Munich, Part 2

I couldn't fit everything into one post! Here is part 2 of Munich.

• Fabric Stores
• Ludwig Beck Displays
• Hirschgarten
• English Garden
• Deutsches Museum
• Google Munich

Munich Fabric Stores

I almost didn't see any fabric stores in Munich, but on Friday I had a free afternoon. Originally I was going to visit one of the two local palaces, but instead I decided to visit some of the shops. I'll just have to return to Munich to see some of its other attractions.

I visited three fabric stores. I'll be honest, for garment sewers, Munich offers slim pickings.

Stoffe & Co

Stoffe & Co carries quilting cottons, fleece and other fabrics for children's wear. They do not carry wool or wool trims, at least not currently.

On the way to Stoffe & Co, as I exited the underground and less than a block away, I passed a Bernina store!

---

Das Blaue Tuch

This store, far from the center of town, required a fairly lengthy ride on public transit. It would have been shorter, but part of the subway system is down for renovations, so I had to take a surface bus. The store is rather confusing in that it features two names: "Das Blaue Tuch" and "Stoffe and Schnitte". The sales woman, who was very friendly, indicated that one name refers to the fabrics and the other name refers to the purses.

Aside from the beautiful purses, this store carries mostly fabrics made from natural fibers. They have quilting cottons, some wools, linens, silks. I saw one wool that was quite lovely but, at 134 Euros a meter, I left it behind.

To save time, I took Uber from this store back to Marienplatz. The ride cost about 10 Euros.

---

Radspieler

Radspieler, a home dec and clothing store, carries fabrics in the back of the store. It is right in the Marienplatz, making it centrally located.

They mostly carry home dec fabrics and they have fair sized selection. They carry Marrimeko and, most impressively, some lovely boiled wools. Their wool selection was quite small (only a few colors) but their price, at 39 Euros per meter, was reasonable.

According to Google translate, they offer to make your curtains
boiled wools
boiled wool prices

---

Ludwig Beck Displays

One of the store's windows

Seconds after I first walked into Ludwig Beck, my eyes about popped out of my head.

I saw one of their displays and was smitten!

I asked and was informed that these pieces weren't for sale—they were made by the display department from felted wool roving. These garments were on display on most every floor of the main store, in the yarn store, and in some of their windows.

Aren't they fabulous?

They told me that this one, displayed in the yarn store, was woven on a hula hoop

---

Hirschgarten

On Sunday afternoon I wandered over to the Hirschgarten, which is only a tram stop or two from my hotel, Citadines. This beautiful park is a very popular place for locals to hang out on a quiet Sunday.

I took photos of my hat here
I love shadow pictures! By the late afternoon, the sun was low and bright.
Known as Bavarian Curling, these folks are hurling heavy disks with handles attached. Thanks to Claire R for ferreting out the name of this sport!
Hirschgarten also features deer that you can feed. The children love this!
I recently learned about conkers, an inedible variety of chestnut, when I saw them in Seattle. Munich has conkers, too!
This statue overlooks the pond. I'm sure there's a story here, but I don't know what it is!

---

English Garden

Perhaps I shouldn't blog about two gardens, back-to-back, but on Sundays most everything (shops, grocery stores, restaurants) is closed by law in Munich. This is the day that everyone goes to the park, takes walks, or visits museums. I mostly walked, rode the underground, and visited parks.

I left the hotel at 7am on Sunday, taking the subway to Marienplatz. From there, I walked to the Englischer Garten (English Garden). I got lost and, except for the fact that it was below zero, I had no gloves, and there weren't any coffee shops open, it was wonderful!

The Munich transportation system is amazing! On most days I had the day-long pass that you buy for 6.40 Euros and you can use on any system (bus, tram, s-bahn, underground) in inner Munich. Here is one of their subway stations.
The Isar river runs through Munich. I spent a lot of time walking along this river and absorbing the amazing views!
The Isar river, with some accommodating swans

A very unusual feature of the English Garden is that, along the southern edge of the garden, you can find river surfers! Yes, RIVER SURFERS! What a hoot!

