From Cold to Colder – A Culture Rich Business Trip to Munich and Toulouse

Off to Europe again, business meetings in Munich. Our Monday morning departure on UA 194 was 2 1/2 hours late. Communication at the gate wasn’t good, it was nice to see how they tried to accommodate “known” missed connections in San Francisco already. When our plane got pulled in, savvy travelers at the gate were joking “that must be one dirty plane” when we were told that they are now servicing it. Per app information, it had been on the ground at least since last night …

Kudos to purser Chris who in his thoughtful message explained what happened – SFO had shut down for 90 minutes due to heavy rain and lightning. Planes were landing but not serviced. Ok. It would have been nice to have known this and enjoy more of the Polaris lounge as my upgrade had cleared early. Oh well.

The Bay Area was cold, snow last Friday. Munich was colder. Good thing that I had packed accordingly. UA 194 came in 2 h late on Tuesday, so it made up some time and the Maritim in the city center let me check in early. Nice. I got about six hours of work in before my evening engagement, the fist cultural bit.

“This is The Greatest Show” at the “Deutsches Theater” well exceeded my expectations. I’ll try to do a dedicated Blog on it.

The show was a collage of musical hits – the majority from German productions like from the longest running original German-language musical “Elisabeth,” now in its 30th year. Jan Ammann, Andreas Bieber, Maya Hakvoort, Drew Sarich and Michaela Schober – five of the biggest musical stars in Germany and Austria – led the cast.

What a fun evening!

Wednesday started early and ended late filled with business activities. The Restauraunt Vinothek by Geiser was worth mentioning though – amazing food and great wine collection!

Thursday morning. Gorgeous winter day with blue skies all around. And Munich’s public train system is on strike. No tram. No bus. No response from FreeNow, the German version to combat Uber. I walked up to the main rain station and German’s apparently don’t do lines. It is a free for all to get the next taxi. Fun.