I'm going to try to summarize this as concisely and clearly as possible. Despite my rough start here in Munich, I'm starting to get my sea-legs and learn the city and BMW a bit more. It's actually a very friendly city if you are a friendly person. That sounds a bit strange, but I'll start with a synopsis of the past few days and you'll start to see what I mean.
Monday: FIZ and Apartment
I was a bit nervous for my first day at work and understandably so! Would I get lost on the U-Bahn? (a constant fear since everything, and I do mean everything is in German) Would I like my co-workers? What about all the logistical things like signing my contract? I nearly had a panic attack thinking of all these things the night before. I was beginning to wonder if I could handle this Munich adventure. Well, things got started when I left the Hostel at 8.15. I knew the train ride would only take 15 minutes, but I still left 45 minutes early just to make sure I had time to get lost and still be on time. It turns out that German trains are marvelously efficient so I was ~20 minutes early once I counted in walking to and from the U-Bahn. This wasn't a bad thing, since I had to check in as a visitor and between the receptionist and my broken German that took longer than I would have anticipated.
Anyway, I met my mentor and he proceeded to give me a 'quick' tour of FIZ (Forschungs- und Innovationszentrum). Some designer, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he would paint all the hallways the same sterile white and pave the entire building with an enthusiastic palette of grey tiles. Everything looks the same and I am sure I will get lost in this building endlessly. However, I can forgive their lack of creativity in the building because the real fun started when I got a tour of the parking lot. All the BMW prototypes are constantly driving around the complex and they are awesome. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to take photos while I'm at work, but if I see one of the prototypes on the street while I'm walking home I'll try to get a pic and post it!
I didn't have much work-- just a quick orientation, but I found out that I got housing at the BMW apartments! So, I went back to the Euro Youth Hotel, checked out and moved in that night. I have a 2-bed room, but I didn't meet my roommate until the following morning because I was so tired. Needless to say, I was grateful both my wishes had been fulfilled: +1 apartment and +1 roommate. Munich was starting to grow on me.
Tuesday: Kreisverwaltungsreferrat.
When you work in Munich as an international employee, you have to get a residency permit. This means going to the city's equivalent of the DMV. This hellhole opens at 8.30, but you will see a crowd forming at 8.00. It is the worst. I spent a total hour and a half there only to find I will have to return on Monday because their appointments were full for that day and for Friday. Oh, joy.
Work was once again pretty tame. I got my BMW employee ID which is pretty cool. I'll probably post a photo of it just because my picture just looks so dashing on a BMW card. This is nice because it means I won't need a visitor's badge which eliminates the annoying process of checking in each morning. Since we have a 3 day week-- Thursday is holiday and BMW gives its employees every other Friday off, I spent the day reading up on BMW business practices and learning about my department, Technical Planning. Not super exciting, but not super terrible.
Wednesday: Stammtisch
Today at work I didn't have much to do, but my mentor demonstrated his creativity with coming up for projects for me. He asked me to create a presentation for our next "Stammtisch" or round-table for the department. My presentation is just a quick introduction-- where I'm from, where I study, etc. I will make my presentation at the next department meeting, in German, of course!-- no pressure. Knowing that this was the only task I had all day and given the BMW corporate guidelines for powerpoints (BMW has it's own font and has strict rules on sizes of fonts per slide) I had time to be exceptionally picky about what photos I chose and to quadruple check my grammar.
After that, I went to another "Stammtisch," that my roommate invited me to-- this one at a bar in Munich. The Praktikanten go out each Wednesday to meet and greet other people with BMW. It got quite loud within the bar since, well, it's a bar. So I chatted outside with a few new acquaintances. I tried to speak in German for some of the conversation, but I think I made their ears bleed with my grammar. Anyway, we managed to have a good conversation anyway. They 2 guys I was talking to were quite interested in what BMW's image was in America and how Americans perceived Europe in general. It was fun to talk to them for a few hours and enjoy my first German beer (since I'm keeping track, it was a Tegernseer Hell). I should've taken a picture, but I didn't really want to seem that touristy around my co-workers. I'm sure it won't be my last Tegernseer, it's a popular beer here.
German beer total: 1 (I'm not going to count every beer I drink, for the sake of propriety, but I will add to this total each time I try a new beer)
Thursday: Feiertag!
I didn't do much today since I didn't have work and everything was closed. I went for a walk and it started to rain. I didn't have an umbrella so I got a little soaked. But, I did locate the Olympiapark and I will probably make it my running route to go there. It's less than a kilometer from my apartment.
Only other news worthy of the blog: I got wi-fi. That is why I'm posting this all now.
Other than that, I've also decided I will start a running total of the number of people I see in Lederhosen for the trip.
Lederhosen total for the past week: 3
That's it! I'm tired and I plan on going to do more touristy things tomorrow so I need rest.
Bis später!
No comments:
Post a Comment