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Vroom! Vroom! BMW
Today we had the opportunity to join the high school students and tour the BMW (Barvarian Motor Work
s) production plant located in the outskirts of Regensburg. After 2 1/2 hours I was totally amazed and impressed by all that we saw. Due to some privacy law, we were not allowed to take pictures and that is REALLY too bad, because I could have shown you some incredible things! With approximately 900 robots working in the plant, I felt like I was in a scene from Transformers! I just stood there, totally in a trance watching those robots work. We began our tour in the Press Shop, where metal plates are stamped to form the body components. Then to the Body Shop, where all of the approx. 700 panels and metal components are welded together to form the body. Next up was Paintwork... there are 5 different coats of paint products that are baked onto each car. Last we visited the Assembly department. Here the body is transformed in about 1
00 steps into a ready-made BMW. Each of the areas we visited was enormous! It was not only the level we walked through, there were 2 or 3 more floors above us! This plant kicks out more than 1,000 cars A DAY! I'll take mine in purple, please... We left the plant to head to Goethe High School again. We had been requested for a encore performance... Herr Biermeier's 5th grade English class was just dying for us to come and meet them. Every day they were asking their teacher, "When are they coming? Are they coming TODAY?" So we arrived, and waited until their previous class had ended, and as we were standing outside the door, a couple of students caught sight of us. One of the boys who spied us, his eyes lit up like he had just seen Santa Claus! It was so cute! Then a couple of others saw us, and the kids were running to the door peeking out at us. We finally entered the class, and the children bid us hello. They had all written out questions that they wanted to ask us, so after a short introduction of ourselves, we proceeded to answer them. They ranged from, "Do you like our school?" to "
Do you like Obama?" and everything in between... the hour went by very quickly and it was time to leave. As we were walking down the stairs towards the front door, one boy from the class came running up to me with a piece of notebook paper saying, "May I have your autograph, please?" Chuckling, I gave it to him. I felt like a celebrity! :) Then off to a beautiful biergarten in the park with Miriam. We sat in a partially sunny area, and I had my favorite meal again! Yes, I could probably eat it every day! Then we walked through the park back to the school where we had left the car. Home for a power nap, then blogging time! I have no photos today on the blog today, as Francisco has my cord so he can download some of his own photos... I will have them on tomorrow. Tonight is my "family" going away party, and it was absolu
tely a wonderful. Walter's mom came over to join in the fun. ´We had an amazing dinner, a special type called "Raclette ". Here is a picture of the gadget we used to cook with... it is kind of like a hot plate on top, with little individual trays below that you pull out, load up with whatever you want (meat, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onions, and always top it with cheese!) then you put it in the slot, and it cooks it for you! So delicious... Walter went out and specially bought my favorite beer for me... Weltenburg Koster Barock Dunkel... such a sweetie! All of this along with salad, potatoes, and bread. Yes, you had to roll me away from the table. We then watched some of Uli's DVD about the Special Olympics she attended in Bremen. It was incredible! I had no idea it was so well supported, and celebrated. Looked like a fabulous time. We had to cut the video short, because it was time for the Germany soccer match, and we didn't want to miss a minute! Germany won!!! and so did the USA!!! So BOTH of my teams get to move on to the next round... early night - I was in bed by 11 p.m.!!!
s) production plant located in the outskirts of Regensburg. After 2 1/2 hours I was totally amazed and impressed by all that we saw. Due to some privacy law, we were not allowed to take pictures and that is REALLY too bad, because I could have shown you some incredible things! With approximately 900 robots working in the plant, I felt like I was in a scene from Transformers! I just stood there, totally in a trance watching those robots work. We began our tour in the Press Shop, where metal plates are stamped to form the body components. Then to the Body Shop, where all of the approx. 700 panels and metal components are welded together to form the body. Next up was Paintwork... there are 5 different coats of paint products that are baked onto each car. Last we visited the Assembly department. Here the body is transformed in about 1
00 steps into a ready-made BMW. Each of the areas we visited was enormous! It was not only the level we walked through, there were 2 or 3 more floors above us! This plant kicks out more than 1,000 cars A DAY! I'll take mine in purple, please... We left the plant to head to Goethe High School again. We had been requested for a encore performance... Herr Biermeier's 5th grade English class was just dying for us to come and meet them. Every day they were asking their teacher, "When are they coming? Are they coming TODAY?" So we arrived, and waited until their previous class had ended, and as we were standing outside the door, a couple of students caught sight of us. One of the boys who spied us, his eyes lit up like he had just seen Santa Claus! It was so cute! Then a couple of others saw us, and the kids were running to the door peeking out at us. We finally entered the class, and the children bid us hello. They had all written out questions that they wanted to ask us, so after a short introduction of ourselves, we proceeded to answer them. They ranged from, "Do you like our school?" to "
Do you like Obama?" and everything in between... the hour went by very quickly and it was time to leave. As we were walking down the stairs towards the front door, one boy from the class came running up to me with a piece of notebook paper saying, "May I have your autograph, please?" Chuckling, I gave it to him. I felt like a celebrity! :) Then off to a beautiful biergarten in the park with Miriam. We sat in a partially sunny area, and I had my favorite meal again! Yes, I could probably eat it every day! Then we walked through the park back to the school where we had left the car. Home for a power nap, then blogging time! I have no photos today on the blog today, as Francisco has my cord so he can download some of his own photos... I will have them on tomorrow. Tonight is my "family" going away party, and it was absolu
tely a wonderful. Walter's mom came over to join in the fun. ´We had an amazing dinner, a special type called "Raclette ". Here is a picture of the gadget we used to cook with... it is kind of like a hot plate on top, with little individual trays below that you pull out, load up with whatever you want (meat, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, onions, and always top it with cheese!) then you put it in the slot, and it cooks it for you! So delicious... Walter went out and specially bought my favorite beer for me... Weltenburg Koster Barock Dunkel... such a sweetie! All of this along with salad, potatoes, and bread. Yes, you had to roll me away from the table. We then watched some of Uli's DVD about the Special Olympics she attended in Bremen. It was incredible! I had no idea it was so well supported, and celebrated. Looked like a fabulous time. We had to cut the video short, because it was time for the Germany soccer match, and we didn't want to miss a minute! Germany won!!! and so did the USA!!! So BOTH of my teams get to move on to the next round... early night - I was in bed by 11 p.m.!!!
Can you get one of those in your luggage?
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