Munich und Umgebung

die Umgebung: (oom-gay-boong) = the surrounding area

If you are wondering where I've been for the past few weeks, the answer is mostly Munich (because I work here), but I've also made escapades to Austria and Switzerland. I'll bring you up to speed as concisely as possible!

6/21: BMW Museum & BMW Welt (the museum was free as an intern at BMW; BMW Welt is a dealership, so it's free all the time) 

Basically, the BMW museum is a mechanical engineer's favorite kind of place. Lot's of historic and modern machines. Also, sat in a z4 at BMW Welt :) The line for the M6 was too long, though :(

No idea what model this is, but I though it was awesome. I could go back again for free and find out-- the museum is about a mile from where I live. 

6/22: Salzburg, Austria

This town is famous for being the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for the Sound of Music. It's really not very big, but seems to be a hit with the tourists! Instead of following the typical tourist route, I spent most of the day at the Red Bull Hangar, which is a short walk from Salzburg. It's a pretty cool collection of Red Bull sponsored aircraft and sportscars in a beautiful building which is more like a greenhouse than a hangar, to be honest.

Decided to have a drink at the bar on the 3rd floor of the Hangar. Planes and F1 cars in the background.

6/27: Munich Cowboys v. Schwabing Hall Unicorns

The Cowboys and Unicorns are German Football League teams. By football, I mean American Football. We met the quarterback of the Cowboys when he led our 'beer tour' through Munich a week before (6/20) and he got us free tickets to the game. The Cowboys lost, sadly, and it rained the entire time. But, it was still a lot of fun!

As you can see, the weather was beautiful.

6/28: Munich X-Games

I had to scalp a ticket to get in (not the easiest thing to do in German), but the weather was about  100x better than the previous day. Although it was windy and the Slopestyle final was postponed for 5 hours, this actually turned out to our advantage-- we also got to see the big air skateboard final from our view on Olympiaberg (the location of the Slopestyle course). We finished off the day with trip to Tollwood-- which is a big food and music festival also in the same park as the X-Games-- for some fresh Döner Kebab (which is a delicious sandwich that is too many calories to have too often).

It is really hard to take action photos with a cell phone.

7/6-7/7: Zürich und Züri Fäscht

There was perfect weather for Züri Fäscht this weekend. It was a challenge at times because the crowds were so huge that my friends and I kept getting separated, but we all made it from A to B without much delay. Activities included: trips to the art museum, history museum, botanical gardens, Lake Zürich, and Uetliberg. There was also a spectacular fireworks show with awesome accompanying music. In all, I really enjoyed Zürich and I think it is a beautiful city! 

To get to Zürich, the bus gets ferried across the Bodensee. I didn't realize this until the bus pulled up to the ferry dock. It was a pleasant surprise and a gorgeous day for a Schifffahrt.

Zürich crowds waiting for the fireworks show to begin.

Well, that's it for updates on my travels! I'm going to Barcelona this weekend, so there is more to come :)

Totals:

Beer: 14 (+1 Becks, +1 Preminger, +1 Franziskaner, +1 Feldschlösschen, +1 Weihenstephan, +1 Augustiner Weissbier, +1 Ayinger)

Lederhosen: 33 (+/- 3, since it's been hard to keep exact counts):  (+4 at X-Games, +4 in Salzburg, +6 on a Saturday at the Marienplatz, +3 in Zürich)