After Prom

We set sail on Tuesday, June 23^rd, for Berlin, Germany. There are four of us from the Engineering group going on to, what is being referred to as, the after prom party. We have multiple destinations, and in true American fashion, we’re going to as many places in as few of days as possible.

We went ICE, high speed, train from Leipzig to Berlin. It was a great time for me to catch up on my blogging since there are plugs on the train. When we arrived in Berlin we bought a one way ticket for the S-Bahn train, which is the local train similar to Chicago’s L. We arrived at the stop, and walked about 5 blocks to our hostel. We ate at a little Italian restaurant across the street, and settled into the hostel bar for a few last German beers. After a few quick Euchre games and good conversation with a man from Dublin, we were ready to call it a night.

We caught the local train to the airport and checked in. Ryanair is notorious for charging massive amounts of money for baggage, and we have clothes form the past six weeks. Some of us packed a little lighter then others. I came in on the low end at 18 kilos in my big backpack, and a 10 kilo bookbag. Frank came in on the high end at 36 kilos.

We arrived safely in Dublin around 11 am. We went to the tourist information desk, got bus passes, and made our way to downtown. But wait.... What's this? Something is tickling my ears.... Everyone is speaking english. You completely underestimate the power of eavesdropping until it's gone. We could now understand what everyone was saying on their phones. Absolutely weird feeling. As a group we're still speaking German in order to be polite, only to realize we're in a mainly english speaking country. We dropped our luggage off at the hostel and made for lunch. After an irish stew and a Guiness we sat in the park and enjoyed the cloudless sky until it was time to check in.

After we checked in we had some computer time in order to tell our parents that we were in fact alive, and to contact a few people that we knew in Dublin. Frank's cousin is studying abroad, and coincidentally, she is only a few blocks from our hostel, which is located next to the Temple Bar, the most pretisgious bar in Dublin.

A quick nap was in order after all of this. Three hours later, we got up checked our emails and headed out to meet frank's cousin and a few of her friends. We met them at the main entrance of Trinity College in Dublin, much to our surprise there were about 8 girls waiting there for us. We grabbed a quick bite at a pub, and we headed for the bars.

I must interject a little tid bit of information at this point. After being in Germany for 6 weeks, eating pork in everything, and drinking amazing German beer, our alcohol tollerance is a wee bit higher then ever in our lives. It takes a little more alcohol then normal for us to became inebriated. Also, Dublin is the most expensive city i have ever been to in my life. It is almost impossible to get a meal for under 10 Euro, or a beer for less then 3,50.......I spent way too much money in Ireland.

The next morning we woke up and Headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Guiness Brewery, and the Jamison Distillery. The guiness brewery was very cool... They walked you through the entire process, then at the end, you are given a pint of guiness and taught how to taste it. The beer we drank was 4 to 10 days old; Absolutely Delicious, although i'm not a fan of the beer in the US and A.

After an afternoon of tourist attractions, we were ready for a nap, but that's just not our style. We set up a meeting time with the Trinity college girls, and got ready to go out. About 20 minutes later, all four of us had showered, musked up, and were ready to rock for the night. We bought some beer with our left arm, met up with the girls, and headed to their place to pregame. After a few games and much conversation we headed to an authentic Irish pub.

We got to the basement of the pub, where it was very dark ordered ourselves a guiness, and enjoyed the live music that was being played by a guitarist and a recorder player. Above is a video with not much to see, but lots to hear.

After a few drinks, and a few great songs, a man came running down the stairs screaming something. He had such a thick accent that it was very difficult to understand him. It almost sounded as if he said Michael Jackson is dead. That's obviously not possible, so we must have misunderstood him. NO! That's definatly what he said, he must have known we were American, and has decided to make it his mission to mess with us. When the band was done playing, he went up to them and told them. They announced it, there were cheers, and they immediatly began to play smooth criminal with the words, "Michael you ok? you ok Michael?" This was then shared with more laughs. When the band finished, we all headed for another bar, it was starting to get late and the four guys in the group had to be up at 4 in order to catch our flight to Edinburgh, Scotland. I had one last 5 Euro beer and started to say my goodbyes, which is difficult to do to a group of 8 girls. Dirk had put down about 8 guiness and was starting to show it, but Frank did not want to leave, and Jay was already home in bed. We got back to the hostel around 1, perfect! Three hours of sleep and a one hour plane ride. Frank rolled in about 3:30 just in time to wake up for the day. Let's just say Frank and Dirk were feeling a little rough the next day.

