BMW World and the Munich Residenz

I've taken two tours this week, one on Tuesday to the BMW headquarters and factory and one on Wednesday to the Munich Residenz.

The tours are a great way to meet other people at the Goethe Institut and in addition to the people in my class, I have met people from Greece, UAE, Columbia, Finland, and Turkey. The tours are also in german...let me repeat IN GERMAN. The Institut is rightly forcing us to learn the language this way.

So on Tuesday, after class I did my homework and met up with two people from my class to go to the BMW Welt tour. It cost only 5 Euro. We got there and our Zivi (basically German RA) didn't know where to go, so we kept going around the facility trying to find out where we meet our tour guide. When we finished our wandering circle around the headquarters I stated to the group, "And that was the tour today! Hope you enjoyed it." Even though only one other person in the group was American, they all understood the joke and laughed. As much as I don't like it, it's pretty cool that everyone knows English. We finally arrived at our location. Now during spring break, we went to the same BMW Welt, but this time I was going on a 2.5 hour tour of the factory. I brought my camera hoping to take beautiful pictures of the graceful and efficient process of BMW making, but no cameras were allowed. Despite the illegality, I snapped a few iphone photos because I felt like I needed some for myself. So 2.5 hours of a BMW factory tour in German was a little much for me. I understood maybe 40% of the tourguide. I think that was mainly because I don't know the German words for all the specific factory pieces.

We started the tour where the metal is punched into forms for the shape of the car. This is the first part of the car process. It was 6:30 pm and the whole factory was still in full processing mode. There are two shifts of workers throughout the day. I forget the first but the one we were on was from 3pm to 12pm. The workers switch jobs on the assembly line every half hour just to get out of the monotony. Here in the form-making plant, they switch less often. The workers were all pretty nice to us, waving when we were looking down on their handiwork from the tour path.

One half of the form-processing plant

The tour then went to place where forms are put together to make the skeleton and eventually body of the car. In this whole warehouse, there were only a few workers. Robots did 97% of the work and it was AWESOME to see their precision. At the helm of each band of robots, there was a human (no Skynet takeovers in Germany). It was neat to see each robot lifting, welding, punching, and passing it to the next robot. At the end of the line, the robots lifted the skeleton (one side of a car) into the air and a crane robot took it. The last part of the industrial part of the factory we saw was the joining of the chassis with engine block to the body. This was cool because every car in the line was a different kind, so they had the chassis assembly line perfectly synced with the body form line.

One of the many robot stations. Each one had 4-6 arm robots

 

 

 

 

Right after a 3 series, an X series gets put together.

 We then took a tour of the six part painting process with robots. Under each painting station, there is a flowing waterfall that takes away the paint that does not stick to the car and falls. A WATERFALL IN A FACTORY. It's like Willie Wonka! The last stop was the seat makers, who stitched the seats with all that luxurious fabric. It was nice seeing mainly people working on something after the robots. After the tour, we stayed only for a few minutes in the main lobby which is straight out of the future.

Most went back to the Gasthaus, but I was off to the Augustiner Bräustuben. 3 of my brothers former co-workers were here at a trade show and he wanted us to meet up. The logistics were crazy because I thought they could only use email. I forgot they are people here on business and have phones that work here and it would have been much easier to just give them my number. We found each other though and sat in the beerhall and had our fill. The Bräustuben is neither the touristy Augustiner Keller nor even touristier Augustiner Restaurant. There were actual Bavarians around, even some at our table. One thing about Bavarians is they are nice enough to tell you what is touristy and what is Bavarian. True Bavarians only drink half-liters at a time, so the beer doesn't get cold. This is contrary to the very popular Bavarian Maß, the giant 1-liter beersteins you see everyone drinking at Oktoberfest, etc. I still ordered a Maß just because. I've also learned people who live in Munich don't call my stop Karlsplatz as it says on all the maps, but the medieval name for it: Stachus. So I ate and drank with the co-workers on their companies dime, which was an awesome treat. Thanks Deann, Tally, and Catrin!

I woke up the next day and thought I would just go home after class. I was peer pressure into going on another cheap tour of the Munich Residenz, which easily translates to Residence in English. Our tour guide again spoke only in German, but it was Herr Doktor Christoph this time, they guy from my first tour of Munich. He works for the Goethe Institut and knows how to say things just right for you to understand. I was probably able to understand everything he said, when I wasn't off gawking at the awesomeness of the palace.

An overview of the palace just in case you don't want to read anymore and just look at pictures. The Residenz is the largest palace in German and was, naturally, the palace of the Bavarian royal family (note Bavarian and not German). It contains about 130 rooms and I rivals many other European palaces on its collection. The Residenz is an exhibit of artistic ages itself - we our started in the Renaissance wing, and we passed through the Rococo, the Baroque, and the 19th century parts. In fact, I don't really want to write anymore about it. I'll just put pictures up. Since I was peer pressured into the tour, I didn't have my Nikon on me. These are, again and apologetically, iPhone photos. I am here for two months and I NEED to photograph this place again. I'll just update this post when that happens. Here are the pics for now:

Maybe 1/10th of the Renaissance-era grotto. This is ALL made out of sea shells.

The antiquarium - a banquet hall with busts of classical heroes and giants.

Latin phrases were on either side of the arches. It was nice to be able to translate some of them for people.

Hundreds of busts and sculptures. Can I just take one? They won't notice...

Do you have a room where all your family have portraits back to the 1300s?

The great House of Wittelsbach family tree.

The Perseus and Medusa fountain, taken inside for Winter. Water spurts out of Medusa's severed neck

King Ludwig, "Do you have a church in your house?" He really didn't say this

Floor inlaid marble.

Another chapel, this time the King's private chapel.

A 1.5 octave private organ in the private chapel of his Majesty

Cuvielles, the architect made everything fit, including couches into mirrors.

Not a Californian King size bed, a Bavarian king size bed. Ha!

Those Rococo people loved their mirrors

China room

 That's enough of that. After the tour, Megan and some new friends, Cristiana form Brazil, Erik from the US, and Paula from Columbia wen to Augustiner Restaurant and got some drinks. Life is good. Sad thing is that I'm thousands of miles away and it's my mom's 60th birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! ALLES GUTE ZUM GEBURSTAG!

Das ist alle. Tchüß!