Looking back at the bridge where I took those first photos

I made a video of the surfers:

After watching the surfers for a bit, I entered the park proper. It's huge and features miles of walkways with scenic views. Is it weird that I kept imagining Die Zauberflöte (aka The Magic Flute), my favorite opera?

---

Deutsches Museum

On Friday morning we had a team outing to the Deutsches Museum, a massive museum of technology and science. I thought that it might be similar to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, but it's quite different. We were split into 3 groups and each group had a different guide for a 2-hour tour. Our guide, a physicist, barely scratched the surface of this huge museum. My group saw tools, watches/clocks, musical instruments, glass, and computers, to name a few sections. We did not see aircraft or ships (though we walked past them), or the below-ground mining area, which sounded amazing.

We saw the lightning/electricity demonstration, which was most impressive.

The lightning demonstration also features a Faraday Cage.

The following video (not mine) shows a bit of the lightning demonstration.

This museum would be a great spot for a Steampunk Halloween party!

This charming little clock features a magnifying glass/sundial arrangement. As the sun moves, the light passes through the magnifying glass. At the noon hour, a sun ray lands on the cannon's fuse, ignites it, and sets off the cannon.
A cesium-based atomic clock—the first time a nanosecond was made visible!
An original Enigma machine, used to encode messages by the Nazis in WWII. Benedict Cumberbatch starred in a recent film, The Imitation Game, about Alan Turing who was responsible for breaking the Enigma code.
Omigosh, I got a charge out of seeing a NeXT Cube in the museum! I worked at NeXT, Steve Job's second company, for over 6 years from 1989 to 1995, and I used this computer every day.
I also got a charge seeing a Cray computer! I interned at Sandia National Labs in the summer of 1980, when I was a student at U.C. Berkeley. I wrote modeling software (in Fortran 77) and ran my code on the lab's Cray computers!
An original flight simulator
Possibly my favorite exhibit in the whole museum! An automated piano and violin player! They had one like this on the Titanic

I recorded the tune that they played for us:

After our tour, many of us had lunch in the museum's cafe (cash only). After that, some visited the gift shop, or went back to see more of the museum, or left to see other sites, such as the nearby palace, or headed for the airport. I visited the gift shop, then left for the fabric stores, and another visit to Ludwig Beck.

---

Google Munich

How can I document a visit to Munich without mentioning the Google office?

Over a year ago the Munich office moved from the Marienplatz to it's current location, a few subway stops away. The powers that be chose the Munich office to host Dart Summit 2016. (The last summit was held in San Francisco, a hardship for our European developers, so we mixed it up a bit.)

My event, if you can call it "my event", was a code lab held on Tuesday night, before the summit started. I wrote two of the three code labs featured that evening, though I finished one several months ago, and the other one on the day of the event. Things were changing right up to the last minute—it "landed hot", as they say.

It keeps things exciting.

The code lab event.
Coding, food, beer, and socializing with other developers. It was a festive evening.
Sampling the beer
Yes, the Munich office brews it's own beer! The back of the label says, "Don't drink and code." HA! Folks were doing both that evening!

---

Other random office pics:

The office barrista serves lattes in glasses
At lunch, these teeny tiny cherry tomatoes were filled with a delicious avocado puree of some kind. I could have probably stuffed all of these in my mouth at once, but I didn't. I did eat two of them, though. ;)
Breakfast features a pretzel tree!
The lobby has candies with the company name worked in
This is not actually a knitting room. It's a conference room named the Knitting Room
The Rostfrei paper scissors at the office feature a finger notch.
Handy for those with larger hands!

---

On the last night, we had a team dinner at Augustiner Keller, walking distance from our hotel. They brew their beers locally and I, who dislikes beer, was encouraged to try it. I did. Not a fan. (Though it was less awful than other beers I've tried.)
The Augustiner Keller restaurant had far too many animal heads for my liking! (Though some were brass.)

---

So, that's it for Munich! I've been in Paris for one full day now and it's lovely here! Margy and I have been exploring the city on our own. We meet up with the Tiltons in a few days!

As a farewell, just one last pic from Munich!

I saw lots of dirndls for sale in Munich, but I never saw one being worn! Maybe it's only for Oktoberfest?