Ok, that was more than one word. Today we got the car. Or as they say here, we collected it. It’s a really fun, if not drawn out experience. The factory, or as they say Porsche Werk Leipzig, is dominated by a structure they call the ‘Diamond’. Apparently the neighbors call it the Porsche UFO.

The sort-of ice cream cone structure is the customer center. Off to the right is the factory; off to the left is a race track. Behind the race track is a combination off-road test course and animal preserve. Anyway, the day went something like this:

• Arrive as instructed at 8am. (BTW, the Leipzig Marriott is great!)
• Learn that the day begins at 8:45am. Doh!
• Sip coffee for forty-five minutes.
• Meet our host/guide for the early part of the day. We never really got his name, but he was nice enough.
• Tear around the race course in a car similar to ours while what’s-his-name explains lots of features of the car. I liked this part; she did not.
• Actually drive the car and tear around with what’s-his-name giving tips about the track and the fast line around.
• Switch back to the passenger side while what’s-his-name takes us around the off-road course. The car can do some amazing things including climb forty-five degree angles, descend (without driver input) the same hill, drive forty-five degrees tilted to the side, wade through about thirty inches of water and a whole bunch of stuff we NEVER do.
• See our actual car. Each customer has his/her own, hmmm, delivery room? No, that’s not quite the right term. Your car has its own carpeted bay with a few side chairs for doing the paper work. What’s-his-name went over more features of the car, we loaded our luggage into it and signed the papers. We’d paid in the US so we only had to pay for additional insurance.
• Learn we can’t use the navigation system in Europe. It’s US only and can’t be changed to Europe without having ordered that a few weeks in advance. Who knew? So they gave us a little Garmin-like thing to use while we’re here. Ugh.
• What’s-his-name hands us off to Lars for the factory (Werk) tour. In Stuttgart the factory tour was a group thing. In Leipzig we had Lars all to ourselves. And it was great. The factory is super-modern. Everything happens ‘just-in-time’ and very precisely. The parameters of our car, or any other, are shared among many manufacturers in several countries. The engine came from Hungary. Most of the car was made in Slovakia. Other features were added and final assembly happened in Leipzig. Somehow, through the miracle of information technology, it all comes together and you get a car.
• See some cars we don’t get in the US (diesels) and some we don’t yet get (Panamera hybrid.) The tour went about an hour and Lars answered every question we had and threw in all sorts of items we would not have thought to ask.
• Lars escorts us through the museum and then to the restaurant for our (free) three-course lunch. It was good and also relaxing.
• Finally, get in the car and almost drive off. We could not get the iPod interface to work. Lars tried to help but in the end we found it won’t work with our iPod but will work with our iPad. That’s a little clunky, but at least we have music.

From the Porsche factory we drove to Berlin. It’s 178 kilometers, or 111 miles. We only hit 200 km/h once. Or twice. Or… Anyway, the car is rock steady at that speed, around 125 mph. The car has a lot of power, but it doesn’t pull with that we-have-to-haul-ass-NOW urgency that the 911 has. Not that we expected it to. But is really is fun to drive. We’ll try to find a faster road while we still have some Autobahn left. Speeds in the other countries we are visiting are usually much lower.

Berlin is (I believe) Germany’s largest city. We didn’t see too much today as we arrived around 5pm. We’ll spend the day tomorrow walking around. They do have a piece of the Berlin Wall outside the hotel. We’ll take some Berlin photos tomorrow for the blog and for Smugmug.