[Mark's M]

Hello all, finally went to Munich to pick up the car and head out for my 8 day roadtrip "over there". I kept a running diary of what was great and not so great and it's ended up being a long blog....but interesting if you'd care to know about the perks....and the perils of Euro Delivery. On the ED forum in Bimmerfest, the info is all wonderful but that's just the problem....it's ALL wonderful (well except for a couple of recent reports submitted by Bimmerfest members, eg. alefcole who experienced a H&R in a parking lot). And for people who are fanatic about their cars (clean, polished, ding/dent free, etc, etc particularly when they are brand new), well the truth is that ED might just cause you ED of another nature!!

Forgive some of the language that's coming up.....there was no other way to express some of the frustrations. Hopefully the pics and the humour make up for it. So here's the story of the M3 that became an Individual after 14 months of planning and fulfulling the dream of owning one. We'll fast forward to:

May 8th:

Departure day, got up and went to the BBC website to get updates on the Volcano which had been causing everyone grief. Great news that morning....airports in Spain and Southern France had been shut down and travel was being disrupted or lengthened and further info wasn't available yet. Stupid f'n volcano. But I went to the airport anyways, I was tired of having to think of cancellation. Similarly my M Div rep was tired of my whining about Volvcano issues and she challenged me with the "no risk, no fun" line in her last e-mail to me a few days earlier. I don't back down on challenges like that!!

Flew on Jet Airways (an Indian airline if you can access their service). Wow, are they ever good. And cheap. Their "Premiere Class" was $2300 Cdn return (Toronto to Munich) and you get a BED for your seat. Equivalent costs for crappy Air Canada would have been around $6000. Service and food was just excellent. Friendliest flight attendants I've ever experienced. And the opportunity to sleep properly was worth the money. Anyways, flying this strange new airline was a part of the adventure and it was definately one of the perks. Only thing with Jet Airways is their hub is Brussels so you can't do a direct flight. No problem I thought. But the ash cloud that night added an extra 1.5 hours to our flight time and I missed my Lufthansa connection the next morning. So a couple extra hours were in order until Lufthansa could get me on to another flight. Good news out of this was that Rolf - Bimmerfest's famous Munich transportation guy who taxis ED customers to and from the Welt and the airport- was now free to pick me up.

Ended up in my hotel by 1:00 PM on the 9th of May. Stayed at the Four Points Sheraton beside the Olympiapark complex ('72 Munich Olympics) and while not the prettiest hotel in the world, man was it ever convenient. 5 minutes walk to the Ubahn subway which will take you into downtown Munich in 4 stops. 5 minutes walk to BMW Welt, their museum and factory and 10 seconds walk to a pedestrian mall at the back of the hotel where there were bakeries, deli's, restaurants, liquor (thank God) and everything you'd ever need to do Europe on the cheap if you didn't want to have to pay for fancy restaurants all the time. Another perk. And the staff were just great.

Had a couple of drinks after check-in and then wandered over to the Welt for a quick look. You've all seen pics, what a fantastic facility. I wandered through real quickly 'cause I didn't want to spoil the delivery experience next day. Took one neat pic against the glass wall of the Welt which refected the BMW Museum and the BMW "4 pistons" corporate tower. Wandered around for another couple hours sightseeing, had some deli food for supper followed by a few drinks (OK, 5 drinks) and off to bed. A pretty good day!