Appologies

Hello everyone. I would like to apologize for not having any posts up lately. We have been in 3 countries in 7 days, and to say the least, its a little bit hectic. I have written a few entries, but they're not up to standards yet with pictures, etc. As soon as i can i will get those to you. I am having a great time in the UK, and i have many great stories to tell all of you with adventures from Dublin, Loch Ness, London, and more. I promise to do that as soon as i can.

Cheers,

Troy in Loch Ness

Bach N Buchenwald

On Thursday, June 18th, we had a short class day because we are headed to a Bach organ concert tonight. By now, our professors as well as the students are getting sick of class. They’re becoming much more lenient with everything.
The organ concert was very cool. It took place at St. Thomas’ cathedral where Bach used to write and perform his pieces. It was very relaxing and historically, pretty crazy to think about. They were times that I doubted there was only one organ player playing due to the intricacy of the pieces. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
After the Bach concert a few of us met up with Anne at the campus festival. There were lives bands, great food, and cold beer. The first band was a ska band and sounded similar to Sublime. The second was a light rock band and sounded eerily similar to Coldplay. Anne gave us a tour of the University’s facilities between the next set. When we returned there was no gear on stage. There was only a black barrier in the middle of the stage with the word PuppetMastaz on it. At this point we weren’t really sure what to expect. What we saw next cannot be described by words. All I can say is watch this video. INSERT VIDEO HERE>. It was about 23:00 when we arrived back home. Another exhausting day was in the books.
I don’t know how many times this happened, but it was often. In Germany you wake up thinking you overslept because of how light it is outside. When you roll over and look at your clock and its only 5:00 it hurts. But then you realize that you have 4 more hours to sleep. You put the mask, that you stole from the airplane, on and you go back to sleep.
Friday morning, it was off to Weimar; a quant little city with a great amount of historical significance. Weimar is the city located near Buchenwald, Germany’s biggest concentration camp in WWII. It was also the central point of command for the SS. We arrived, got on the bus, and ate lunch at there. We started the tour by watching a 30 minute movie about the camp to give us some background information.
Buchenwald was not a traditional concentration camp; it was a labor camp run by the SS from 1935 to 1941. It was built by political prisoners from stone quarried from a gravel pit nearby. It was originally built to house eight to ten thousand prisoners, but by the end of the war it had over 55,000 men; not including those 35,000 who died. It was a very different tour then we were used. It left me feeling deeply depressed; a feeling that I’ve never really felt before. It was very strange. It was unreal to think about how many people died in the very spot that I was standing. We saw the ovens that cremated the bodies, and the hooks that they used to hang people by; deeply disturbing to say the least.
Monday night we had our final dinner with the professors, the students, and our mentors. I had the Schnitzel, which was delicious. I gave my gift to Anne, which she loved. We ended up flipping through the Michigan books because she had many questions about it. I gave her an American $1 bill, because she had never seen one before as well. The dinner was followed by a sad night at Killy Willy pub. A night where drinks were shared and tears were shed; for none of us knew whether or not we'd see each other ever again.

Stay tuned: Tuesday we depart for Berlin. We fly to Dublin, Ireland. Then to Edinbrough, Scotland, and Finally to London, England. Should be very interesting to see the cultural differences. I will do my best to write on here, but i may not be able to until i return home.

Tchus!

Guten Appetit

I am procrastinating from doing my final papers for this trip, so I will blog a little bit. FOOD BLOG #2!

The Menu:

Drinks:

-Bier - I recently attended a Bier Festival in Leipzig. There were over 900 kinds of bier, and I did my best to get through the majority of them. Here are a few pictures of them.












