This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 10:04 pm and is filed under Munich. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
12.10.2007
Nein Deutsch. The two words I’ve spoken the most over this past week. No German. Add a thank you, hello and goodbye and you have my full arsenal of German. Surprising, my Finnish is not better. Well thankfully certain areas have a large population of English speaking citizens, not to mention international companies where the official language is English. Thankfully Lufthansa is one such company.
I arrive at the cargo area (after going to the wrong location of course) and hand in my paperwork. Com to find out that all of the processing has been done and all I need to do is submit my insurance and passport information to customs control and I can have my bike. As it is probably not a smart idea to drive around Munich airport without a helmet, I decide to head to the airport terminal where the bike gear and my helmet are stored.
During all of this, I realize I have forgotten to charge my phone battery and it had died on me. As I was about to ride my motorcycle through Germany for the first time, I figured it would not be smart to be without a functioning phone. So when I get to the airport terminal, I head up to the upper levels, find a power strip that I don’t think was supposed to be found, and charge my phone while hopping online for a moment.
After paying extortion prices for my bags in storage, I head back to the cargo area to get my bike. The funny part about all of this is that EVERYBODY knows who I am. As soon as I mention motorbike, their eyes light up and go “ahh you”. Apparently Americans aren’t the only ones who think I’m crazy for shipping a bike to Munich in December! I end up waiting for quite a while for them to unpack my bike and bring it to me. By now it is almost 16:00 (4pm) and I’m still at the airport. Hopefully BMW doesn’t close at 17:00. I receive the bike and examine it. Looks like it did the day I brought it to JFK. Thank you Lufthansa.
Ahh, now for the adventure. I manage to squeeze all of my crap onto and into the bike while constantly being yelled at by angry old Germans for being in the middle of everything. Nein Deutsch you old bastards! J I start my bike up with the few fumes that it has left (fortunately the taste has left my mouth by now) and pull out through a sea of tractor trailers. Man does it feel great being back in the saddle! A total relief came over me as I felt free again. And cold! Somebody forgot their riding gear back at the couch (do we need the of course here, or are you finally seeing a trend?).
Well to my luck, right at the entrance there is a petrol station. 15,68Liters for 20,68Euros. I’ll need to do the conversion for that later, but basically $27 to fill my 5.5gallon tank. Approximately $5/gallon, cheaper than I was expecting. I head back out onto the highway and drive towards Munich. Fortunately I planned ahead, and clearly wrote out the directions I needed to get to the BMW dealership in northern Munich. Only about a 20mile trek, that was a nice mixture of highways and city driving. I merge onto the main highway and give her a little gas. Apparently my lil BMW was happy to finally be home again. She purred like a kitten and cleanly accelerated as I needed. Once I became comfortable, I freely used all traffic lanes and blended right into the normal rush-hour traffic.
One thing I did forget to mention, it is clearly nighttime now. The sun sets earlier than at home, so by 4-5pm it is already quite dark out. So my first ride in this country, with their foreign signs written in German, is in the dark. Oh and wait, there’s more. It decides to rain! Not rain, but freezing rain. But you were expecting that, weren’t you?
So now I am in the far right lane following all of the slow moving trucks to make my travels a bit easier through the slickening roads. I get off my exit and pull into the city streets. Right off of the exit ramp, I see this huge pole with the rather famous BMW insignia. Deciding to ditch my handwritten directions, I head straight towards this glowing beacon of BMW. Did you know that BMW is headquartered here? Yeah, well that didn’t occur to me at all. Turns out it was just a corporate office, and not where I needed to go. So I turn myself around and head back where I need to. Thankfully the German drivers I encountered were quite normal in their driving temperament. No major issues at all. Only self inflicted ones actually. All in all, a rather fun experience, one I cannot wait to try again.
Well by now I have made it to the BMW motorcycle dealership and luckily they were still open. I park and head in. Smooth transaction all the way through, and I am back on the (U) once again heading back towards the laundromat where I can begin my search for cheap flights to Helsinki.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Mikey, I’m very proud of you. Sal sent me your adventures which i think you should publish some day. hav fun and i look forward to reading bout your travels.
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
Hi Mike,
Sounds like quite an adventure!
Travel safe. Have fun. And know that you are missed back home.
Merry Christmas from the Abbatiello family.
Lisa, Neil, Andrea, Ali & Neil