Munich 2024, day 3: distilled capitalism and labor unions
We didn't realize that May 1 is a national holiday in Germany (and apparently other European countries), which is a little limiting in terms of what's open. However, this led to a day of lucky surprises with one minor disappointment.
First surprise: BMW World (BMW Welt)! Okay, it's not an amusement park or anything like Disney World, but it's still a very happy place if you're a fan of cars, robots, and shiny architecture.
BMW literally stands for "Bavarian Motor Works" (the equivalent in German, at least), and this is their headquarters. As we learned later, the factory across the street is so big that a factory tour involves at least 3km (2mi) of walking.
We showed up around lunchtime and grabbed a bite at the cafe. There's also a 2-michelin-starred restaurant inside (yes, I know, that's crazy), and unfortunately the lunch bistro from the same chef was closed for a private event. However, the crispy chicken sandwich at the cafe was actually quite good!
There was also a robot coffee shop that we ordered coffee at, as much for the show as for the coffee.
Wandering around the car exhibits, we saw performance (BMW M) models, tons of electric (I think prefixed with "i") models, and even the Mini and Rolls Royce displays, because apparently they own both of those.
But the highlight was when an older gentleman walked over and sold Mike and Nick to go on a "behind the scenes" tour. To be honest, we had no idea what that would mean in BMW Welt, as it's not like this would include a factory tour or anything. After convincing Jerry and Tiff, we gathered in the little theater on the side and met our guide. As it turns out, the 4 of us were the only people on this tour, and as we settled in with a video, we worried that this would be boring. But the video was over quickly, and then the real tour began.
First stop: they have an event space that's really cool, though it's hard to really get it from the photos. The floor is a series of 1-meter-wide strips that can individually be raised up to 3.4m (12 ft) or lowered to -1.4m (4.5ft) compared with the giant metal garage-door-style entrance. This can be done to make a stage, to create a gentle incline, and I'm sure there are other ways to make good use of it. The lighting setup is also very flexible, apparently. And directly above the space is an area for serving food, as well as a large patio, which would be amazing for hosting an event. They've even had a wedding here (for the true BMW fans)!
We were then briefly shown the conference center (which we hadn't expected at all!), that looked like a lovely modern office area with coffee shop (only open when there is a client using the space, I'm sure).
For me, the highlight of our tour came next, where the magical "car vending machine" system underneath the building was shown to us. Customers pay $1500 extra just to take delivery of their car here, and as part of that process, the cars are stowed in a complex robotic parking garage stacked 4 high, that looks vaguely like a modern vending machine. Humans aren't even allowed in that space -- they keep the oxygen level very low to avoid the risk of the gas-filled cars having an out-of-control fire. I took a photo through a couple layers of glass that really doesn't do it justice:
After we came back up, we headed into the Rolls Royce lounge, where customers can truly customize their car, with basically everything offered as a potential option (thousands of colors, wood textures, and even custom upholstery). One woman commissioned a fully-silk interior with hand-embroidered sakura petals, which apparently is a challenge due to the normal wear-and-tear that a car seat needs to be able to endure. I think this was Jerry's favorite area, and we also really bonded with our tour guide a bit more, since it was just us chit-chatting with her in the lounge.
But then, as a bonus, she grabbed the car keys for the two Rolls's on display, and let us take a close look at (but not sit in) the interiors. There's also a disturbingly elitist commentary that came out of this whole conversation, about how this place knows how to take care of their customers. One customer who came by the day before for their car delivery discovered there was the major soccer match between Real Madrid and FC Bayern at the stadium nearby, and the management got ahold of someone in FC Bayern to get them space in the VIP box or something. And when it came to ordering a Rolls, apparently even if you have $250k burning a hole in your pocket, you still need to be invited to be a customer. They don't want "just anyone" who can afford it to be a customer, after all.
Setting aside the strong class-warfare vibes, we then went up to the car delivery area & lounge. Because of the holiday, no deliveries were happening today, but apparently the day before had like 59. They have a welcome lounge that looks like the videos I've seen of Emirates' first class check-in in Dubai, plus a little cafe -- apparently the pickup process is a full-day experience, so they need a place for them to grab lunch.
Finally, we wandered out to where the car pickup actually happens. There's a ton of these giant turntables where they would normally park the customer's cars and have the car slowly rotate in place like the showpieces they are.
That was the end of our tour, and by this point we were kind of BMW-ed out. We stopped for a photo with our guide after the lovely time we had with her:
And then we decided against exploring the neighboring museum and headed back to town, as Jerry wanted to catch a fancy chocolate shop before it closed. Coming out of the train station, we emerged in the middle of a free public concert! After briefly investigating (purely out of curiosity), we realized it would still be going on for a while, and hustled a couple blocks to where all the chocolate shops are, near Viktualienmarkt. However, due to the holiday, most of them were closed. We did pick up a couple items at Beluga chocolates:
Back in the main square, we grabbed boba from Ding Tea (yes, I know, we have this in Seattle as well) and rocked out to the end of a heavy metal set with our boba. The metal band was Produzenten der Froide, and based on the website for the event, we were expecting to hear from Falschgeld (counterfeit money), which was apparently an indie-pop boy band(?!), but the set order wasn't really clear, and I think we'd missed them. Also, the moment the metal band's set ended, the group of metalheads in total punk outfits & dyed fauxhawks took off quickly, clearly only there for that band.
The concert is hosted by DGB, a labor union conglomerate, and had slogans that felt decidedly... anti-capitalist. Not to mention, some of the lyrics from the musicians that we think we understood (it was all in German, of course) appeared to fit that anti-corporate vibe as well.
The next act, Liser, was a young woman with some fun pop-ish songs, including one with the fun chorus "Du bist ein fuckboy" that we definitely understood.
Our feet were hurting from all the standing and walking throughout the day, so we bowed out early, grabbing dinner at a nearby "Californian" place that was really like a German interpretation of Cali-Mex. I know, I know, that's very touristy of us, but NGL it was actually pretty good.
And that's it for the day! Tomorrow it's off to Salzburg for a quick day trip.
