(Continued)
So we've now left the Welt, and just as we pull outside it begins to lightly rain. It also happens to be about 5pm (delivery was at 3:30.....what an efficiently run operation. Truly) and right smack in the middle of rush hour.
If there was one thing I will have learned from this trip (and I have learned many things), it would be to NOT have your delivery at 3PM or so. I had read this before, but due to our flight arrival time and wanting to see the 11:45 factory tour, I chose to ignore this. It was a mistake. Especially if this is your first time driving in Germany, or Europe.
Don't get me wrong, driving in Germany is fairly intuitive, laws are not that much different (on the face of it) than that of the States. No turn on red (unless indicated)...ect. But it was the first time I had the M, and suddenly it's raining and packed with rush hour traffic. To make matters worse, the GPS takes several minutes before changing it's location....catching the satellites (the car still thought it was in Regensburg), so I was kind of a fish out of water for a few minutes. Our hotel was in old Munich, right by the Marienplatz, around the corner from the Hofbrauhaus, so the trip should have taken roughly 20 minutes. Not today....more like 50 minutes to an hour. Just crawled. I think mileage wise, it's only about 5 or 6 miles tops....but that didn't matter. Just a layer of stress I hadn't been anticipating.
Our hotel, The Platzl, was amazing in almost all respects. The staff were extremely friendly...to the point that they were asking about our delivery, asking what car it was, and actually leaving their desk to go out and look at it. Germans have a funny way where they ask you "What car?" and I say "M3" and they give this little wry smile and say "Oh, that's pretty good. Not bad." But they're smiling as they say it....it's this little sarcastic joke they have, lol. It wasn't just this one, but I had about 4 or 5 Germans say the same thing..."Oh that's not bad" as they're laughing. They gave us Champagne on the house, a little German nut and cheese plate in the room, little bmw miniature cars on the bed that we took back to the kids, and a breakfast that was through the roof good. Oh and did I say they were right around the corner from the Hofbrauhaus? Yeah. I would HIGHLY recommend this hotel.
However, I did say they were amazing in "almost all respects". The one thing that was a huge amount of stress was the parking. It's an underground garage, but being in old munich, it's MUCH smaller than a normal garage. There is a steep decline and a very sharp narrow right hand turn (2 of them) as you descend. After navigating Munich rush hour, having to suddenly deal with this was bad. I don't have cams on my car and i'm still getting accustomed to it's feel and this wasn't good. It was an EASY way to curb your wheels or definitely scrape your brand new paint.
However, the staff knew I was there on an ED (as previously mentioned) and brought 2 people down into the garage to guide me every single step of the way. With a lot of slow and deliberate movement and guidance, they brought me to a safe spot where I was secure for the rest of the night. Even better, staff members were there the following morning at checkout to guide me back out.
Customer service second to none!
Following the stress of driving rush hour and the parking debacle, we went down to the hotel bar for a glass of champagne on the house before heading out to Hofbrauhaus for food and several LARGE beers. We stumbled back to the hotel feeling quite happy
An item of note after 5 days of dining in Germany. Germans LOVE to dine out but their dining culture I found to be different from what we experience in the United States. For example, you seat yourself. If you go into a restaurant expecting there to be a hostess waiting to seat you, you'll be waiting there a LONG time. At most, you can have reservations and then you can go find someone who acts like a host of sorts (but is usually walking around, not standing at the entrance) and he'll point you towards where your reserved table (usually a placard with your name on it) is most likely. Otherwise, if no reservations, you find a table and sit down. They'll most definitely let you know if you can't sit there....lol. I witnessed that more than a few times
Additionally, the Germans are very relaxed about their dining, which is almost a bit of a contradiction, as rarely have I found the German people to be very relaxed as a whole. They are prompt, efficient and at times impatient...so their relaxed attitude of dining seems to be a bit at odds with this. Just my perception. But the point is, in the United States people expect that when they are clearly done eating that the waitress will bring the check. Just not the case here. You sit and you sit and you sit some more....they will ask you if you need anything else, but if you say no, you'll simply sit some more
You need to actually ASK for the check..."Die Rechnung bitte" works well.....they are very prompt when you ask for it. But you'll sit there for a LONG time if you don't ask.
Additionally, when it comes to language....it goes a long way with some wait staff if you attempt to speak a little German. In the bier gartens, it's actually fairly easy. "zwei bier bitte, dunkel" "danke schoen" "vielen dank" "bitte schoen" and attempting to order by reading in German. I can't speak German, but did take 3 years of it in high school, so when I was at Hofbrauhaus and Augustiner I could communicate in "bar speak" fairly well, and the waiter stopped trying to speak in English (although he could if he needed to) and just helped me with German. He appreciated it. I did notice wait staff sometimes seem slightly put out, at times, with Americans that just spoke english 100% of the time. Like saying "thank you" instead of the easy "Danke". Again, just MY perception.
Oh, and 19% tip is included with the check...but it's good to add a few more Euro if the service was exceptional. We always did.
Day 2: Dachau/Hohenschwangau/Neuschwanstein to be continued tomorrow!
