Continued from Fussen-Cologne Day 1 Part 1.

Tandem paraglider about to take off.

They wait for some wind, then start running downhill backwards to make sure the chute is catching air. Then as the chute gets filled with air, they turn around and run down the ramp for take off.

And off they go. The takeoffs are pretty scary. A botched take off probably means that you’ll fall down…I guess at least it’s not a vertical drop off.

Another guy attempts a take off.

Then the winds change directions or something, but his chute ended up collapsing.

And he’s off in the grass. Again, good thing it’s a steep, but not vertical drop off or else this guy would be done.

Deflated, walking up and will have to try again.

Then for the next 10 minutes, there’s absolutely no wind. It’s strange to be standing at somewhere so high up with no breeze at all. It’s noon, the sun is beaming down on us, but the weather is cool and comfortable.

Someone else attempts a take off.

He too fails.

I guess this is probably for hang gliders.

Someone finally succeeds in taking off.

Then the guy who failed the first time also manages to take off.

The hang gliders are finally assembled and ready for take off. Here they are queuing up.

It’s lunch time, we are hangry, maybe some food at the cafe up here?

View from the cafe table. I waiting with our packs while RL and JB went to go wait in the cafeteria style food line. 5 minutes later, they both come back upset and empty handed. Apparently all these old ladies kept on cutting them in line and the the ladies wouldn’t move in line….Wait, they got owned by a bunch of old ladies? Hah.

Still hungry, but I guess we’ll be heading down to get some food in town.

Look at that steep little path that people hike up and down the mountain!!

We came back down hoping for a quick ride on the bus back into Fussen. After referring to the bus schedule and double checking with the cable car ticket counter, we determined that the next bus that arrives in 40 minutes does not go into Fussen, but instead goes the other direction. Shit. The bus that goes into Fussen won’t arrive for another 2 hours….Double Shit!

With three of us, it won’t be bad to split a cab ride all the way into Fussen…if we could find a cab. There were zero cabs in sight…I went back to the cable car ticket counter and the lady offered to call a cab for us. Sweet! That solved that problem.

After about 10 minutes, the cab arrives and we are on our way. We’ll be able to get into Fussen early enough to grab a quick bite and still make our 2pm train.

The cab ride worked out superbly, comfortable, fast, and we only had to pay 6 Euro premium over riding the crowded bus.

Arrived back at the train station and figured out how to use the ticket machine to make reservations for our high speed trains.

Got our stored packs out of the locker, and now we are going to find something to eat. Starving.

Something from the supermarket will do.

Yes, prepackaged salads!!!! The Germans don’t eat any vegetables nor do they drink any water it seems. We’ve been craving vegetables and water the whole time we’ve been in Germany.

Yes, so good!!! Greens!!!

And some dessert. This was a cheesecake and I think it had sesame filling. Strange but really good.

Train arrives right on time. We’ve got two connections to make on our way to Cologne, one with only a 4 min transfer. Let’s hope that this train runs on time.

Empty, apparently few people leave Fussen in the middle of the day.

As our train pulls out of the station, we hear a thud behind us and saw that part of the arm rest in the seats behind us had fallen off. German trains, at least the local ones, aren’t always in the best of shapes.

Very mediocre restroom on this train also.

Blue skies makes everything more beautiful.

Errr…what? Why are there camels here?

ZZzzzz….

Everywhere, we see people dressed up in lederhosen and dirndls. I don’t think they are all going to Oktoberfest in Munich, but I think maybe many towns and cities have their own Oktoberfest festivals.

JB falls asleep again and of course, I take another photo of her. Zzzzz….

Luckily, our first train stays on schedule and we were able to make our super short 4min transfer.

Another empty train.

No more blue skies.

This train also runs on time, and we are here for our last transfer.

RL popping an Asian squat with her poop face on.

Our ICE high speed train arrives right on time. This leg is the longest at 4hours.

We were able to reserve our seats with a table…except the reservation system put us at two different tables. We decided to sit down at an empty table and hope that no one reserved seats here and that if they did, we could just ask to switch reservations.

Very excited about this part. The long distance train has a dining car!!

Time to blog.

Oh yeah, there’s also a bar menu. Beer!

Cafe train.

This is turning out to be a decent ride, except the train sways quite a bit at lower speeds and RL got a little motion sickness.

Food arrives.

JB’s food also came with this little toy train that’s shaped like a small adult toy…

Stuttgart. Seems like many cities have Oktoberfest festivals going on right now.

My nuggets finally arrives from the kitchen.

Yup, everyone’s dressed and ready to party.

I believe this is Stuttgart.

Outside of Stuttgart, there are just hills and hills of vineyards for wines. Other than beers, Germans are also huge into wines.

Our train hits 249km/h. This ain’t no Shinkansen like in Japan though. The train sways more and doesn’t go as fast. Also, the seats in European trains are set up where half faces one direction and half the other direction. And some stations, the trains pull in one way and out the other way, so you get flipped around on your direction. On the Japanese bullet trains, you are always traveling in the right direction, and when the trains reach the end of the line, the seats simply rotate 180 degrees to face the right direction again.

ZZZzzzzz….

Perfect weather and started on time, our train starts to run late.

Mannheim.

Our train runs even more late.

Leaving Frankfurt airport station.

By the time our train arrived in Cologne, it’s running almost 20 minutes late. When we almost arrive at the station, it stays outside the station to wait for other trains in front to clear out.

Finally arrived 27 minutes late from our schedule arrive time. I expected better than this from Germany.

We are tired from a full day of traveling, heading straight to hotel and calling it a night.

A big reason why we are here, to see the Cologne Dom.

Car 2 Go in Germany.

Our hotel not too far from the station. It looks a little shabby at night.

Super small elevator, barely fit RL and I with our packs….I hope this isn’t indicative of what our room will be like.

And our room ended up being Huge! This is what $116 a night gets you in a pretty decent location close to the main station.

A whole separate sitting area.

Giant room, finally a bath tub, but it’s still the smallest bath tub ever. I can barely stand flat on the curved bottom of the tub. I don’t get it Germany, why have a giant room, and yet still have small bathrooms?

It even has kitchenette!! But, I really just want a bigger shower!!

To be continued at Cologne Day 2 Part 1.