Munich - Day 1

So today was our travel day to Munich. We loaded up and left around 8 am and stopped at the Audi Manufacturing Plant around lunch time. We had time to eat and go to the museum before our business meeting. I brought my lunch to save money and alot of us just ended up sitting in the lounge area and talking until our tour. I did though find a big duffle bag at the gift shop for pretty cheap so I was excited about that. I thought we were going to have a business meeting with Audi, but it was actually it was just a tour of the whole plant. I really liked the tour because everything was so high tech and we got to see every process of production. Also, since I took that manufacturing class I saw everything that I learned last year in real life and I realized that the class had real meaning haha. The AUdi plant that we were at is the main headquarters of Audi and employees like 30,000 people. It was the coolest and most advanced place I had ever seen. They even have bikes for workers to get to one place to the other because its so big. The tour lasted for about 2 hours and then we got back on the bus to go to Munich.

The bus ride was really short and we had group presenetations for Munich, King Ludwig's Castle, BMW, and a Dachau concentration camp. We also had a short orientation meeting about the city and about changes with our flight schedules. Apparently the second flight from London to Houston was cancelled, but they got it to where everyone on that flight is now on our earlier flight. After the orientation meeting, Jay, Kensie, Amanda, CJ, Caitlin, and I got on the subway and headed into towards the main square. We didnt really know what what we wanted to eat so we just walked around and found this really good place called Opatija. I have Chicken Cordon Blue which was only 10.50 euros and it was so much food and delicious. Everyones food was really good and our service was really good. We all tipped the waitor pretty well and he seemed really surprised, but appreciative. Apparently tip here is normally only 5% so he got a good surprise.

From there, we went to this place called Hofbrauhaus which is like this enormous pub/tourist attraction. It was really cool to see because I had never seen something that big. There was no palce to sit so we had to go to the second floor and there was a cool German band playing. Amanda and I actaully interviewed a man who played the clarinet in the band and he was really nice. He has been playing for 30 years and travels all over the world just for his hobby, but he works for Texas Instruments as his primary profession. He was really interested in our studies and activities in America and I just enjoy talking to locals. Hofbrauhaus has this famous beer which I tried and it was half lemonade and half beer. It was surprisingly not too bad, but still super strong since I dont drink.

After, we left and just came back to the hotel. I am writing my journal now down in the lobby and just got yelled at. A guy came up to me because my feet were on a coffee table and said "People eat on this. " He then asked if I did that at home and when I said yes he said "Well you dont do that here." So I learned my lesson haha and good night!