Well this post has been delayed just slightly, between some long days at work and Fallout 4 I hadn’t
gotten around to writing anything. Anyway going back to last week, Thanksgiving day to be exact, I
had a visitor here in Germany, my Dad.
 |
| My Dad and I |
After meeting him
after work we went to one of the few restaurants in Stuttgart that I could find
that actually served turkey, a purportedly American style barbecue restaurant
on the norther side of Stuttgart called Tim’s barbecue. They actually had a
Thanksgiving menu and it was actually all really good, it even had some of the
best apple pie that I’ve ever had.
The next day we got up
early and went to the Porsche museum. I’ve visited by myself before, but this
time we also went on the factory tour. Which I didn’t really know about since
you have to reserve a spot ahead of time to get on it. There were absolutely no
pictures allowed in the Porsche factory, they even confiscated everyone’s cell
phones before sending us to the factory floor.
 |
| The original Porsche |
The factory is pretty
amazing, you get to see every step from the bodies coming out of the paint shop
to the finished cars rolling down to the testing department. There’s also only
one assembly line in the whole factory and every single model that Porsche
makes is produced on it, so five cars can go by and each one is completely
different. Of course the downside to this method is that the factory can only
produce 200 cars a day. Though our guide told us about their new factory
outside of town, which makes all their larger cars, that gets up to 600 cars a
day.
After the tour we
headed through the Porsche museum again, which actually had changed a bit since
I had come. The original Porsche had been restored to its original position and
a couple of prototype cars were where the stage had been last time.
After the Porsche
museum we headed down to Schlossplatz to the see the Christmas market, which is
now officially open. Even the train set was open and it turned out to be a
small ride for kids, which I thought was pretty cool. My Dad and I got lunch
from one of the sausage stands and visited one of the beer stalls. We were a
little confused at first when we got charged twice as much for a beer as the
sign stated, but then realized that the extra was a deposit on the glass.
 |
| Stuttgart Christmas Market |
After seeing just some
of what the Christmas market that had to offer, we headed up to the Landen
museum as my father was interested in learning some of the history of the
Swabian region of Germany. Afterwards we headed back Bosch, so that my Dad
could see where I work. Then to Böblingen for dinner at the local Thai
restaurant, which was great, and got ready for traveling the next day.
 |
| Stepping out of my apartment that morning |
 |
| Train pulling into Stuttgart |
 |
| Munich Station |
The next morning I met
my Dad at the Böblingen train station and we headed to the Stuttgart
Hauptbahnhof, the main station, and boarded a train for München Hbf, otherwise
known as Munich. I’ve been in Germany for a bit, but this was my first time
going to another city in the country. After two hours we arrived in Munich and
checked into the hotel.
The main even that
Saturday was seeing the main football team, FC Bayern München, but we had some
time before we had to get to the game. So we decided to see the Residenz
Schloss before heading to the stadium.
-insert picture
 |
| Munich Christmas Market |
 |
| Protest outside of the Residenz |
 |
| Statue outside of the Residenz |
I personally though it
was better than the palace in Ludwigsburg. At the very least it was a lot
bigger, it took my Dad and I way longer to get through than my tour of
Ludwigsburg. Something I noticed on the signs though was that a large percentage
of the palace was destroyed during WW2, but it was rebuilt after the war
according to the original plans. It’s amazing how many details survived, though
there are a few rooms where the ceiling paintings are blank because of this.
After the palace we
head to the nearest U-Bahn station and started heading for the Allianz Stadium,
home of FC Bayern München. The train was pretty packed, but we managed to
squeeze our way on until we arrived at the stadium’s station. Then it was just
a matter of walking to the stadium and getting in. The latter proved to be a
bit more difficult as people didn’t really get in line for security and instead
formed giant mobs around the entry points.
Once we had been
patted down and our tickets checked, my Dad and I were finally allowed into the
stadium. Our seats were in the top section near the middle, giving us a perfect
view of the entire field as well as both teams extreme fan sections. The
stadium was also packed since they were playing Berlin, which is one of the
most anticipated games in the league. I don’t tend to follow football that
closely, but I do enjoy watching it and I had a good time at the game. One thing that amazed me was the endurance of
the FC Bayern fans behind the goal, they were shouting, jumping, and waving
giant flags for the entire game without ever stopping. The score ended up being
2-0 Munich, and it’s always good to see the home team win. While walking out I
saw the stadium change to red then slowly back to its usual white after a while.
Getting back, my Dad
and I were literally squeezed onto the train going to central Munich, just as
soon as the doors opened it was a mad rush to fit as many people in there.
Since the game was in the mid-afternoon and it was still early evening when it
was over, we decided to go see a movie at one of the local theaters in Munich
that plays them in their original languages. We saw “Bridge of Spies”, which I
thought was excellent and part of it even takes place in Germany!
The weather the next day wasn't as cold, but it was lightly raining instead of snowing. After my Dad and I got coffee from the cafe near the hotel, we headed to the 1972 Olympic Park. The stadium still sees use from time to time, but for the most part it just sits there as a tourist attraction. After a bit of confusion on where exactly we could get a tour of the stadium, we managed to get on the on tour of the day.
 |
| Very 70's looking ticket booths |
 |
| The Olympiazentrum tower |
 |
| Since the stadium is only used for concerts now, the field's been paved over |
After the stadium we went up the Olympiazentrum, the observation tower for park. At 180 meters high, it's also home to the world's highest Rock&Roll museum.
 |
| View of the Stadium |
 |
| My man Elton's piano featured in the museum |
 |
| The Olympic Village, today it serves as public housing |
My Dad and I also ventured to the outdoor part of the tower even higher up then the normal observation room. For anyone who dares to attempt this, try to do it on a day that it isn't raining or particularly windy. The lower level of this area was ok, but the level above that we had to lean pretty far just to stay standing. I'm pretty sure the wind was strong enough to blow you off the tower if your coat was big and loose enough to act as a parachute.
 |
| View from outside the tower |
We then decided to go to the BMW museum, which was pretty close to the Olympic park. You can see it and BMW's headquarters in the left side of the photo above. Before getting there though, we stopped by the memorial to the Israel team. According to a sign there's supposed to be an even larger one being built soon.
Once we got to the BMW museum, we found out the difference between BMW World and the Museum was that the former is more of a giant showroom for all of the brands owned by BMW.
 |
| BMW Museum |
 |
| BMW Museum |
Overall I thought it was a good museum, though it was definitely more focused on the concepts behind the BMW brand than the actual cars the company has produced. That made is somewhat confusing to navigate, but they did have a lot of interesting cars and motorcycles that the company has made over the years.
 |
| BMW Motorcycle built for sidecar racing |
 |
| One of the first jet engines made by BMW during the war |
After the museum we had a little time before the train back to Stuttgart, so we had dinner and visited one of the largest churches in Munich, Frauenkirche.
After heading back to Stuttgart, I had to go to work in the morning and my Dad was heading back the next morning so we said our goodbyes.
