// JSpot //

Although 06:00 came much sooner than I wanted, I didn’t mind crawling out of bed at 07:00 to start the day. Brian would be off with Hans to Schneider Optiks and then to Göttingen after lunch.

I, meanwhile, decided to liberate myself from the group and jump a train to Frankfurt am Main. Even though I hardly speak German, the process could not have been simpler. I found my train, which arrived just moments after purchasing the ticket, and by 10:45, I was at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

From here, I’ll spend the day on my own in the city, and Brian has arranged for me to meet up with a friend when he finishes work around 17:00. So another free night. I do have to admit that it’s awfully nice for Phillipp (the friend) to take in a total stranger, but it will be good - I can see some city, save some money, and so forth.

Since I am currently at a Starbucks by the Hauptbahnhof, I suppose I should go make something of the day, yeah?

By the powers invested in some higher authority, we woke up Sunday morning, not hung over. Though I may not have been hung over, I was not on stable ground. I had completely expected the morning to be painful, but it was not. The world was still spinning a bit when I looked far into the distance, but that was little price to pay for the evening we’d just brought to a close not six hours before. And soon we would be headed for Bad Kreuznach and I could sleep in the car.

In Karlsplatz we picked up what was supposed to be a Ford Mondeo or Volkswagon Jetta. Sixt, however, had given them all away and offered us instead a BMW 320i instead.

Thrilled, we made for the Autobahn. Once on the road, I setup my camera on the dash and we did a little Top Gear style review of the car. Brian seems pleased, but perhaps that was because he had the pleasure of driving. From the passenger seat, I quickly began to despise the car.

The seat was obnoxious. You could only raise the seat by getting out of it - hardly practical at 120 km/h. It was awkwardly angled as well, so I couldn’t get my bum comfortably positioned. And there was nowhere to put my arms.

Besides that, the ride was incredibly stiff. Every little bump in the road made my guts jolt about like James May in his high speed boat ride. My bottom was sore by the time we’d reached out destination. Thankfully, I’d been too tired to care and simply slept most of the journey.

Road Trip from München to Bad Kreuznach in a rented BMW 320i

There were, however, a few parts for which I was awake. Wide awake.

Being the Autobahn, there is no speed limit in certain sections. So when the opportunity presented itself, Brian gave it the beans, so to speak. I took some proper video of us dashing along at ~220 km/h (~128 mph). Not surprisingly, those bouts of high speed were pretty exciting.

Secondly, our route (shown on my slick GPS map!) took us through the Black Forest, which was presently not black at all. In fact quite the opposite - all white and gray. Everything was glazed in snow, and the deeper we went, the denser the fog became. Soon, we were unable to see off the road at all, and in front of us, we could only see about 100m. Or less. The fog was in some patches so thick, it had became dark, like a thunderstorm cloud. Fog so thick the sun cannot shine through it. But it eventually gave way and we left the forest. And I returned to my dazing and drifting to and from sleep.

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