 1 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Today we planned to see a few things in Munich and then spend the evening with Rolf & Maria. We caught the BoB train to the Hbf and then joined the suburban subway system. No ticket barriers here, you are expected to do the right thing. |
 2 Saturday 3 July, 2010 When you use European public transport, it reaffirms just how appalling our own system is. |
 3 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Inside it is clean, free of graffiti and there are no government bullies with badges. Plus, it runs to time. |
 4 Saturday 3 July, 2010 We take an S-Bahn train to Rosenheimer station where we alighted. Nearby was a nice restaurant and we had breakfast there. My reason for coming here was to see the site of the Bürgerbräukeller, the beerhall in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. It no longer exists and is now a Hilton hotel. |
 5 Saturday 3 July, 2010 All that remains of the beerhall is a bronze plaque commemorating the efforts of George Elser to kill Hitler. On November 8th 1939, the anniversary of the putsch, Elser's bomb exploded exactly as planned but Hitler had left the room 13 minutes earlier. Eight people died, sixty-three were injured and Elser's plot to assassinate Hitler had failed. |
 6 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Elser was arrested by chance about 35 minutes before the bomb exploded when he tried to cross the border into Switzerland. Elser was transferred to Munich where the Gestapo interrogated him. Elser denied any involvement in the explosion but the evidence became increasingly clear. As he was a terrorist, he was tortured and sent to Guantanamo at Dachau. |
 7 Saturday 3 July, 2010 On Hitler's orders, the Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp shot and killed Elser at Dachau just a few weeks before the end of the war. The plaque is a few steps from this water feature in the courtyard of the Hilton. |
 8 Saturday 3 July, 2010 When Dean lived in Germany he was employed by Arri, a maker of high quality cameras for the movie industry. |
 9 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Using the same logic as lefty loonies, "More roads encourage more cars", more bicycle paths encourage more bicycles. This is obviously a bad thing. |
 10 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Two people sunbath by the Isar as it trickles through Munich. |
 11 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The Deutsches Museum is on an island overlooking the Isar. The island was regularly flooded prior to the building of the Sylvenstein dam (that creates the Sylvensteinsee) in 1954. |
 12 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The Deutsches Museum is the world's largest museum of technology and science. It has approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. |
 13 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Just inside the main entrance is the the fishing vessel "Maria". This vessel was built in 1880 for use in the North Sea and marks the end of an era: that of commercial sailing ships |
 14 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The technical toys section LEGO and fischertechnik have a fascinating display of working models. These machines can be seen through the door. |
 15 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The technical toys section The "metal construction" display includes vehicles of all kinds, cranes, excavators, a Ferris wheel and an aeroplane made of classic Meccano pieces. |
 16 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Paper This is an early press used for producing paper. |
 17 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Paper The French Fourdrinier paper making machine (circa 1820) is the world's oldest existing paper machine. It has the headbox, endless wire and press section which are the same elements found in modern paper machines. |
 18 Saturday 3 July, 2010 I visit the technical things that interest me while Jenni looks at art and glasswork. |
 19 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Printing technology Between about 1440 and 1450, Johannes Gensfleisch Gutenberg invented letterpress printing, a method of duplicating large numbers of identical prints at low cost. |
 20 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Printing technology This was the breakthrough that made books accessible to a larger audience, accounted for the rise of newspapers and periodicals and generally brought about a much wider dissemination of the written word than ever before. No other invention has exercised such a great influence on civilization and society. |
 21 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 22 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 23 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 24 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 25 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 26 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 27 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 28 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Glass technology |
 29 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Propulsion systems and launch vehicles - Rockets I did not have the time to look at this exhibit in any depth. Next time, September 2012, I will see this properly. The Satellites exhibit is opposite. |
 30 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Computer science There is an NCR 286 PC made in Augsburg in this exhibit and that is it. NCR never outgrew its small-town thinking as a manufacturer and a follower of trends. |
 31 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Computer science These are the kinds of mechanical computers I used to work on when I first joined NCR in 1959. |
 32 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Computer science This is the UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I). It was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. The first UNIVAC was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31, 1951. |
 33 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Computer science The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history. |
 34 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Computer science the IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family sold between 1964 and 1978. NCR also made mainframes during the same era. A little later, NCR adopted a strategy of cost cutting and is now a $2.2 billion company. IBM became a services company and in 2011 was valued at $200 billion. |
 35 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Foucault’s Pendulum A freely swinging 30kg lead ball on a 60m long steel wire is anchored to the pinnacle of the tower of the Deutsches Museum. |
 36 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Foucault’s Pendulum French physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault established the earth’s rotation in a demonstration of his pendulum in Paris in 1851. To the observer, the plane of oscillation of the pendulum appears to turn slowly but the change is actually caused by the rotation of the earth. |
 37 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Foucault’s Pendulum At either the North Pole or South Pole the pendulum takes one sidereal day to complete a rotation: clockwise at the North Pole and counterclockwise at the South Pole. At the equator it remains fixed. |
 38 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Foucault’s Pendulum The tower from which the pendulum swings |