Main Course:
BratWurst in a curry ketchup with a side of fried potatoes















Raw ground beef and onions topped with a raw egg. To be served on bread with butter and pickles. Raw ground beef is considered a delicacy in Germany. YUMMM.












Schnitzel with a side of potatoes and mixed vegetables smothered in a brown gravy. A lemon is squeezed on the top for enhanced flavor. AMAZING!

Final Day at BMW

On June 14th we had our last day at BMW. Stephen, Rueben, Frank, and Nikole worked so hard to make sure we get the most out of our time in the previous three days, so on the 4th day the theme was "experiencing the product". We weren't really sure what this was going to entail when we arrived, but we were all very excited.

When we arrived there were 5 cars lined up outside the conference room where we meet. We're going to get to ride in brand new BMWs in Leipzig, this is exciting. We began the lecture with their total quality systems, QC systems. After lunch we arrived back in the conference room where we found 5 more BMW employees. These men were going to accompany us on our adventures for the afternoon. For the entire afternoon we had five choices:

1. See BMW quality processes
2. Check a defective car
   
3. Take a ride in a 1 series on the test track
4. Drive a Vehicle on the Autobahn
   
5. Drive a Vehicle on country roads

I began with the test track. They took the car up to 165 KM/H, took it into banked turns, over rough roads, slick roads, and inclines/declines. We then went into a pit to look at the underbody. After the road test, i went right for a vehicle to go on the autobahn. We got a 2009 X5 Deisel. The vehicle had an incredible amount of torque. Due to traffic conditions and wind resistance, however, i was only able to get the vehicle to about 200 km/h or 120 MPH. I haven't felt a rush like that since I drove my GTO. Even though i never went over the speed limit Mom. After the autobahn, i headed right for the country drive. I got in a 1 series convertable Deisel W/ an electronic step-tronic transmission. The country roads in Germany are very curvy, uneven, and very fun to drive on. I think Frank, my "shapron", had a good handle on the windshield while i was driving. I kept the RPM's high in order to avoid turbo lag; I drove that little BMW for everything it was worth. :)

By the time we finished all three drives, it was time for Dr. Heitmann's lecture on Modern American Car Culture to BMW. What a day a BMW.

German Born, American by Adoption

Apologies for the delay once again, but we have been unbelievably busy in the past couple of weeks. Let's start with a brief history lesson.

Contrary to popular belief, and unbeknown to our current jackass of a President, the automobile was not invented in America. The idea that Henry Ford invented the automobile is just introduced to us at a young age, so we, as Americans, know no differently. Henry Ford was an ingenius, motivated, and, at times, heartless man, that developed mass production methods for the world. He was thought as an idol to Adolf Hitler, and hated by all of his workers.

This past week we went on many day excursions. We first went to Stuttgart where we visited the Mercedes Benz museum. It was amazing to see all the historical cars, and how their models have developed throughout history. The first automobile is on display here and is an engineering marvel. You can see a picture on this in my facebook albums.

We headed out for a beer in downtown stuttgart where we found a bar called 'Classic Rock'. It was a very cool bar that played mostly American Rock, with delicious beer. We spent the night in a very nice hostel outside of town, where we met a few girls from Munich. We woke up very early to head to Munich for the Porsche and BMW museums. BMW was first on the agenda for the day. Munich is the world headquarter for BMW, and it is quite a visual marvel. They're neighbors with the 1972 olympic stadium, and they're headquarters' building is in the shape of four engine cylinders. Again, it was very interesting to see the evolution of the cars. It was also very interesting to see the significance that racing had on cars in the past. Most of the technological advances that were made on Automobiles were done by race teams, and later on were developed for consumer cars.

After a quick 3 hour tour of the BMW museum, it was time to go to Porsche. Dr. Heitmann had a contact at the Porsche Musuem, so we were lucky enough to have a guided tour of the entire facility by the director of the museum. This building is also an architectural marvel. The Germans seem to put the cost of the building on the back burner, and care more about the statement that the building makes. We were allowed into the museum's workshop to see many cars that were not allowed on display. We were also allowed into the archives, where Dr. Heitmann was given a copy of his Porsche's birth certificate. On our way out, we were given books by our guide. While walking out, Dr. Heitmann stopped to talk to a gentleman that was sitting in an office. Thinking nothing of it, we continued to walk. When he returned downstairs, i noticed that he had this man sign the inside of his book. Curiously, i asked him who the man was. He replied, "that was one of the lead engineers that designed the 911". For those of you that may not know, the Porsche 911 is the most prestigious models, and most definatly the only reason that Porsche continued to exist in post war Europe.

