Europe Day 3: Trains and Planes

Part 1: Trains

This is a map of the Munich subway system, which pretty much describes our morning on Thursday.


We technically had about 4 hours in the morning free for sightseeing, but about 20 of us decided to go see Dachau concentration camp, which should have been about 20 minutes by train, then a bus ride. Should have been simple...obviously, it wasn't. We started out on the right train, but going the wrong direction. We figured out our mistake within a couple minutes, but then we had to wait 15 minutes for the correct train. We finally got to the correct stop and waited for the bus. The bus did come, but the driver informed us that there was too much ice on the road (it was sort of drizzling out, but we hadn't thought anything of it) and therefore he would not be going. We walked back down to the train station, just in time to see our train pull out...had to wait 20 minutes for the next one. After that fiasco, some of the group went back to the hostel, some went to the BMW museum, and a group of us went back to the Old City where we were yesterday, intending to look through some of the shops.
Inexplicably, when we got there, virtually all the shops were closed. Some had notes posted...but obviously, they were all in German.


Found a cute little ice rink...future Olympians for Munich 2018? (Note the Munchen 2018 ad on the side of the rink.)


Eventually, we found a nice little cafe that was open, and had a fantastic (and cheap) lunch.

Part 2: Planes

After lunch, the entire class group went to the Lufthansa Flight Operations Center for a presentation from Sebastian Reidle, the director of marketing expenditures (or something like that). He also solved the mystery of the closed shops...it turns out that in the state of Bavaria, Epiphany is a state holiday...who knew!


Sebastian's presentation was fantastic. He covered a bit of background on Lufthansa, one of the largest airlines in the world. Then he moved into our class's topic, the Munchen 2018 Olympic bid. Lufthansa is one of the top 3 corporate sponsors of the city candidacy, so he discussed the choice by Lufthansa to sponsor the candidacy, potential benefits of hosting the Olympics, and how Lufthansa chooses what to sponsor. Some of the interesting notes to me were that Lufthansa is only sponsoring the bid, not the Olympic Games themselves, so their rights to logos, etc. end when the host city is announced. Also, they only have rights to the official candidate city logo within Germany, so the IOC forbids them from placing the logo on their airplanes, since those obviously travel internationally. Lufthansa will be placing a large gate over the highway outside the airport for 2 months, and placing many advertisements within the airport itself. The bridge pictured here will cost approximately 400,000 euros.


They also provided us with some nice scarves and hats supporting the Munchen 2018 campaign.


Following a class discussion at the hostel, we ended our day at the Hofbrauhaus, the most famous beer hall in Munich, and easily the largest restaurant I've been to in my life.

Europe Day 2 part 2

Wednesday afternoon, we went as a group to the Munich Olympic Park, home of the 1972 Summer Olympics.


At the Olympic park, we had a scheduled tour/presentation from a guide to talk about the lasting legacy and impact of hosting the Olympic games at Munich. A key element of the tour was the fact that our group had now all been up for at least 25 of the last 26 or so hours. The tour started with a couple minute video about the architectural design of the park, which could potentially have been interesting, had not everyone, including both Craig and Brad, our professors, been nodding off...some interesting things that I did take away from the video were that the Olympic park was and still is the world's largest tent roof, and that it was an impressive engineering feat. Pretty sure that was all the video said...

Fortunately, the tour was much more interesting. Not a whole lot to say about it, but here are some pictures:







A sports arena used for basketball and (I think) volleyball in 1972, now mostly used for concerts. Like all the Munich Olympic buildings, this building is 2/3 dug into the ground. If Munich wins the 2018 games, this will be the building for figure skating. If the wood floor is removed, there is already an ice rink underneath, used for shows like "Vampires on Ice" (yes, that's a real event...there are posters up).


The swimming pool where Mark Spitz set his world records. Notice the tent roof.



The pool, and the entire park, had people everywhere swimming, skiing, and generally enjoying the park. Munich is probably the best city in the world at utilization of Olympic facilities after the actual Games.




Not really Olympic related, but this is the biggest foosball table I've seen in my life.






Finally, the outdoor stadium. Used for the Olympic opening ceremonies in 1972, and for professional soccer until 2005. We went down onto the field, which was pretty cool.






Another key part of the day was discussion of 2018. Munich is bidding to become the first city to host both the Summer Games and Winter Games. The bid for the 2018 winter games is officially turned in on January 11th, and the results of the decision will be announced in June or July. So, on our tour, we discussed where the 2018 games would take place. Mostly, they would be in the same facilities as 1972. About 70% of the buildings needed already exist and need only minor additions or remodeling. Very interesting discussion on how Munich is still reusing and repurposing buildings from 39 years ago for 2018.



To end our time at Olympic Park, we went up into the Munich Olympic tower.





