Munich Travelogue - The joy of finding your way

This is the first time I am traveling to a country alone, for an international workshop and conference. I got a chance to present my paper in the international workshop in Munich, Germany. I was not sure of how much value would it be to attend this workshop, but I wanted to experience how international workshops and conferences are! Also, my husband Sriram motivated me to attend it and give a try. So I decided to fly alone and try couchsurfing for both reasons of cost savings & new experience that I can try when I am alone! A short travelogue about my first solo trip.

About couch surfing
Johanne from Denmark living in Munich hosted me at a short notice. My loads of thanks to her for trusting me, because I just registered to couch surfing community few hours before sending a request to her.I later came to know that people hosts only those who have good references or reviews. So I was fortunate to get my first quick request accepted. Her room was very close to city centre and she was very friendly. She briefed me about sights and gave a city map & public transport map which helped me not getting lost (or actually finding way back after being lost). I realized that I could not mingle well with her lifestyle, because I don't drink beer & don't smoke! Neither I could give her company nor I enjoyed being in a bar for long hours. Nevertheless I enjoyed talking to her. My first couch surfing experience is truly memorable.

About Munich
Wooho!!! Munich is such a lively city. When I landed late night, sub-urban & underground trains were packed with people and most of the people were friendly and approachable. Almost all the people I asked for help could talk in English. The city's public transport with sub-urban, metro, tram and bus is planned so well, that one could easily & quickly travel around.There are quite good number of churches & museums as with other European cities.

River Isar is a good one to pay some nature time and enjoy its flow. Europe's largest inland garden is located in Munich and is called English garden. It hosted landmarks named Chinese towers & Japanese tea house - strange isn't it? Munich hosts a favorite landmark sight for car lovers - the BMW welt & museum. I got to know that BMW expands to Bavarian Motor Works as its base is from Bavaria region whose capital is Munich.  I personally don't have an interest towards cars, but paid a visit for my son and husband. He had been asking some curious questions and thought would get it cleared there :-)

BMW employee explaining why racing cars have rudders in back & front!

One of his questions was "Why racing cars have a plate in the back above the back door?". I thought initially that its just a design for style. But the BMW employee explained that it is for a purpose-  that the speed of racing car could make it fly above road and these plates (called rudders) make the car push down and keep it running on the road! Lot to learn from kids questions!
 
Olympia park & stadium is close by to BMW museum and may be okay to visit as well. I did not find anything new there though. If you like museums visits then keep it on Sundays for many of them offered 1€ entry charge. I got two full days to roam around. On one day covered most places in city center by walk and opted other day to explore distant places by underground train. I initially dreamed of visiting Alps (Bavarian Alps) and Austrian country side which are near to Munich. but kept them for our next family trip.

Traveling alone

I have to say that I did enjoy traveling alone - walked for hours, getting lost, took some risks, survived eating fruits & bread and experienced solitude. Route maps remained my best company throughout the trip. Whenever I reached a place by guessing a route without asking anyone, I patted myself as a good map reader. Indeed map reading is a joy and wonderful experience. But I truly missed the company of my loving husband & son. It would have been an entirely different itinerary & trip, if they would have accompanied me. This time when I am alone, I took advantage of the ample time to reflect more about the trip experience - things I saw, I learned, I liked, I didn't like, my dreams & aspirations and spent time on penning them down as well (yes, including this blog post). And did some sketches.

And never to forget, about my actual purpose of visit - the workshop & conference, which is the next section.

Workshop/Conference
Sadly, the workshop was not professional as I expected. In fact, I have to say that it was organized poorly. Someone reading till this, would leave a smirk smile, when I say paid myself for a trip to an international workshop with 5 participants - yes, I am not wrong, it had only 5 people! To be honest, I was disappointed initially, but cheered myself that I should not be a victim of a poorly organized workshop, but have to take advantage of it. Saying so, I participated actively in other participant's projects which were similar to mine & gained some important points to be applied further in my work. Worth mentioning learning points that are reinforced are,

• Choose to address one problem at a time
• Prototype & test it. A smaller sample of user base is perfectly okay
• Determine what kind of analysis will be done on user testing & how results will be interpreted. Employ user testing methods accordingly.
• Every single thing in the world is evolving; nothing is perfect & every effort of yours is worth a try!
• You can always work on your interests, as a hobby. But if you want to make it as a living, you need to know how you sell your interest. 

With these interesting experiences & learning's, my trip to Munich is ever memorable. Its good to have a solitude trip alone once in a while to get to understand & talk to yourselves! Know thyself better!