Thouroughly exhausted from over 9 hours in museums in the past two days, we headed back to our hostel for dinner. After dinner there was nothing on our minds but sleep; but that's not allowed. We call our professors, tell them to meet us at the Hofbrauhaus and we got on a tram into downtown. Professor Blust was leaving us the next day to head home for family events, so we needed to celebrate. PROST! After many liters of the most amazing beer i've ever tasted, we hear a ruckus coming from a few table down. Is that? Could it be? It is!! The American National Anthem was being sung, nay, screamed by at least 20 people down the balcony from us. We immediatly stand, remove our hats, and raise our glasses. Classic. We met a very weird man from Maryland, said good night to our professors, and headed home for the night. In Prague, our British friends taught us a new term. Tactical Chundar - Throwing up to make room, and thus drinking more. So after a tactical chundar from an unamed man, George, we were safe in bed.

The next morning we headed to the German Technology Museum, which can be compared to our Smithsonian. We all felt a little rough from the night before, including the professors. After seeing more historical vehicles and taking our tally up to 12 hours in museums, we were ready to head home.

The weekend in Leipzig was pretty mellow to say the least. We were all worn out.

Early the next week we drove to Dresden, Germany to see the "transparent" VW factory. It is called that because it has an unblievably large amount of glass. This can be seen by following link.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/high_performance/vw_audi_central/vw_s_transparent_factory_feature/(page)/1

The VW Phaeton is produced here, almost entirely by hand. This is a very unusual way to produce cars, but with a sticker price of over 100,000 Euros, it's easy to see the luxurious side of a VW.

On Wednesday June 10th, we headed to Brandenburg, Germany. In this city holds the tool and die factory for BMW, as well as uncertain future of the Opel Company. Previously owned by the 'manufacturer formerly known as General Motors' (copyright T.S.O. 2009), Opel produces vauxals and opel in this plant. It was eerily similar to an American plant. Two motors screaming around beeping their horns, inventory sitting everywhere, and the same line setup. I felt like i was right at home.



After Opel we headed to Wartburg castle, where a semi-famous man by the name of Martin Luther translated bibles while being voluntarily imprisoned. It is a beautifully restored castle with violent stories and legends galore.








On Friday June 12 we were headed for Wartburg, Germany. Where the first Audi plant was, and now is a transportation museum. They had a large amount of Horch cars, as well as the communist produced Trabant; which sported an earth shattering 85 hp two cycle motor. They new German government lifted emission requirements on this vehicle to support its' past. They also had 4 of the most expensive cars in the world, my favorite being the Bugatti Veyron, which held the world record for the world's fastest car for quite sometime.

Friday night saw a night of Karaoke with two of our professors as well as our German student mentors. A great night to say the least.

Saturday was a night of teaching our German mentors and their friends great American drinking games. Followed by a night of dancing to German techno music on the stage at a club. Priceless to say the least.

What's Cookin' Doc?

The long awaited FOOD blog! I hope it's what your looking for. I will continue to gather data and may report on this topic again later on.

I've been in Leipzig for a few weeks now, and I've experienced a variety of foods. I've been to two countries and to many places throughout Germany, and I must say, I am impressed with the food here. Even cafeteria food is better then a mediocre meal in the states. I've eaten in cafeterias, street vendors, cafes, pubs, in my apartment, and in bakeries.
The language barrier is rather difficult to overcome when ordering food. Usually you can pick out what type of meat is in the dish, which is usually Pork. What you get with the meat is usually a different story. There are so many varieties on the potato or dumplings and vegtables that it's difficult to determine what you will get. This can be fun at times and at others, when your extremely hungry, it can be frustrating.

Here's whats on the Menu!

