Up in time this Friday morning to run a few sets of TaiChi.
Panic as an email from Booking.com telling me I’d missed a hotel last night. A phone call sorted that out. I had messed up on the booking.
Still, gives you a sense of how excited I am to be going to visit BMW 🙂
Downstairs to breakfast.
First parade for the bike.
As‎ I had used Google to checkout the route last night. Have till 11am to head out. Lots of time. In theory. Google is pretty good at identifying road works, etc. And I have double-checked the Google route against TomTom. What could possibly go wrong? hahahahaha
Am heading out at 10:30am 😉
Made the BMW plant with 15min to spare.Â
And met a Canadian couple from Vancouver, who also stay at Stefan’s in Heidelberg. Small world!
The tour was neat.
Got to see the 310……
And sit on it. Feels TINY. Seriously tiny.
Was amazing to see how many machines are there in the plant, doing the work.Â
Lots of QA. Seems weird. You would have thought machines were more reliable than people. But the QA is there because the machines don’t know how far off spec they are. Especially if deviation is within a six-sigma tolerance. But at 8,000rpm, even a tiny deviation can have a huge impact. So there are checks through-out the engine build.
The variety of bikes was impressive. The 1,200cc bikes and electric scooters were on the menu. But each was different, and built to order.
And finally, the cleanliness was outstanding. My father worked on the shop-floor. He came home impressed with the lubricating and cleaning fluids. There was barely a hint of those within the factory.
Afterwards I rode to Potsdam with the Canadian couple. They were staying there, but in a posh hotel. We separated as I headed off to my hotel.
Which TomTom nearly found.
A kind lady directed me to the hotel, which was just around the corner, from where TomTom thought it was.
Registered.
Parked.
Unpacked.
Set to work. have a presentation to prepare, for an AGM in 4 weeks time.
Got through most of it and it was time for supper….
Yup. A currywurst. Been meaning to get one for a while. It was OK.
And so to bed.
Awoke early Saturday morning. REALLY early. 3:30am!
Finished off the presentation.
Sent out some follow-up emails, and responses came in from Canada. The discussion continued.
Next thing I knew, it was 5am. No point in going to sleep now.
Did some banking.
Did my quarterly search on myself.Â
It’s always good to know what people will find. And how it varies across search engines.
Nice to say the son is taking over 🙂
And Bing seems to give a more european result than Google. Weird or what.
Breakfast.
First parade on the bike.
Checked out.
The Lili Marleen hotel was kind enough to charge me only the one night. Though due to my oversight, they could have charged me for two.
The single room was well organised. And though a trek via stairs from reception, was close to the lift and the secondary door.
Left on a sunny morning. Rode some 200km and gave the bike TLC.
I had a baguette, water and a nap.Â
Then zoom, zoom to my weekend hotel. Which aside from the last 15mins was in the dry. Was raining lightly on the autobahn, but turned heavy as I pulled into Braunschweig. Too close to dress up. But the rain stopped as I pulled up at my hotel.
Booked in.
Primo parking spot.
Single room, but with a couch in a seating area, as well as a desk.
Unpacked.
Then off to explore the city. Which I will tell about in my next post.
Cheers!
Prost!