Day 2 - 17 April, 2005: Munich

Our flight to Munich was uneventful. We landed around noon or so, went through immigration (why can't arrival into the US be as easy?), collected our 4 suitcases, and found the Lufthansa Airport Bus pickup point. Good thing we're going to be driving an SUV around, since manhandling all this luggage would have been a giant PIA.

We checked in to the Munich Marriott and immediately set out in search of lunch. Two stops on the U-bahn (subway) later and we were in the Schwabing area of Munich looking for a quick lunch. Fortunately, we found a gyro ("Donner" in German) place and had a great lunch of Gyro and potatoes. After lunch, we headed down to the Olympic Park. We didn't get there last year, and I wanted to check it out. I had heard that the various Olympic venues were quite striking in their architecture.

We got off the train at the "Olympiazentrum" and took our bearings. This was a familiar place, since last year we toured the BMW Munich plant that's right across the street from the subway station. BMW recently introduced the 7th generation of the 3-series, and there were about 10 rail cars full of them waiting to be transported to their final destinations. The Olympic Park was about a 15 minute walk from the train station; and once we got there, it was just what we needed after a long flight.

After a nice afternoon strolling through the park, we headed back to Schwabing for dinner at a place that we remembered from last year, Milennium. Last year, we ate there with my buddy Ed Porras (who was working in Munich on a project for his company) and had such good wiener schnitzel and potatoes that we just had to go back this year. Unfortunately, we were disappointed. Tomorrow we pick up the car and head down to Bellagio.