Great views of the city.






Also, somewhat inexplicably, there's is a Rock and Roll Musem on the top of the tower...very random.






etc.
Most of us ended the night with a visit to the beer hall right across the street from our hostel, the Augustiner. Great food...and my first litre of beer.


And finally sleep.

Europe Day 2: Munich

After landing in Munich, we went directly to the hostel and dropped off luggage in a luggage room, then left right away to Marienplatz (the old city part of Munich).



The old city is a very historical, touristy area. There are very few cars in the streets, and an interesting mix of modern tourist stores directly across the street from cathedrals.



We explored two cathedrals. Both were very impressive visually, but I have a hard time seeing myself being a member and regularly attending a church of that size. Both were undergoing some sort of restoration work and had tourists inside, yet both are also active churches. If I was here for more than 2 days, it would be interesting to check out a service.






Apparently you can go up in the towers for a fantastic view of the city...unfortunately, we didn't...oh well.


Very nice church, but the pillars would be awkward.






I think the Luther CFL hall really needs a giant hanging crucifix...



Following the cathedrals, we split up to find our own lunch and explore around the old city. We all watched the famous Munich glockenspiel in action, which frankly I did not find all that impressive...nor did most of our group. However, perhaps we were all missing something, since there were tons of tourists watching.



Most of the group had used an ATM for money, so they had euros to spend. I had traveler's checks and a credit card. It turns out that most of the little shops accept only euros in cash...so, after attempting and failing to cash a traveler's check at the Deutshe Bank, ended up eating on my own at McDonalds, which I am not terribly proud of. At least I got something German...a "Nurnburger," which was sausage links on a hard roll for a very reasonable 1.37 euros. I also found it interesting that the McDonalds had self service kiosks - insert a credit card, select your food, and pick it up at the window. Very efficient, especially since there were lines at the cash registers.



After lunch, I gave up and withdrew some money from an ATM, but then almost immediately found a tourist information office, where the nice lady told me to go to a certain cash shop a block away to exchange my traveler's check. Morals of my money adventure: (1) Look for tourist information...they are polite, helpful, and speak English. (2) Find somewhere to turn in traveler's checks as soon as possible...ideally before you need to eat.

Europe Day 1: Travel

For those of you who are not yet aware, I am spending my January term 2011 traveling in Europe as part of a Luther College class on Olympic Management. The class technically started from Newark International Airport, which made me slightly nervous because I had never flown alone before. I am happy to report that the flight to Newark from Milwaukee on Frontier, except for being delayed on the tarmac for slightly more than an hour due to mechanical problems (they could't seem to fuel the plane...apparently fuel is important...who knew!?), otherwise had no issues. I realized after going through security that I had neglected to take out my liquids for separate screening, as I should have been required to do. I also left them in my bag in Newark when I went through security, and again, I had no issues going through airport security with liquids in my carry-on bag, which I found interesting after all the protests and complaints a month or two ago. All the TSA staff were very professional and helpful.

High points of the day were flying over the New Meadowlands NFL stadium (easy to recognize because I could read "Jets" in the end zone), and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time in my life (albeit at a distance from an airplane).

Although the Frontier Airlines representative in Milwaukee told me to check because the time from arrival to my connecting flight was more than 4 hours, I was able to successfully check my luggage through from Milwaukee (on Frontier) to Munich (on Continental). Everyone in the group for the class made it to Munich with their baggage! German customs were a joke...some people in the group were asked questions about passport control (length of visit, etc) but I was just passed through. Then, our entire group just went through the "Nothing to Declare" line, and we were in Germany!

Christmas at Luther 2010

Christmas at Luther 2010 is being broadcast in a shortened form by Minnesota Public Radio online. I am in the Luther Ringers handbell choir. The recording is embedded below, and there's a nice article here. Enjoy!

Programming Contest

I recently competed in the 35th annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, regional contest at Macalester College. My team solved two of the nine problems, placing 96th overall out of the roughly 200 teams in the region. All three of us on the team (myself, Jacob Blain, and Andrew Zutz) all had a lot of fun competing, and we were happy to solve at least one problem. We spent 2.5 hours of the allotted five hours on one problem that we were ultimately unable to solve, but we learned a lot for next year and we're all excited to go back and compete again! Here's the Luther Headlines article on the contest, and the full results for the regional competition.

Inpulse Video

Inpulse, an acapella group from Minneapolis, covers the Beatle's "Come Together" and has a vocal percussion battle at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. This is from a concert last night (October 1, 2010), in Marty's at Luther. Sorry for the giant pillar in the way...I recorded them because (a) they were really good, and (b) I wanted to test the video camera on my new 4th generation iPod Touch.



www.inpmusic.com
www.luther.edu
www.jugglingnebulafilms.com