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Thu Aug 16 2007: Motorcycle Gear Shopping in Munich |
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Raining today. Which is okay, because the Dainese Pro Store is 50m away from the front foot of our hotel, and the BMW Motorrad Store is 100m across the street! Sweet! We woke up fairly late and just shopped for a couple of hours. The Dainese store was a bit disappointing because here was a store dedicated to nothing but D-Stuff, but their sizing was pitifully limited. I could have easily brought back a ton of jackets, helmets, etc., but they didn't have my size or color. Blame it on being late in the season (snowboarding clothes are being stocked in a couple of months) and those damn Italians and their month-long holiday - all the D-Stores are unable to stock up until after August vacations are over!
Neda is excited about shopping at the Dainese Pro Store. Waiting in line for the store to open. She's a bit early... store opens in 10 hours...
Due to the ribbing we took about the matching rainsuits, Neda gets proactive.
The BMW store was a bit better, what a nice facility! Two stories of nothing but Motorrad Schtuff (that's German for Motorcycle Stuff). We even had lunch at the cafeteria there, amazing food and service! We wanted to go there everyday for lunch, seeing how we were staying so close! The area that we're staying in is called Frankfurter Ring. That's German for "Circle of Hotdogs". It's where almost all the BMW factories and offices are. BMW practically owns Munich, as all the signs in the city have some kind of sponsorship deal with the Bavarian giant.
BMW's flagship motorcycle store. Two stories of Bavarian Motorrad Goodness!
We had lunch in the cafeteria on the left!
When I get older, I'll have to buy me one of these flip-up helmets. It'll go good with my RT...
Just kidding, RT owners. I love the RT I rented in New Mexico
Neda thinks I look like the rabbit from Donnie Darko. She meant my face, not the helmet... This lid only improves things.
Totally sweet R1200S by Giuliam Design. Carbon fibre everything including belly pan,
Rizoma levers, gold rims and cylinder heads, custom mirrors
Cappucino at the BMW restaurant is an experience in tiny details
After lunch, we rode to the Olympic Park. It had started raining a little, so we covered the bikes up in the parking lot, took our windbreakers with us and walked around the stadium and the grounds. We also saw a fair that had been set up in the park, called Summerfest. It was anything but summery at this point, with a slow drizzle coming down. Suffice to say, the fair was pretty empty. We ducked in to the BMW Museum, which was just on the outskirts of the Olympic Park. We didn't really go inside the Museum, just hung out in the lobby while the rain turned into a full-fledged downpour. I had been to the Museum last year on a work trip to Munich and from what I remembered, it was not very impressive, especially for a company as large as BMW. And it was mainly cars as well, only a couple of motorcycles. We looked into doing a factory tour, but apparently you have to book these months in advance, and it was only the automotive plant, not motorcycles. It turns out that the motorcycle factory is actually in Berlin, about 600 kms north east of Munich. I smell another road trip in the future!
Yes, I eventually did get the Donnie Darko lid.
LOL! Courtesy of Jason.
Olympic Park
Taking in the grandeur of the stadium. I can't believe this thing was built over 35 years ago!
Summerfest! Er, where is everyone and why is it so cold and wet? Neither summer nor a fest...
Rather than trying to ride in the rain into the city, we ducked into the underground system and tried to figure out how it worked without knowing a scratch of German. It's based on the honour system, where figure out where you want to go, buy the appropriately-priced ticket, timestamp it yourself at the entrance of the subway and then go in. Nobody checks to see if you have a ticket. How cool is that? We've found many things in Europe are based on the honour system, it's quite a refreshing change from the way North America works.
We ducked in here to escape the rain
BMW Tower in the background. It's made up of four cylindrical towers to represent the four cyclinders of an engine.
The BMW Welt on the left is a new customer centre that will open later on this year.
BMW Welt is an impressive glass and steel structure built to showcase BMW products and technology.
The plan for the evening is to try to watch a movie. In English. Surprisingly everybody in Munich speaks English! It was such a burden lifted off our shoulders to be able to communicate again to people. You really take for granted how important it is to be able to ask questions and get information, not to mention convey personality and humour, when your mind is struggling with how to form a sentence like "where is the toilet?". (In Europe, they say Toilet, not washroom. They have no idea what a washroom is...) Anyway, we had to hit a couple of cinemas to find one that played a movie in English. We saw Rush Hour 3. Not as good as RH1 and RH2... But the Germans loved the humour though. I think we were the only two people not laughing at the lame jokes. Then again, the Germans love David Hasselhoff too... And the French love Jerry Lewis... To say that Europeans have different tastes is an understatement.
Summerfest heats up at night! Helps that the rain stopped.
After the movie, we took the subway back to the bikes at the Olympic Park. By this time the rain had stopped. To our surprise, there were tons of people streaming out of the Summerfest, which had just started wrapping up for the night. Tomorrow, we have to ship the bikes back. Which marks the beginning of the end of our trip. How sad!!!
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