4 days in Munich

debs/ November 18, 2017

Tourism posts are boring.

Every (western) city has the same building, per chance, with different architecture (Which we have already established that I don’t care about). Every city has some permutation of a transportation system. Every city has parks. Maybe some attraction that’s actually unique to the city, those are often over-crowded and swarming with tourists. In short, travelling to cities is pretty much my bane, but I would love for a chance to live in a non-Toronto city.

That said, this post is going to be one of those tourism posts. Slightly modified by the conference aspect, but mostly touristy none-the-less. Still, I feel like I need to give this leg of my trip some attention. After all, the conference is the reason I get to come here in the first place!

I promise, dear reader, this is the most boring post of the trip. Not necessarily because I was bored, far from it! I just don’t think it’ll be very interesting for you to read.

Enough dilly dallying, lads. Let us commence.


The Conference

The conference was so underwhelming. To be honest, I would have appreciated it must more in the middle of my masters as opposed to the end of it. The talks were no use to me especially because I have no intention of working in the field even if I stayed in academia (more on that in some other blog post). On the first day of the conference, I was completely tired from walking a little more than a half-marathon the day before.

I am flabbergasted that this leg of the trip was completely paid for given that I had a 10 minute talk at a bright-and-early 8AM session that only graced the ears of an audience of some 10 people (4 of which were presenting in the same section, 1 of which was the moderator, and the rest were probably there for the other presentations). I was asked two questions–almost out of mercy. I gratefully accepted them.

Other than my own presentation, the conference was essentially a network of different sub-specialties within the general lasers and photonics nerd-dom.  The academic conference was one half of the entire event.  The other half were indulgent displays of sexy new laser products and services, a commercial/industry trade show of sorts.  There was so much swag to be had.  Notice the “laser coloured” gelato that was offered by one of the vendors (featured image on this post).

When you’re not passionate about something you’re supposed to be passionate about, and you see people who are actually passionate about it, you just feel kind of guilty and mega-impostor.  I know impostor syndrome is real … but I get the impression people feel like an impostor about their competence only.  I feel like an impostor about competence and my intrinsic interest (or lack thereof).

The conference was life-changing in one way though.  Everyday they handed out “breze” (pretzels!) as one of the company’s promotion swag.  They reliably handed them out everyday. I took only what I needed for the day, like manna. (Except for the last day where I stashed some extra ones in my bag for hiking the next day, but I digress).  This habit got my addicted to breze.  I was craving them all the time and eventually graduated to buying my own.  Guys, the butter and chive breze is a must-try.


The Company

Another minor thing I resent (but don’t have the capacity regret because I would never do anything different about it) is that I am hopelessly unsocial: both within my lab during my 3 years there, and definitely antisocial in terms of meeting new people at conferences.  I know that in previous years, more people from my lab went to these conferences together and I get the impression they are really able to bond.  This year, it was me, one PhD student and my professor, a small group.  Ultimately, I think that worked out for the better, because getting really tight with my lab at this point is almost too little too late.  Furthermore, I really enjoyed the company of the one PhD student that did come and I found the time with my professor outside our usual Toronto context quite precious.

My professor encouraged us to skip a part of the conference to have some fun.  The most memorable part of the conference was when he took us to a quaint little town with a lake called, Starnberg. He treated us to gelato (aka THE WAY TO MY HEART), had cake and chilled at a cafe by the lake, and rented a paddle boat to explore the lake.  He taught us to paddle perpendicular to the waves sent by larger motor boats, and gave advice to the soon-to-be-graduating PhD student. Basically, the PhD student and myself did the back-breaking paddling, while the prof sat at the back and advised us–was this supposed to be a metaphor?

He was a great tour guide to have because he is German himself.  Some things we learned:

  • German speed limits are awesome.  Speed limit signs can get “cancelled” after which the speed limit is dictated by whatever you are comfortable with.  My professor really wanted to get to 200km/hr to show us (but couldn’t quite do it because our destination is a little too close to Munich!)
  • German engineering is awesome.  The train passes right beside the lake, yet never once we heard it.  My professor made it a point to draw attention to that fact.
  • German building code is awesome.  New building proposals need to be energy efficient to some ridiculously high standard.
  • German urban planning is awesome.  High rises are prohibited.  There is a limit to how high a building can be.  Somehow new buildings blend into the old rather seamlessly.
  • Germany is older than Toronto.  My professor is very observant about how the trees in the German parks are much larger than what we are used to in Toronto.
  • Italian gelato is awesome.  Germany is close enough to Italy to have awesome gelato.

He may or may not be biased.

So that was my company during the day…. by night these guys kept my company:

I found them on the bookshelf in my AirBnB room and swooned so hard.  Bonhoeffer!!! Fromm!!! … In their mother tongue!!!


The City

Munich itself is lovely.  I don’t want to say too much because everyone who’s been already knows and everyone else just sees some badly taken pictures.  My experience is obviously a little distorted because I was just in the conference center at the edge of town most of the day.  But I did get to go into the city center to explore after conference hours.

Pictured above: Chinese Tower (English Garden), Odeonsplatz, Nymphenburg Palace (inside), Nymphenburg Palace (garden).

On the south end of the English Garden is a HUGE standing wave that surfers make great use of.  Refer to the picture below: there are surfers lining up on either side of the river, waiting for their turn.  It’s absolutely memorizing watching these people surf.  I have a video to prove it, but they go on long enough that the file is too big for me to attach!

Some tips:

  • Outside of the conference, not many people spoke English.  (But everyone was sooo nice nonetheless.)
  • No one checks whether you bought a transportation ticket or not.  The level of “honor system” adherence is commendable.
  • Buy everything you need before 6pm.  Everything closes after that.
  • Buy everything you need for Sunday before 6pm on Saturday.  Everything is closed on Sundays.

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