Menu:

Breakfast usually consists of Cold Cuts on fresh rolls. And by fresh i mean they came out of the oven no more then 3 hours prior. These rolls can also be eaten with Nuttella, a sweet hazelnut chocolate spread, or fresh jams. Cereal is also common here, however it is a secondary item. It is usually unsweetened and you can almost taste the fiber in it. The milk can be very good at times and very strange at other times. They have milk that doesn't need to be refrigerated until it's been opened. This milk reminds me of a slightly expired watered down skim milk. They have this milk because their fresh milk spoils in a few days.

Typical Breakfast:



Lunch is usually the hot meal of the day here in Germany. Donor Kebabs are a delicious fast and cost effective lunch solution. I've been told it's very similar to the Gyro, though I've never had one. It consists of shaved meat, usually beef, put inside a panini type of bread, filled with onions, lettuce, cabbage, and tomatoes, then smothered in a herb ranch dressing and a brown sauce that i would call a spicy curry sauce.

At restaurants, you can order most Italian dishes such as spaghetti, lasagna, or pizza. In my recent trip to Bavaria, Southern Germany, I ordered a traditional Oktoberfest meal, the Half leg of Pork. Obviously, it's a half leg of pork in a beer sauce reduction with two potato dumplings. These dumplings were very unusual however. They had the texture of wet cornmeal and they tasted like something I've never had before. Thank god there was enough meat on the bone to fill me up.

I've also ordered traditional foods for lunch. Bratwurst and potatoes are a very common dish. The potatoes seem to be fried with bacon pieces and grease. They are very delicious.


Here in Leipzig, dinner usually consists of more cold cuts, a few chips, and a joghurt. I make my sandwich on fresh rolls from the bakery down the street with salami and swiss cheese, and of course spicy brown mustard. The chips here can be very unusual at times. Paprika flavored chips are very common. They taste like a combination between barbecue and ketchup flavors. I have also had Balsamic vinegar flavored. (delicious). As well as Chili flavored tortilla chips, which are like a fresh bag of doritos.

Dessert is usually some form of homemade ice cream with an extravagant number of flavors. Below is a picture of a typical ice cream shop.


The Germans pride themselves on freshness. Everything must be fresh for the day in the morning. They don't put preservatives in anything! When you order lunch meats, you maybe order enough for dinner and breakfast. They also seem to grocery shop everyday, at least in the city. Grocery bags are .42 per bag, therefore you are encouraged to bring your own bags, and you must carry home everything that you buy. I feel your pain chelle.

Drinks are very expensive, and there are no free refills of ANYTHING! Tap water is not served, and ice is not put in any drinks. And yes, it is true, Beer IS cheaper than water.

If you have any questions about any of this, comment at the bottom, and I will do my best to answer.

Guten Appetite!

This is the dawning of the rest of our lives... On Holiday!

Guten Abent avid readers. I apologize for the delay in posts, but I have been very busy. I also have multiple posts in the works for all of you to enjoy!

