Machinist Eurotour – part I

The 8 day tour started with a lot of commotion. Me and three mates were waiting for the journey in the typical Tuesday atmosphere – at a party at Štuk. At half past three we headed by bus towards Austria. There were about 40 machinists in the bus – all excited, with one representative of the gentler gender accompanying us. The adventure had begun!

 

After a few hours of sleep on the bus our first stop was the company Pöttinger in Austrian town Greiskirchen near Linz, where we had our first visit at an (too)early 8 o’clock. The company is top of the line in the field of farming technology and the three hour tour did not leave us cold. We learned many interesting things and some of more tired students (me included) closed the eyes for a while during the lecture, to get enough strengths for the rest of the trip. Next was the Styer some 60 kilometres away. My first impression was the clean floor you could eat off, after we entered the company. And I mean, eat soup of it! They are producing tractors and I found it interesting that each tractor is already sold when it goes to the assembly line. Afterwards we settled in the Münich hostel and went to see the city by night. After seeing the cultural part of the city we went for some entertainment. The pubs were full of male population and the only pub with the levelled out male and female population was guarded by security that only let in women. We returned to the hotel and paid 15€ for the taxi, realizing the driver was from Macedonia. We tried to explain to him where Novo Mesto was (he knew where it was, he was returning from Germany home on the motorway passing it – every time). Then we had a short nap. 

 

Next morning we though you should fight fire with fire, so we started off with the Paulaner beer, after the excursion of the Paulaner production line – which is a (you’ve guested it) brewery producing beer, for almost 300 years. As a small Bavarian women explained to us, the secred to good beer is good water and Paulaner uses the depths of a large underground lake from the ice-age.

 

Next day we went to Stuttgart, where we saw the Kärcher, which produces cleaning systems and equipment. They are known for their high pressure cleaners. First they were trying to place their brand name on the US market, but were not successful, so they bought traditional American brands and started selling their products under the American names and were an instant success. So now they are selling Kärcher in the US without Americans even knowing about it, but as long as nobody knows, nobody can care. The day was concluded in Stuttgart in one of the »alkoholfrei« hostels. We slicked to the no-alcohol rule (at least in the halls).

 

On the forth day we saw the Mercedes Benz museum. Already the architecture was astounding in the form of a double spiral. There are 160 classic cars in the museum – all the models produced by Marcedes since this day, from the first tot eh very latest, which we even got to test. At the entrance we got the remote device with a headset, which you only had to point at what you were interested in and you got the explanation. This was a sort of a guide. We’ve learned that one of the latest models the CLA was designed by the Slovenian designer Robert Lešnik, best known so far for his design for Volkswagen Passat. Apart from many photos I also brought home a souvenir egg with a model of SLK 250. After a rough four hour walk at the museum we had another four hours and the Porsche museum. The cars really are top notch and you could say, we came to the machinist Meka. There were 80 legendary models on display. At the end of the tour one can also buy a symbolic gift – a shaving set for only 500€.

 

 

After two museums we wanted to climb the tall tower: Wahrzeichen der Ingenieurbaukunst,from which you can see the city from a bird side view, but it was closed (the workers were on strike in order to keep the tower open for the general public). We got badges saying »Offen bleiben« and we all signed the petition hoping the strike was not in vain.

 

More to follow in the next issue of the Globetrotter!