March 22, 2009: The Largest Technology Museum in the World: ACTUALLY!

I got up at 5am and said goodbye to Brad. He was kind enough to let me stay there after he left and I slept for another 2 hours before getting up and starting the day. My goal for the day was to visit the Deusches Museum in Munich. I went for a breakfast at the same place that I went with Brad the day before and ordered an Obama Bun, a Taj-Mahal Bun and a coffee and took a seat. It was great. A short walk after that brought me to the train station where I caught the train to Munich.

The hour and a half train ride gave me some time to read the book that my mom had sent me in the mail “The Sparrow.” Pretty good so far, and believe it or not it is my fourth book that I have read this semester! The others being “Jurassic Park,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Anyway, I was soon in Munich. I got a map and headed to the museum. I managed not to get lost and was soon in the foyer of the kind of place that, if there was a bar, would be the closest thing that I could fathom to Engineer Heaven.

I got in for 3 Euro, because I am a student, and walked into the first exhibit, of 40! The Marine Navigation Exhibit was massive, not unlike all the others that I explored over the next 4 and a half hour that I was there. My favorite two exhibits were the mining exhibit: they transformed the basement and subbasement into a mine. They covered the walls with fiberglass rock and had all different types of shorings, mining technologies and tales of how terrible it was and still is to work in some mines. To give you an impression of just how large this was it took me 45min of walking at a reasonable museum-pace to cover the whole thing!

My other personal favorite was the Aeronautics exhibit. Three floors of planes on the floor, the walls and hanging from the roof. They had cross sections of various types of jet engine that I sat and ogled for a very long time. I will leave it at that, but if you ever have the chance GO HERE IT IS HEAVEN!

I left and went to Starkbierfest, a celebration of a beer that is brewed only during lent by monks. Dirndl and Lederhosen were ubiquitous, ska music was playing and strong beer was served from ceramic mugs. It was interesting to sit in on. I really would have liked to have some buddies there for this event but I made the most of it. I had a beer and a giant pretzel. Then the trip home.

I got home at 1:00, talked to my mom and got to bed.