 39 Saturday 3 July, 2010 This is the future technologies section. I walk down the stairs to the German Future Prize exhibit. |
 40 Saturday 3 July, 2010 German Future Prize This prize is awarded every year by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany for technological developments and innovations that lead to commercially viable products. The exhibition tells the story of 10 award winning projects – from mp3 technology and piezo injectors to smart sensors for consumer electronics. |
 41 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Aeronautics hall I did this aero section in depth last year with Dennis and Claus. I spent no time here during this visit. |
 42 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Power engines This is a display of historic internal combustion engines. |
 43 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Power engines This is a cutaway of an early radial flow jet engine, a Rolls Royce Turbojet Nene 103 from 1955 |
 44 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Power engines This is the connecting rod of a huge I.C. engine. It is quite different to smaller engines because the upper connecting rod stays vertical during its stroke. A diagram on the wall shows how it works. Briefly: by keeping the rod vertical, the top of the rod can be sealed from the bottom of the rod. This then allows turbocharged air to enter the top section through a port and for the engine to run as a two-stroke. An exhaust valve opens and the compressed air evacuates the spent exhaust gases (rather than the piston upstroke evacuating the gases) |
 45 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Metals - Scythe forge and the Siegerland blast furnace The scythe forge is used to shape and strengthen, a process called forging. Circa 1800 the hammer was driven by a waterwheel. The smith's seat is suspended from the rafters to reduce the effects of the vibrations from the hammer blows. |
 46 Saturday 3 July, 2010 I think this may be a beam engine used to pump water out of mines. |
 47 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Museum tower The tower is the symbol of the Deutsches Museum and it can be seen from afar. The façade elements of a barometer, thermometer, hygrometer and anemometer represent the tower's theme: the weather. |
 48 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Sundial garden twenty-one sundials have been erected next to each other, with each sundial functioning according to a different principle. |
 49 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Sundial garden - Polyhedron with 25 different sundials The sundials indicate local solar time, universal time, the counting of hours in Italy and Babylon. The surfaces are calculated for the terrestrial latitude and longitude of the Deutsches Museums (latitude at 48° 07' 50" N/longitude at 11° 35' 00" E). It has 7 hour angles for universal time, 5 sundials that indicate Babylonian and Italian hours, and 10 sundials for real local time. At any one point in time, the sun strikes at least 6 surfaces |
 50 Saturday 3 July, 2010 This is the Isar on the other side of the island on which the Deutsches Museum is located. |
 51 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Our intention now was to visit the BMW museum. We caught an S-Bahn train back one station to Marienplatz intending to catch a U-Bahn train to the museum but it was not to be. Today Germany played Argentina and there were soccer fans everywhere. The trains were crowded with them, yelling, singing, blowing horns and generally having a great time. A train came in and it was way too crowded to get on. |
 52 Saturday 3 July, 2010 So we went back to Wackersberg, had a rest and then drove to Neufahrn to meet the Beibls. In the meantime Germany had beaten Argentina 4-0 and there was wild euphoria everywhere. Cars had kids hanging out the doors and through the roofs blowing cow horns, tooting and yelling, and waving German flags. They had the main street through Bad Tölz blocked as they stopped and celebrated. |
 53 Saturday 3 July, 2010 From Neufahrn, Rolf drove our car to the Sonnwendfeier. This celebration is normally held on 21st June to celebrate the summer solstice but it had rained so much on the 21st, that they had to postpone the event for two weeks. |
 54 Saturday 3 July, 2010 It was held in a cleared field in a tiny little village called Kleindingharting. |
 55 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Sonnwend feier = midsummer fire. |
 56 Saturday 3 July, 2010 At the top of the field the town’s Bavarian Orchestra was playing and all of the band members were dressed in traditional Bavarian lederhosen. |
 57 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Down beyond the seating area was an open area and then a roped-off area in which a huge bonfire stood waiting to be set alight. |
 58 Saturday 3 July, 2010 We got there at about 7:15 and there was still another three hours of daylight and dusk before complete darkness when the bonfire could be lit. |
 59 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Off to one side was the food preparation area and thousands of litres of beer. In front of the band were four rows of around 40 tables per row. |
 60 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Jenni had Sterkelfeisch, stick fish, which is a Mackerel from the lakes of Bavaria. |
 61 Saturday 3 July, 2010 It comes with its head on but you do not have to eat it. |
 62 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The Biebl’s daughter Sabine and her boyfriend Timo joined us a short time later. Then they were joined by friends of theirs who all spoke perfect English as well. |
 63 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Then if I remember correctly, Maria got fresh with Rolf. |
 64 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Which he of course resisted valiantly. |
 65 Saturday 3 July, 2010 |
 66 Saturday 3 July, 2010 |
 67 Saturday 3 July, 2010 One of Timo and Sabine's friends had spent six months in Sydney, had worked at Botany and lived at Drummoyne. He knew where Hornsby was so he had a good picture of where we lived |
 68 Saturday 3 July, 2010 And the band played on. What was incredible for us is that this whole experience was a genuine Bavarian festival for genuine Bavarians. It was not like the Octoberfest beer swilling contest in Munich. |
 69 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Maria and Sabine, mother and daughter. Sabine is Dani Barrett's half-sister. |
 70 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The time passed quickly and dusk arrived. |
 71 Saturday 3 July, 2010 When it was fully dark, the bonfire was set alight. People, including us, left their tables to move in closer to the fire. No one went inside the roped-off area and everything went well. |
 72 Saturday 3 July, 2010 There was a fire truck standing by and when the fire was started, the brigades were standing by with extinguishers. |
 73 Saturday 3 July, 2010 The bonfire was huge and it burned for a long time before it started to collapse in on itself. |
 74 Saturday 3 July, 2010 We had perfect weather and for us it was a unique slice of Bavarian lifestyle that we tasted with great enjoyment. |
 75 Saturday 3 July, 2010 After the fire had mostly burnt itself out we returned to our table and Rolf announced, “We go”. |
 76 Saturday 3 July, 2010 Rolf drove back and I'm glad he did. It was now the blackest of nights, no street lighting on the country roads and bicyle riders dressed in dark clothes with no lights on their bicycles. It was scary Next stop: Our last day in Bavaria |
