// JSpot //

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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Saturday morning arrived all too soon, or rather ended too soon. Sleep was cut short around noon by the arrival of four more guests - Jessy’s brother Patrick and his friends Jenni, Ramona, and Timeea .

After eating Weißwurst for breakfast (lunch?) that Jessy had so kindly prepared, we geared up and set out for another day of adventure.

The first stop: the Englischer Garten. On the Eisbach river here, some crazy Germans had found a rip tide in the river that created an infinite wave suitable for surfing on. And that’s exactly what they were doing. I’ve never seen anything like this! There is snow on the ground, the air is about 30 degrees, and the river is certainly frigid as well. They wore wet suits, but they must have been on the lower extreme of what a wet suit is capable of insulating you from. Any colder and they would need dry suits.

http://www.jcuga.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mvi_0370.flv

After some photos were taken, we strolled on through the park, which was thoroughly snowed in, and came to another Christmas market at the Chinesicher Turm (Chinese Tower). This was a quaint little market with so many delicious things to smell. Homemade soaps, Glühwein, waffles, roasted nuts…

We walked quite some way on this outing - about 6.5 miles in all, according to the GPS, which I handily brought along this time, and as a reward, it produced a fantastic log for us!

Brian received word that his boss would need to change plans for Sunday. Instead of driving to Göttingen as planned, we would be bound for Bad Kreuznach. Most likely, then, on Monday, I’ll pick up a train to Köln or Frankfurt for the day/night. It might be nice to get some solo time and do some shopping and sight seeing on my own. But more than likely I’ll just be hopelessly lost and confused!

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We go for sushi in Munich. L-R: Brian, Jessy, Me, Natalia.

By 20:00, we met Jessy back at her place to gather ourselves for the evening. Sushi tonight! I didn’t take the GPS, so I have no idea where we were, but we found a little sushi joint and ate sushi, drank sake, and had a great time. Jessy’s friend Nataliya joined us up for dinner as well.

After sushi, it was bar time. Another friend of G’s, Benny, met up with up with us and came along for the evening. We made our way to a bar, but I don’t remember the name of it. We didn’t stay long, and instead went to a salsa bar called Cohibar. There we drank mojitos and other such “exotic” drinks and I pretended to be a good dancer. Being a stiff American, this of course consisted of an awkward shuffle, and little else. It’s hard to hide your lack of talent when you’re surrounded by a country full of people who dance regularly for fun and don’t care what they look like. Maybe I should take a lesson. My pictures here tell the story.

Brian and Jessy at Cohibar

It has been fantastic seeing München with a native who can show us all the great places to go and party - it’s nice not feeling like a total tourist the entire time and just relax like I have nothing to do - because I don’t. Naturally, Jessy is the best guide in all of Germany!

We left the bar around 03:30 and it was still hopping like mad. When we reached home, I convinced Benny to cap the night with a round of the Glenlivet that I had brought from duty-free in Atlanta. Thereafter, I didn’t last long and called it a night.

Brian and I found a little fun place called BMW Welt

Sheiße! We seem to have overslept. Or perhaps we subconsciously changed our minds. We had a Barcelona moment, but since we hadn’t purchased our tickets to Austria, it was no loss to us. Except the Augustiner Brewery!

When we did finally wake up, we decided that rather that trying to race to Austria, we should look for something “touristy” to do in Munich.

And we found it: BMW Welt.

An enormous tribute to Munich’s biggest auto-maker… or a multi-million dollar advertisement for BMW. You can even pick up your new car here at the factory and they make a weekend of the experience for you. Wow. The exhibits they had were mildly biased, but they spared no expense on the presentation. Entire three-story walls were made into fluid animations with rear-projection screens guided your way. 100-foot long touch-sensitive tables with interactive overhead projection laid out the history of BMW. Enormous picture books with visual recognition queued a recorded voice over, filling in the details the picture couldn’t convey. So much technology!

And of course, the cars. Every make and model that has ever bared the BMW emblem was here. The Bond cars, the first BMW production car, even the original aircraft engine that got the company started.

After spending most of the day there, we stopped on our way home again at Marien Platz for a snack and then… the Hofbrauhaus! That famous touristy trap that no touristy day would be complete without! Interestingly, though, the Haus was filled to the gills with Germans! Rick Steves must have got it wrong. It took over 10 minutes to find a bench to plop down on, but when we did, the consumption of large quantities of beer began, served, of course, in the traditional one-liter mas!

At about 18:45 we tracked back to Jessy’s apartment, where her roommate, Martin, greeted us. He was cool, and my thanks go to him for putting up with us. Then, Dr. Jessy “G” Gunold herself made her entrance. I had no idea she was such a looker! And I would find soon that she was a sweet and nice as she looked! Where are the Jessy’s in America?

We soon departed again, bound for the Hofbraukeller, not far from the apartment. Like Americans are trained from their birth to do, I engorged on entirely too much food.

When dinner had ended, we boarded a subway bound for a part of town that only my GPS could tell me where it was. We arrived at what was known as Tollwood, which Jessy described as being “like a Christmas market, but different.” It was! They had live music, many bars, more Glühwein that you could drink, and more. It was more like Oktoberfest, but Weihnachtsfest.

Along the way, we discovered that Mitch Parks was somewhere in München, as evident by this car with it's window left open to the snow

The night went on, and the beers went down. We left Tollwood, and Jessy, having to work in the morning, left us. Brian and I went in search of a bar down in the University section of town known as Shamrock, which we found, but found it to be boring and empty. This was a University area, there were bound to be gorgeous University co-eds out and about near by. We thus headed for a local place that was brimming with just such young beautiful co-eds as any guy might have desired. I desperately wanted to be back in college, carefree and fearless of bad decisions.

Unfortunately, we were total tools. We knew nobody, and everyone else already knew each other. So while we mellowed in the corner of the bar, we watched the dozens of drop-dead-gorgeous 20-somethings get their evening on. It was enough for us.

Contented, we made for the U-Bahn to start our way back home before the last train. Too late, though, it had already gone. We hailed a cab and headed home. Once there, Brian proceeded to snore a storm, dreaming no doubt of all the things we should have been doing to those ladies in the club. I wrote and left Jessy a note, thanking her for letting us crash at her place.

Good times. And tomorrow we planned on a day trip to Austria!