Day 5

Flying back home today. Some random facts, observations and lessons learned:

MUC is a pretty nice airport. Lufthansa has this Senator Café in addition to the usual lounges. The Senator Café is excellent; serviced bar + nice food, such as freshly squeezed juice, pickled herring, and cherry mousse.

FRA, in contrast, is a pretty horrible airport. To access the lounge located in the same terminal as my flight, I have to go through *2* security check points and walk over 20 minutes (and I walk very fast). Could anyone tell me why they want to put multiple security check points within the same terminal? If it were the summer season with more travelers I might have missed my flight.

Germany (at least Munich) is surprisingly vegetarian friendly. Some restaurants even have separate menu sections for "vegetarisch" (the only German word I learned). There is even a posh vegan restaurant in Munich. Myth buster: Germans do eat veggies other than potatoes and sauerkraut.

While chatting happily with my neighbor about the best coach class seats we got, I was moved to the business class. It is kind of unusual, as I did not ask for upgrade, the flight is not full, and my booking class is Q. What kind of algorithms do the airlines use for upgrading (and more interestingly, pricing)?

Day 4

The jetlag finally got on me, and I would not have woken up on time had I not set the alarm clock. It is ironic, as today is the only day that I have to wake up for my morning presentation.


(U-Bahn Marientplaz station that I switched from S-Bahn to U6 to TUM. I like this station because it is very large and well decorated.)

The presentation with Sylvain went pretty well. Even though I did not practice, I got the timing about right.


(Sylvain talking. To avoid disturbing him I turned off flash of my cell phone camera; this seems to increase motion blur due to longer exposure time.)


(Sylvain talking, viewed from high up)

The dinner party will take place in, guess what, the "booze house" that I photographed a few days ago. I checked the menu to make sure there are things other than potato and sauerkraut that I could eat.


(Hofbrauhaus, i.e. the booze house)


(U6 from TUM to Marienplatz, a rare sunny day in Munich)


(Marienplatz in sunny afternoon)


(Marienplatz in sunny afternoon)


(The dinner party)

Day 3

I finally finished a reasonable draft of slides for my talk tomorrow. I also did a quick check of the room that I am going to use; it is the kind of ancient European-style lecture hall with cascading rows of chairs so that the lecturer is essentially at the bottom of a tiny coliseum. Very interesting configuration. I will see how the effect is tomorrow.

I also attended a session for the first (and probably the last) time of a half-hour fast-forward for short papers.

For dinner, I went to Prinz Myshkin. It is claimed to be the best vegetarian restaurant in town, so of course I will have to check it out. Overall, the décor is excellent and I saw several of “the kind of chicks with blonde hair + white skin + long figure + luxury clothing that you would expect to see in either a German fairy tale or a posh vegetarian restaurant”.


(Prinz Myshkin)

For food, I ordered “Sojamedallions”, described as “In a deliciously creamy mushroom sauce, served with fresh arugola spätzle (german noodle speciality)”. In plain English, it is mushroom sauce over fake meat and irregular lumped shaped noodles.
The food tastes quite good, but a bit pricy, even compared with “Pure Lotus” in Beijing, one of the poshest vegetarian restaurants that I have visited. The service is also a bit slow; obviously the waitresses have too much to deal with.


(Sojamedallions)


(Spanish Fruit House in Marienplatz)


(Marienplatz at night)