jueves, 28 de marzo de 2013

Binnacle. Part IV. Munich.

I head out Munich's central station, with a more or less accurate idea of everything I had to see in the city. I had learnt both the city and tube maps. I had a Bayern-Ticket, basically a travelcard that allowed me to use any medium of transportation, the same travelcard I had used hours earlier to conquer the Bavaria. Time was about 12:15, dry cold but not as cold as in the early morning. The sun had came, weird day on Bavaria. My first stop was obvious, the BMW factory.

I made it to the factory and I took on the tour of BMW's facilities, photos were not allowed. I follow to the exhibition part of the tour. The manufacture of the BMW is supposed to be amazing, but I was just falling asleep everywhere, cars are just not my deal. I was more interested into the exhibition part, where I had the opportunity of driving a BMW (Without going outside the facilities, as I got scared by the fact that in Germany nobody drives below 120 kmh) and where I was finnaly able to take some pictures. I was the only person that was not wearing a suit in the whole plant, I felt like a bump, cliché from the coffe shops at Geneva.

Munich is extremely modern, it has FC Bayern, pays quite decent salaries and it has very good food. Moreover, Bavaria is a region with a bit of its own culture and history, differing from the rest of the Germany, and they are basically better in everything than the rest of the country, just like the Basque Country or Galicia in Spain. Also, its complicated geography and weather made its access somehow complicated over history.

Parting from the BMW plant, I walked around Munich's Olymic Park, which is nearby the cars factory. I skipped the Olympic Stadium tour. Munich certainly built itself to host the Olympic Games, facilities were top-of-the-league. The Olympic Tower offers some breath-taking views of Munich and the Walk of Stars has handprints from Metallica and Rammstein, among others. Amazing.

And then, it was just about time to visit the holy ground, the Allianz Arena, home of FC Bayern and the best football stadium in Europe. Is just amazing, I climbed a fence to see part of the pitch and the interior, and I saw the whole exterior of the stadium. I did not pay for the tour, so I'm still missing the press area and the changin rooms. Total success, no alarms were shooted and I did not get kicked out of the place.

My mind was then clear. Learning German is my new mission. Graduate quickly, move to Munich, become a Bayern's member with my own season ticket, finding a German girlfriend and having two blonde albine sons named Franz and Bastian (After Beckenbauer and Schweinsteiger, naturally) to play for Bayern since a young age. If not, I could still go to Munich to become a concierge, the Galician way.

From the Allianz, I went back to the city centre for a stroll. Cathedral, Town Hall, DeutscheMuseum and the English Gardens, home to the biggest beer garden in Europe and to the biggest Oktoberfest in the world. Bavarian beer cannot be compared with any other beer, fact. I'm definitely coming back to Munich, hopefully for Oktoberfest.

Munich has this thing in common with London, this thing that I still cannot clasify as a vice or a virtue. Everything closes early. At 21:00, the city turns its lights off and everyone is in bed before midnight. I personally think that is more of a virtue. Being out until late and arriving home at the early hours of the morning is a disgusting vice every latin country suffers and that will keep us away from reaching that German/Anglosaxon degree of development.

I was having trouble assimilating that I had visited Neuschwanstein Castle, Allianz Arena, Munich Olympicpark and the BMW Plant; been in a snowstorm, conquered the Bavaria and spent around four hours among trains in the same day. It was just too much.

At night, I went back to the central station, charged my batteries and took a train to the German-Austrian border near the Eagles's Nest (Hitler's palace) from where I was supposed to take a short bus ride to Vienna. I conneceted to WiFi and bought a return flight ticket from Bergamo to Santander, flying to Madrid was about 120€, Santiago was around 100€ while Santander was at the lovely price of 11€. Later I would descifrate how to get from Vienna to the north of Italy to catch the flight. My train departed at 23:00 and I was supposed to arrive at Vienna at 5:00. Adventure continues.

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