I require my jacket. For the first time since my first day in London.
We leave our luggage at the hostel and make our way up to Dachau to see one of the most famous concentration camps in the world - the Dachau concentration camp. Its probably the saddest way to perhaps start our German adventure.
As Singaporeans, we aren't connected with the war in Europe. To us, Japan was the aggressor; Germany, well, was the bad guy in a distant land. Yes, in school we learn what happened in Europe, but its never emphasised on the human aspect of the war. We learnt the mechanism that triggered the war, but there was no emphasis on the human aspect of the European war. The plight of the Jews is just a story.
Today, as we visit the Dachau concentration camp, it becomes something more. Perhaps this is what travelling is all about after all.
Munich has played a very significant role in History, both dark and light Histories. Munich is where Hitler rose to power. And Dachau is where he built his second (by a day) concentration camp. Apparently there is a difference between "Concentration Camp" and the camp where the Jews were sent to. Those were "Extermination Camps".
Its when you learn about Hitler and his obsession with purifying the world, you realise the danger of acting on or even having stereotypes about a certain class of people. Human beings are prone to generalise. Even we, in Rome, would tend to be more aware of certain people and less aware of others. And then I flash to a scene in the movie Crash which was so moving when I watched it a couple of years back that I still remember it vividly. It was (to me) about how each of us has some sort of embedded racism even if we don't show it.
Perhaps it was this embedded racism in the people that madmen like Hitler managed to exploit. And then when we realise that its everywhere, you just wonder if this madness could happen once more...
*
Anyway, on to lighter things!
Apart from being the Capital of Hitler's 3rd Reich, Munich is also apparently the global capital for Bier! In fact, it is also where Oktoberfest was born.
So, after returning back to the Meininger Hostel Munich (which I would recommend to any traveller), and checking in, we rest for awhile, before going out to one of Munich's famed Biergartens (Beer Gardens, literally) for some home-brewed Bier.
If you don't realise this when you're reading this some time into the near future when this post is actually published, I shall remind you what today is. Today is WORLD CUP SEMIFINAL DAY! While that wouldn't be significant in England, France or Italy because their respective useless and severely overrated teams have been kicked out of the tournament very early on, this day is significant in Deutschland, where the German team are playing against the Spanish.
For one, I'm very impressed with the German team, and I think they're one of the best teams of this tournament. Their opponents, Spain, are pre-tournament favourites, and, despite losing their first match, are looking to fit that bill.
The atmosphere is crazy. I no longer think that English football fans are exclusively crazy. The outer garden in open air is packed to bursting point with Germans with their faces painted, wearing cloaks that are in fact the German flag, guzzling their home-made German Bier and generally being very very noisy.
There is no space outside, so we sit down inside; yet more crazy German fans with their faces painted, wearing clothes that are in fact the German flag, guzzling their home-made German Bier and generally being very very noisy.
We sit in our seats eating traditional German food and drinking tradition German drink (Bier, duh) and watch the match. One thing about German Bier. At least in Bavaria.
They come in 1-Litre glasses.
I'm not a drinker, but I'm convinced, now, that that's the only way Bier SHOULD come.
*
A hundred thousand cheers and sighs later, the German team lies defeated. Spain was cheering their first semi-final appearance. Now they're cheering their first final appearance. And I'm secretly happy. Because the team that I'm supporting, Holland, probably has a better chance to beat Spain than they have of beating Germany.
Spain played their usual passing football, and the ultimate joke is perhaps, they beat the Germans via a header from a set piece. That's probably the way that you'd expect Germany to score.
Anyway, after the match, crazy Spanish fans finally decide to show their faces and drive around the streets of Munich with their Spanish flags soaring high and their horns blaring.
Crazy Spanish fans.
Wonder if Singaporean fans would dare/bother to drive around like that in Malaysia if we ever beat them in a match.
One of the effects of drinking 1L of Bier is that it makes you quite tired. So while I am walking around Munich at night with Gobi and Eugene, I'm practically a zombie.
Ah sweet home. Goodnight.
Scene 19 - 8th July
Yesterday, there was a debate on where to go today. Gobi and Eugene wanted to go for a trip to the BMW Museum and plant, Lase only wanted to go if there was a plant tour involved, and I just wanted to go for the Sandeman's Tours around Munich.
I've heard a lot about Sandeman's Tours, where the guides actually bring you around on walking tours and tell stories about the various places in the city involved - in this case, Munich.
We couldn't confirm a tour at the BMW Plant, so Lase and I go for the Sandeman's Tour while Gobi and Eugene go for the BMW Museum.
A little later, though, Lase gets a call from Eugene saying that they managed to book the tickets for a plant tour. Lase wants to go for the BMW Plant tour, and I don't want to walk the Sandeman's Tour alone so I agree with him to go to the Plant. Personally, cars do not appeal to me as much as they appeal to most people. Sometimes that does beg the question of why the heck am I in engineering.
But on the other hand, I'm travelling with 3 engineers. We are The Big Bang Theory on Eurotrip.
The guide, Marcin, brings us around Munich starting with, what he claims to be the second most overrated tourist attraction, as ranked by tourists, in Europe. The Glockenspiel.
Apart from telling us briefly what the Glockenspiel is supposed to be, a clock chime telling two stories - one of a royal wedding and one of the end of the black plague, he tells us the story of what will happen on the ground floor.