Today, Monday, June 1st marks a German Holiday to be celebrated by all. It is the first official day of summer vacation for K-13 students in Germany. Many German families take off onto the crowded autobahns and head south for a weekend of warm weather and relaxation. As a group of abroad students, we got Friday AND Monday off… Woo Hoo. The big debate was where to go. There were talks of Switzerland, Amsterdam, and Prague. We met a man from Chicago on our pub crawl in Berlin last weekend that gave us a great piece of advice. By the way, his name was Gary and he sold massive amounts of produce to the USA from Europe. He told us that Amsterdam is fun, but you can do that in a day. The place to go is Prague. We scheduled the hostel, booked the train, and as of Tuesday, we were set to go to Prague Friday Morning. But wait, are we going to waste a perfectly good Thursday night with no class on Friday? Absolutely not!! We arrived at the T.V. Club at 9 pm and got our dance on until the sun came up…Litterally. Due to our longitudinal position it gets dark around 10 and light around 4 am.
WAKE UP! The 7 am alarm wrecks the beauty of the REM cycle. It’s time to go to Prague. After a coincidental run in with our professor, who sensed our late night shenanigans we were off to Prague, and he was off to Berlin for a CNN interview.
We arrived, checked in and immediately took a quick 3 hour power nap. After which we headed to the bar located in the basement of the Hostel. We met some cool people, a few Canadians, a Chicagoin, and a couple Brits. We sifted through the pile of brochures that we had and picked a few cool looking things to do, as well as ruling out weird things such as the sex toy museum.
THE PLAN: 10:30 am a FREE walking tour of the city by a very nice girl from New York. While we were waiting to depart, a woman leading a different tour group stopped me and asked me where we were from, I replied with Dayton, OH. She recognized the logo on my hat, which a lot of you know, I never leave home without. She went to Wright State U, a school in downtown Dayton and grew up in the “Oakwood” bubble as she called it. She had graduated and left the US to live life a little. It is such a small world. Then we saw a huge crowd of photographers and journalists. This must be important, so we just watched as two men surrounded by people walked around us. A man standing next to me yelled at these men who turned immediately turned and came over to talk to him. They asked him where he was from and blah blah blah, I’m a politician, blah blah, all of this was going on while security pushed me back away from these two men, whom I have absolutely no idea who they are!! As soon as they’re out of sight a british girl standing next to me was freaking out. I asked her who they were, and she replied the conservative party leader of Great Britain, David Cameron. I chuckled and thought “Whoop di do bazzle!” –Austin Powers reference.

We met a few more brits, Paul and Tasha, and a few more Canadians on our tour. We learned a lot of the folklore and history of the buildings, which I thought was very cool. If you look at my pictures on facebook, I will try and explain them as best I can. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, my camera seems to be on its last leg. After taking hundreds of pictures of very cool buildings and sights in the very crappy weather, we were ready for another nap… But there’s no time! We are headed to the pub crawl that tours the great bars of the city. Spencer, the bar tender from the hostel’s bar, told us to find a man named Issac, he has the best pub crawl in town. We grabbed the brochure and headed for nothing but a spot on the map and a name.
As we were leaving the tram we heard someone yelling, OHIO!? Startled by this, we all turn around. It was Paul and Tasha, the people from London that we met on the walking tour. They were going to the pub crawl as well! Perfect! As we walking in a group of 17 people, we were heckled by a man in shadows.
“That pub crawl sucks, you’re wasting your money” he said.
“Where is the good one then?” someone replied.
“With me.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Issac, I lead the good pub crawl through town” he replied.
Our stars have aligned and we have been united with Issac. We tell him Spence sent us, we get a reduced rate and off we go. We went to what I would view as the 3 sketchiest bars in Prague and then to a techno dance club. I met a kid named Mike that attends Michigan State as well as a few Aussies, and Cubans. The dance club at the end of the crawl was straight out of a movie. The DJ had the headset with the LED lights, the strobes were going, the fog was rolling, it was fantastic; let’s dance. Once again, the stars have disappeared and the sun is rising. Oh what a night.
(I will post a video that I took at the Club at the bottom of this page. )
Sunday was filled with more sightseeing and mediocre food, but I will explain that in a later blog about food. Part of the group met a very nice girl named Sarah who had an internship in Vienna and was in Prague for the weekend alone. She hung out with us for the rest of the night! Sunday night, we are off to the haunted city tour. Sounds like a trap to me, but what else do I have to do on a Sunday night in Prague? We walk up to the tour guide, tell him we’re from A&O hostel get a reduced rate and off we go. But wait, who’s that? Is that our friend Tasha and Paul from the night before? It is! So they tag along for the scary tour as well. This was probably the biggest tourist trap I’ve ever been a part of. It was quite entertaining, but I was ready for a beer at the end of it. Along the way we saw bars that had live musicians playing guitar and singing American rock songs. This was killing me not to play, it’s been over 3 weeks since I’ve played my beloved telecaster and this was rubbing it in my face.
The tour ended and we headed to a small Irish pub called the Dubliner with our new British friends and Sarah. The little hand reached the 1 and some of the crew was ready to call it a night. On our way to the tram we were approached by a man promoting his club. Half of the group decided to put the turkey to bed, the other half decided to go check out his club. Once again the sun was seen peeking up over the horizon by the time we got to bed.
Monday consisted of killing some time before our train and then a 4 hour train ride home to Leipzig. As we were entering the train station, who do you think we run into? Paul and Tasha! After a quick exchange of the nights events after we parts ways, we said our goodbyes thinking the city is a very small place indeed. We arrived in Leipzig on time, and I’ve never been so happy to see the 7 story communist architecture building I call home.
The exchange rate in Prague is pretty good. They use currency called Crowns, it is about 20 crowns to 1 dollar, which is startling when you order a big mac and you see the number 60 for your total. If you’re looking for a cultural adventure, I would not recommend Prague. It is very tourist oriented and you have to work very hard to experience the local culture, which is far from glamorous to say the least. The city, however, is very beautiful due to the fact that it is one of the few cities that wasn’t devastated by WWII.

"Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall"

Guten Tag von Leipzig. Some of you may be waiting for my entry on food, I can promise you that is currently in the works! As we were sitting around on Friday, a couple of us decided that we'd rather not stand around and do nothing this weekend. So, we went to Berlin! We had no idea where we were going to stay or how we were going to get there, but we were going! We woke up early saturday morning and headed to the train station. We found a ticket there for 30,00. it was good until 3 am the sunday morning anywhere in Germany, on any train, with the exception of the ICE high speed rails, and it was for 5 people. The title of the ticket translates to "Happy Weekend" Pass. There were 8 of us in for the trip. If any of you avid readers have seen the movie Euro Trip, our trip was a bit like that. If you haven't, check it out, it's pretty funny. Anyways, it was a 2.5 hr train ride. We met a girl named Maja on the train, and she told us to go to Alexanderplatz and start searching for stuff. We decided to take a bus tour to see all of the sites in the city and maybe a hostel as well. We had the addresses of a few, but if any of you have ever traveled abroad, you know its very hard to find addresses. I got tons of pictures of a city with arguably the most history on the face of the earth. I will post these in an album on facebook as soon as I can. I will also share a few on here. Before the reunification West Germany used to broadcast TV and Radio so East Germany could receive it. Below is a picture where we began our trip!

So we left Maja at Alexanderplatz and decided to walk around and see what we could find. If anyone has been to Berlin, it doesn’t really work like that. It is a very very large city, with many tram lines as well as bus lines, but we’re doin it live, so let’s go! We had two goals, we want to take a tour of the city, and we HAVE to find a hostel. On we go into Berlin. We immediately find a bus tour with the open top. PERFECT! Let’s go! So we get into the bus, we see all of the major sites of the city minus the Olympic stadium. We can hop on and off as we please because the bus comes every 20 minutes. If you’d like to see my pictures of Berlin, you must look at my facebook album, because there are too many to post on here.

Brandeburg Gate^^

Checkpoint Charlie Now it’s around 3 pm, and we don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight. Now it’s time to find a hostel. We immediately ask where all of the pubs are and head in that direction. We find a hotel…Nien…Ask directions to a hostel and walk into the “city center”. As we grow nearer and nearer I begin to notice an ever growing police presence.

Now, as a college student with no place to sleep, and a backpack of clothes, you start to wonder what’s going on….not. We found the hostel at last, they’re full, dammit. We receive directions to the next and on we march. I begin to notice a still growing number of police officers. Now they’re in full riot gear…Hmmmm… this could be bad. As we arrive at the city center, there had to be at LEAST 200 police in full riot gear searching bags, and seemingly waiting for something. OK, seriously? What is going on? We found the next hostel. Nien, they’re full as well, AH! They speak English! We have them call around. They found us a hostel on the other end of town with an 8 bed room. PERFECT! To the train we go…. Oh wait, why are there so many cops outside? Political protests? Racism? Fascism? NEIN!!! It’s the last day for regular season Futbol DUH!

