A Taste of Europe

Last week I was wandering the old cobblestone streets of Bavaria. Between Munich and Salzburg and everything in between, I was able to catch of glimpse of life for these bustling European towns - whether through gleaning information through its history, experiencing the culture, learning more of its position in music, eating extremely calorie-filled pastries (and thoroughly enjoying them!), watching business in motion or just observing people in their everyday lives, I had seven full days in Central Europe - with my family of 20.

We did almost as much as any group could do in the time that we were there, but one of the things that stands out to me that took my MBA studies and brought it into real life was walking through the BMW plant in Munich. Due to competitive intelligence, no pictures were allowed on the inside, but what I saw took accounting principles into action, brought management to life, and even touched on the concept of "going green."

The first part of this two hour tour with a distance of over 1.25 miles within the plant begins with viewing the blocks of metal and then watching all sorts of robotic engineering inventions start to form the vehicles. I could have watched just this one area for at least one hour. I felt like all those movies that deal with robots may have gotten their ideas from watching something like this. Incredible! Throughout the tour, I learned interesting facts, such as BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works, it takes 40 hours to produce a car (11 of these hours spent just getting painted), a car is ready for sale every minute on the plant, over the time period of one year and when considering all of the other locations where BMW makes vehicles, less than one ton of waste is produced.

I found the cities of Munich and Salzburg to have a reverence for their histories as well. Many buildings we explored had been demolished during World War II, but in an effort to restore life as normal, these buildings were reconstructed as they had once been. The area was not taken to construct something new and it was not used to create a modern development. Throughout the centuries, churches or cathedrals which had existed prior to the medieval period are still standing today.

Some of the structures are more recent than other. For example we explored Neuschwanstein, which by other European standards may be considered new as it is only around 200 years old. We also explored features underground as we experienced an Austrian salt mine near the town of Hallein. Before this adventure which required the wearing of large baggy pants and a frumpy top, I had only visited gold mines or coal mines. My perception of any mine being the same was crushed as my family delved into the land beneath the border of Austria and Germany, used salt mine slides, and developed an understanding of how salt had been used to expand cities.

Not too be outdone by all of the history and adventures experienced, we also caught of glimpse of the life of music within Salzburg through a Mozart and Advent concert we enjoyed at the top of the city as well as touring Mozart's Residence.

There's nothing like experiencing history when you get to see and experience it yourself. As I prepare for finals, it's nice to glance through my pictures and remember the warmth of hot apple cider on snow-covered cobblestone roads lined with Christmas trees among centuries-of-old architecture.