Mo Business and Mo Observations

Went to English Garden last night- it was beautiful!  I wish we had bikes because we could not see much of it on foot.  No nude sunbathers- it was too cold.  We did see horses, bazillions of bikers, tightrobe walkers, soccer players, and many more interesting people.  We got dinner last night at the park- they have several beer gardens there.  Here are some pretty pictures from the park:

Today we had another company visit.  We traveled to the nearby town of Augsburg to visit manroland, a company that manufacturers printing presses.  We started off the day with a tour of the museum and then enjoyed being treated to lunch in their cafeteria (more sausage).  Then they gave us a seemingly endless tour of their plants.  We had to wear hard hats.  The tour got to be REALLY long- it was almost 3 hours.  About machinery.  Not really my thing.  The whole day, including travel time, was over 8.5 hours….way longer than any other visit!  Other than being long, the trip was okay.  Mark’s dad repairs printing presses so he would have loved it.  They talked a lot about how the recession is affecting them; they are hurting pretty badly.  They are also somewhat aware that they are in a dying industry- with the internet, people are not needing/wanting printed things as much anymore.  However, I got the feeling that they wanted to change that mindset and encourage people to use printed material more often rather than reinventing themselves and figuring out a new or supplemental way to compete.  And I’m personally not so sure that is going to work.  Talking about those things was probably my favorite part of the day; otherwise this was probably my least favorite visit.  

Some more observations about Germany:

They do not serve tap water around here, and there are no water fountains.  Luckily my coworker Michelle warned me about this so I brought over a Nalgene bottle, which has come in very handy.  You can order water, but it is very expensive- about $4 a glass.  Also, it is carbonated unless you specify you want it without.

They do not use ice.  Anywhere.

They are very efficient.  Escalators only run when people step on the platform and/or push a button, and they can go both directions.  The lights in our hotel hallway only come on when someone is walking.   My dad sent me an article that said Germany is one of the most “green” countries in Europe, and I’m definitely noticing that.

There are always church bells going off at random times.

Munich is a very safe city.  We have not really seen any bums.  I have never felt nervous or scared.  The train stations are very well lit and there are always a bunch of people around.

When you get condiments such as ketchup, dressing, etc with your fast food you have to pay extra.  A packet of ketchup is about twice the size as in the US and cost .2 Euro, about .30 USD.

Beer/wine at grocery stores is very cheap.  There is a penny market by our hotel and bottles of wine (not super fancy, but nice ones), are about 1.99 Euro, or about $2.78.

I’m sure there’s more but that’s it for now.  Tomorrow we go to Salzburg, a town in Austria where Mozart was born and Sound of Music was filmed.  I’m not really a Mozart or a Sound of Music fan, but I’m sure we’ll find something to do.  Any suggestions?

One nice thing is that we have been spending way less money than budgeted for.  This will likely change after we are done with the class part and go off on our own- but that has been a nice surprise!

Peace.