Tourists with their camera's up waiting to take a photo and then tiring when they realise there isnt really a photo to take.
He says don't bother to take pictures of the Glockenspiel because plenty of videos have been uploaded over the years of it onto youtube. So, Youtube!
After the second-most-overrated tourist attractions in the world (by the way, the first is in Prague), we go to abit of the darker side of German history. Back to the usual villain. Hitler.
Hitler first came into public eye way before the onset of World War II - in 1933, during the Munich Beer Hall putsch. This would be the first time in his life that Hitler would try to take over the government. Thankfully, thanks to idiocy on the part of his idiosyncratic right hand man, the putsch failed. Hitler was shot at 11 times; but the bullets all went into his bodyguard who had dived in front of him.
The world might be a very different place had that not happened; and had Hitler died. But we never know, because honestly often the evil in the world is not caused by the evils of one man.
Marcin shows us a gold streak in the ground which was put up as a tribute to the resistance to the Nazi party so long ago. As with most dictators, their path to power is paved with the remains of their political opponents - so Marcin ensures that he points out that German people suffered at the hands of Hitler as well.
After all, everybody suffers during a dictatorship.
The streak was placed in an alley just before a plaque in Munich that the Nazis forced everyone to salute to. Resistance fighters would, as a sign of rebellion, purposely dodge this plaque by ducking into this alley to avoid the salute.
The plaque was a tribute to the 20 Nazis who had died during the beer hall putsch. This is despite the fact that only about 13 of them were in fact Nazis. The rest were either innocent bystanders or policemen who had died fighting the Nazis.
Its gone now, of course; but its clear where that plaque had been.
Later, the German government retributed the policemen in the right way.
*
Just like yesterday, the story of Munich, although starting off depressingly, will take a light upturn. We walk down this street
till we reach a building which has the portraits of all the previous dukes and kings of Bavaria.
The locals on the street as they walk by usually rub 3 out of the 4 lion's noses in the picture above. Tourists, seeing that, usually tend to rub 4. Rubbing 3 gives you good luck, 4 means you're greedy and hence you get bad luck.
However, the time now is 12.45pm and we have to rush to BMW Welt for the plant tour at 1.30pm.
*
Upon entering the BMW Welt, I wish that we had more time in Munich. The Sandeman's tour under Marcin was definitely too interesting to be missed. But in how many countries can you actually tour a BMW factory.
Unfortunately, just in case we're corporate spies from Proton or Mercedes, we aren't allowed to take pictures inside. On the other hand, there really isnt much stuff that needs to be photographed.
I realise as I'm going through the plant that I look at the process moreso from a management science perspective than from an Engineering perspective. Now I'm completely confused and yet very grateful that I am doing a second degree in Business, even if I'm not scoring as well in that.
Probably what is coolest about the BMW Plant is a look into what life as an engineer incorporates. Or perhaps its the robots.
Definitely the robots.
They're one thing I wish I could have videotaped. It really does look like a scene out of Terminator 3 or something, except that the robots in BMW-Welt are behaving while their counterparts in Terminator 3 weren't.
The visit to the Science Museum is out, mainly because its late, but also because there are science museums everywhere and we had gone to the ones in London and to CERN.
So we walk down to the English Garden (don't know why its called so). The English Garden in Munich is one of the attractions, and we'll see why in a moment. But first, I should say that in the middle of the English Garden is the Chinese Tower. What these things are doing in Germany I have no idea.
Anyway I'm getting too far ahead.
If you recall this is technically the second English Garden that we're going to; neither of which is in England. The first, of course, was in Geneva - the Jardin Anglais. This, the Anglischer Garten, is in Munich and looks nothing the like.
Munich's English Garden is divided by rivers. Rivers flowing from under the city itself. Munich is more than 500m above sea-level; perhaps this is what caused the amazingly awesome weather. I bring this up because the rivers flowing through the English Garden actually are flowing very fast.
In fact,
If you missed it the first time, YES! there are people SURFING on the river. In the middle of the city. Due to the extremely small size of the channel, only the most skillful surfers are allowed to surf there. And they're really good. There is this one guy who was Supreme Master of Any Wave That Came Through. In fact, possibly he could have stayed there forever if he wanted to.
In any case, what's perhaps even more amazing about the surfers place is that the water just came rushing out of this tunnel.
Apparently all the water running underground of the city comes gushing out of this spot, thus creating these waves.
Number one benefit of surfing in a river: no sharks. Probably a huge plus point over Australia. Apart from the fact the the Ozone layer above Germany is, well, there.
All along the English Gardens are German people basking in the Sun. These poor people don't see the sun as much as we do in Singapore; so we have to excuse them when they just lie down enjoying its brief presence. Some of them have barely any clothes on. Slightly more than half are topless; slightly less than half are guys. Deduce whatever.
We see the sun every day, even when its piercing through thunderstorm clouds, so we're probably the most dressed people in the English Gardens.
Anyway we want to see the Chinese Tower in the English Garden purely for the fact that it is a Chinese Tower in the English Gardens in a German City; but its nothing more than a tower that looks marginally oriental in nature.
Oh yes, there is a Bier Garten at its base, but thats where its excitement ends.
Previous - Act 6 Venice
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