Day 14 - Going Home

Everyone scheduled to go to Atlanta made it through security and onto the plane.  As I blog, the plane should be landing very soon...  Then most are flying to their personal destinations.

To summarize our personal ENERGY efforts this trip:  We each walked ca. 102 miles, 229,673 steps, and 327 flights of stairs!  

Day 13 - Neuschwanstein

Today we had a free day.  Andi and I went with four of the students on a train ride out to Fussen, a small town in the Alps home to Neuschwanstein, the most famous castle in Germany (and the worlds?)  Andi and I had been before but it was fun to go again.  The students had a good time and we got back to Munich in time for the Champions League Final.  They are opening the Oktoberfest fieldgrounds just a few blocks from out hotel for a public viewing with thousands of fans watching the game broadcast from London.  Hopefully FC Bayern will win and all the locals will be happy.  It worries us with the students, hopefully they realize that they have an early flight tomorrow...

Andi's pedometer shows 7.04 miles, 15,393 steps, and 66 floors climbed (that was a big hill and a castle with a lot of stairs!).

Selected Pictures

Day 12 - TUM Hofbrau Haus

Today was our last program day.  We had arranged tours at the Technical University of Munich which is in an outlying suburb of Munich.  The train line to Garching was under repair, so we had to leave early so that we could catch a train to a train to a bus to a train.  That worked very well, so we arrive half an hour early.  Since we had time, we ran over to the TUM Math building where they have slides from the fourth floor down in their atrium.  We had a fun time!

At 10:00 we started our tour of the Max Planc Institute for Plasma Physics.  This facility performs fusion research.  After a presentation, we were able to tour the reactor.  We were allowed to stand just a few feet from a fusion reactor!  Last year they were operating, so we had to stay outside the main chamber.  We also saw their control room and energy storage flywheel system that can supply hundreds of megawatts during their 10 second shots.  Our host allowed us to eat at their IPP cafeteria which is supposedly better than the traditional student cafeteria.

After lunch we went to visit the TUM chemistry department.  We had a nice lecture on batteries and fuel cells from our host and then we toured a few labs.  After finishing the TUM tour, we headed back to Munich.  A few of us stopped at the Allianz soccer stadium to check out the home of FC Bayern, a team competing this Saturday in the Champions League finals.

After a little shopping, we headed over to the Hoffbrauhaus for our dinner.  Sadly, the reservations were fouled up and the other USC group was not able to join us.  We had a good time singing along with the oom-pah band!

Saturday is a free day.  A few of us are headed out to Neuschwanstein and some are headed to Dachau.  We finish this up and fly out Sunday morning.

Andi reports 8.49 miles, 19,094 steps, and 18 floors climbed.

Selected Pictures

Day 11 - Zugspitze

Today was a fun day.  We caught an early train off to Garmisch-Penkirken at the base of the Alps.  We had some stress early on because our discount ticket was technically good only after 9 AM and we needed to leave at 8:30 to catch our connection.  The train conductor gave me a stern talking to at 8:55 but we manged to move on.

In Garmisch, we got onto the cog wheel train.  Due to construction, we took a bus around one section.  Then we took another cog wheel train through a long tunnel to the glacier.  It was cloudy but still beautiful so we had snowball fights and did some sled riding.  After some food and drink, we took the gondola up to the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany.  Again, we had clouds to deal with but overall it was a pretty neat experience.  I think the students enjoyed it a lot.

After coming down the mountain we spent some time in Garmisch.  Garmisch is a small little alpine village with plenty of tourist shops and restaurants.  We also toured around a bit before getting on the train back to Munich.

Andi reports from the pedometer just 5.9 miles, 14 flights, 13,330 steps.

Selected Pictures

Day 10 - Deutsches Museum

Today we started early and went to the Deutsches Museum. This is the German technical museum, a real giant of a facility.  Our tour guide showed us a couple of galleries (energy and nano tech) and then we turned the students loose to explore on their own.  Andi and I did about five hours there, seeing the computer science gallery, the glass blowing area, the steam engines, and the airplane gallery.

After we left, Andi and I went to a Munich lunch tradition: all-you-can-eat sushi!  We shopped a bit and relaxed a bit getting ready for our next big day...

Andi says the pedometer reports 10.1 miles, 22 floors, 22,750 steps.

Selected Pictures

Day 9 - BMW

Today we spent the day at BMW.  We started around 10 for a tour of the BMW Museum.  Our tour guides were very good and we had a good time seeing all the various engines and cars.  The museum had some great history and is very well done.  After a little break we headed off on a BMW factory tour.  The tour was pretty good and fun to see a lot of cool robots.  However, this year some of the robots were offline and the final assembly as not operating.  We still saw a lot of cool stuff in action, like painting robots, welding robots, and engine assembly.

After the BMW tour we let the kids have the afternoon off.  Andi and I went to Fransikaner for a great dinner of Spanfarkel and Dunkels.  Viel Spaß!

Andi says the pedometer reports 7.9 miles, 19 floors climbed, 17,800 steps.

Selected Pictures

Day 8 - Ulm and Munich

Today was another travel day.  We caught a 9 AM train toward Munich but stopped in Ulm.  Ulm is home to the Ulmer Münster, the tallest church in the world.  After a short walk from the train station, we set forth to climb the church tower, all 470 ft and 770 steps.  Luckily, the weather was absolutely beautiful so we managed a lot of great pictures.  It was a bit windy and cold, but it made climbing not to hot and sweaty.

After lunch, we got back on the train to Munich.  We set up in our hotel and immediately went on a nice tour with a very energetic tour guide that really did a great job explaining the history of Munich.  He was funny and energetic.  Andi and I thought it was the best tour we had seen in quite a while!  He explained a lot of things about the history of the area and it was very interesting and fun.

Andi says the pedometer reads 8.7 miles, 10 flights of stairs, 19,700 steps.  She did not do the Ulmer Münster, so our numbers are greater...

Selected Pictures