We arrive at the hostel at 7 pm, Frank is going to put it on his credit card perfect, where is the bar? Ah, perfect it’s in the lobby. J I order a beer and the others follow suit. What’s this says Frantz? It’s a brochure for a pub crawl, picks you up nightly in the lobby at 8 pm. Oh? This could be fun. Nick, what do you think? I think we need to finish this beer so we can get some food before the pub crawl starts! How convenient, there is a Donor place at the end of the stairs. (Donors are similar to Gyros, except they have a spicy Curry sauce).

It’s now 8 pm, we are sitting in the lobby having yet another Beer, Berliner, the local brew. In walks the pub crawl woman. Ya, we want to go. 10,00 Euro 2 free shots at every bar and VIP access (no Lines). PERFECT! Off we go, first objective, figure out how to get home, Check. I won’t go into too much detail, but we met 2 girls from Ontario, one guy from Chicago who buys produce, I gave him my card (thanks mom) and a few brits that thought they could drink. I think we know who won that battle. GO UD. We made it home at 2 am after a run in with the local pay to play girls and a late night Donor.

We checked out at 11 hoping to catch the train, with our “Happy Weekend” passes, to Potsdam, a small town with “cool castles”. We defiantly got on the train to Leipzig thinking that it went through Potsdam when in reality it goes around it; so, no Potsdam but a quick trip to Leipzig. We arrived at 2 pm, ate lunch at the train station, and made it home at last. I tried extremely hard to stay awake as long as I could by watching streaming shows like house and family guy. I think I made it to about 6 pm. I woke up at 12, “washed my hands” (peed) and woke up at 7:15 am to go to BMW. What a weekend.

Spare me the details

For those of you who are not interested in the logistics of the BMW plant in Leipzig, Germany, your going to want to skip this post and move on to the next in which i plan on writing about the food.

BMW DAY 1

I signed a non disclosure agreement with BMW due to the fact that we saw the BMW X1 that has not yet been revealed to the public, so i will skip over that stuff. :P

Now for the good stuff. The BMW motor car company employs 100,000 people worldwide. 2500 of those are located in Leipzig, Germany. 7,000 of the 100g are strictly engineers. They made profits of 330 million Euro last year. That is a 4.3% loss from last year. They anticipate this coming year to do about the same in lost %. They produced 1.3 million cars and 100,000 motorbikes. The Leipzig plant has a capacity of 700-740 cars per day. They are currently running one shift at 400 cars per day. They make the BMW 1 series and 3 series. The production process consists of 240 steps from start to finish with a time of 38 hrs.

Now that i have told you the raw data, i will try my best to describe the plant. A tour of the building can be seen in my previous entry.
Please throw away your idea of a conventional Automobile plant, this plant is anything but conventional. I will also try to include pictures from their website since i was not allowed to take pictures.
Here is a list of things that i noticed were different:

1. NO forklifts whatsoever!! They used automated trolleys that are guided with magnets in the floor along with a building layout. As seen Below.
2. NO line changeovers!! They can produce the 1 series, then a 3 series, then a 1 series, etc. AND!!! they can produce right hand and left hand drive cars the same way. The firewall of the car has both right hand and left hand drive holes and slots. When it comes time to assemble the drive systems, the workers look at the screen, if its a right hand drive they assemble it on the right, and plug the wholes on the left. That was amazing!
3. There is 22 pounds of paint on a BMW. a zinc coating, primer, customer ordered paint, followed by an E-coat clear coat that is baked on.
   
4. A customer's order can be changed up to 11 days before the projected delivery date.
   
5. Automation is used just about everyplace possible. In order to get the correct parts on a vehicle, a transponder is placed on the hood where the BMW logo goes.
   
6. BMW spends 3 Billion Euro per year on Research and Development.
7. The car bodies flow through the office of BMW on an overhead conveyor. It was said that the CEO always wanted to remind the employees what they're working for. This can be seen on my video on the previous blog entry.
8. The welding robots had a griping arm as well as a spot welding on the same robot head. As you can kind of see in the picture below.
9. Exhaust Assembly: The semi is backed into a loading dock that is located within 5 ft of the cell. No inventory!

There are probably more, but i can't think of them at the moment. If i think of them, i will add them. We have two more days at BMW in the Agenda. One of them has the possibility of us driving on their test track.