This morning we had to get up pretty early– the goal was to be out of Berlin by 8:30. There was some unexpected difficulty getting the cars. I got in one with Zsolt, Sadia, Tofan, and Brian. We nicknamed it the Stealth Panther. We finally made it out of Berlin and to the H+DeM Library. The town it was in was really small, and super German. The library itself was really cool from the outside. It was clad entirely in screen printed glass and sand-blasted concrete slabs showing images depicting scientific and technological research. I did a rubbing of the concrete texture– it was really fun. The building’s interior wasn’t really special though. Apart from the deep blue carpet, it looked just like any other library I’ve ever been to. We stopped across the street to get pretzels for lunch, and then we kept driving to Leipzig. Going through Germany is really nice– all tall, skinny trees and windmills. In Leipzig we got out of the cars at the Zaha Hadid BMW factory. From the outside it looks a bit like a huge whale breaching the sea of asphalt surrounding it, but stepping inside is like stepping into a giant spaceship. It was absolutely awesome. This really put-together old man gave us a 4-hour long private tour of the factory and central building complex. We started by walking through the central offices– which have a glowing conveyor belt running through with unpainted car bodies illuminated by neon blue lights. Next we went into the welding factory to see the machines, then to the paint shop, then back to the factory to follow the painted bodies from start to finish. The BMW S-1 is an absolutely gorgeous machine, and getting to see the factory was even cooler than I had thought it would be. After the tour we were all in good spirits and continued on to Dessau and the Bauhaus. It was great– we were just driving down the street and there it was! We ate dinner at the cafe (really tasty pasta). The glasses and silverware were all Bauhaus design and awesome. We hung out there for a while and then got assigned to our rooms. I was with Courtney in Room 201. Not many young architects can say they’ve spent the night in Gropius’s Bauhaus dormitories. Our room was awesome, and we were on the side with the balconies. I stepped out onto ours and waved to Gabe nextdoor and Clay up on the 5th floor. There was only one shower-head for the floor, so we worked out a schedule. It was the most pleasant shower I’ve ever taken. The space is huge, but you’re entirely alone and free in it. Courtney and I proceeded to curl up with our amazingly cozy, slate-grey, fuzzy Bauhaus blankets to read for a little while before falling asleep.