Day 1: Travel to Frankfurt, Germany

Six students traveled with us from Columbia, five more traveled with us from Charlotte to Frankfurt.  All went as planned.  We looked forward to meeting the final three to complete our group of 18 students and 2 leaders.

2016 Pre-Departure Blog Entry

We are looking forward to an exciting and educational trip this year!  Thank you for sending your kids with us to have this adventure.

For all the parents / guardians that are following our blog and may require our phone numbers in an emergency, please note them below:

Dr. Ed Gatzke:  803-567-9540

Dr. Andi Gatzke:  803-220-6572

Day 13 - 5/23/2015, Deutsches Museum and Hofbrauhaus

Today we went to the Deutsches Museum, the German Technical Museum.  This is a gigantic museum in Munich that covers almost all of technology.  Ceramics, mining, energy, transportation, physics, printing, paper, textiles, metallurgy, everything.  The Germans say you should spend days here.  We spent about 3.5 hours here, with a quick tour of the energy section then a scavenger hunt through the windmills, steam engines, electric, mining, and transportation sections.  

We met for our final dinner together at the Hoffbrauhaus.  This is a traditional place for dinners in Munich.  This time, it was a nice mix of tourists and locals celebrating their soccer championship for FC Bayern.  Everyone had a good time and we made it back to the hotel to get ready to fly home on Sunday. 

This was a terrific well-behaved group that hopefully had a great time in Germany.  We will miss them.

 

Day 12 - 5/22/2015, Therme Erding

Today we tried a new activity for our Maymester class.  We took them all out to visit a geothermal energy plant in Erding.  Erding is a small town to the north east of Munich on the end of a rail line.  They are more famous for Erdinger beer.  The geothermal well was drilled in the 80's by Texaco looking for oil.  They found hot water so they started using it for regional heating.  In 1999, a small spa was built on the site.  The spa expanded and expanded.  They now are one of the biggest spas in the world and they claim to be the biggest water park in Europe.  They get water at 67 C all year long, about the equivalent of a continuous 5 WM generator.

We got there a bit after 10 but the water slides did not open until 2:00.  The students were given a four hour pass, so we entered at 11 so that we could go down the slides before returning to Munich.  Everyone had a good time sampling the mineral baths, steam rooms, hot tubs, and pools.

After the trip to Erding, some of us went on a tour of the Allianz Stadium, home of FC Bayern and Munich 1860.  Tomorrow is the highlight of the trip, the Deutsches Museum.

Day 11 - 5/21/2015, Zugspitze

Today we went to the top of Germany.  We took a train from the Hauptbahnhof out to Garmisch.  From there, we took a train up the mountain to Grainau where we hopped a bus to Eibsee then caught a funicular to a platform where we jumped in a gondola.  It was snowing at the top, but we were not in blizzard whiteout conditions.  There was plenty of snow for snowballs, and some of us made it out to an observation platform through three or four feet of snow.  We weren't too wet and cold during this adventure.  The restaurant at the top of Germany had decent goulash and great hot cocoa.  The return trip from Zugspitze went down a long long gondola directly to Eibsee.  Thankfully for the clouds you could not see very far, this is one of the scariest things we ever do.  Safe, but scary.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105622415255178546785/Day11Zugspitze02?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKP4guzawKvVWw&feat=directlink

Day 10 - 5/20/2015, IPP

Wednesday was another rainy day in Munich.  We got up and lead a few students around for a rapid fire tour of various churches in Munich.  We saw five churches between 10 and 11:30, plus we caught the Marienplatz glockenspiel at 11.  The crypt for the kings of Bavaria was open so we stopped in there as well.  Quick tour and the few students that came with us seemed to really enjoy it.

In the afternoon we went out to the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics at the Technical University of Munich Research Center.  The first thing we did was take the students over to the math building to ride their slides.  They have slides from the third floor to the first.  Then we spent a few hours touring the ASDEX upgrade fusion reactor.  They test various materials and methods for fusion reaction confinement, hoping to one day run controlled fusion reactions for power sources.  The new ITER reactor in France should actually make power, if it works. 

That night we came back and the students went off to a memorable Mexican dinner.  Andi and I went to the Augustiner Keller near the Hauptbahnhof.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105622415255178546785/Day10ChurchesAndIPPFusionReactor?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIXKsu61-_K12wE&feat=directlink

Day 9 - 5/19/2015 BMW

Our first full day in Munich was spent at BMW.  We toured the museum and the manufacturing plant.  They make most of the 3 series cars here on a fully automated assembly line, about 1000 per day.  The weather was not great so we did not go to the Olympic park or TV tower, but we did see a lot of AC/DC fans coming for a concert.  In the afternoon, Andi and I found laundry and later took some students for a sushi buffet near Marienplatz.

https://picasaweb.google.com/105622415255178546785/Day9MunichBMW?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCMyjkaD2nMLvmQE&feat=directlink