Continued from Rothenburg Day 2 Part 2.

Traveling to Ingolstadt today, and as we feared, it’s raining this morning. We don’t have waterproof covers for our packs, so they would get soaked in the 10 minutes walk to the station. Calling a cab solved that problem.

Nutella makes everything better.

Good thing we called a cab, because it looks like the rain will be picking up quite a bit.

Waiting down in the grocery store. The guy there is the proprietor of both the grocery store and the pension.

Cab arrives on time, of course.

It took us probably 3 minutes and 5 Euros to get to the station. But worth it, as we didn’t get wet.

We didn’t plan to well through and got to the train station a little bit too early. Oh well.

We had planned to ride the 11:06, but there was a 10:06 that we had just missed by about 5 minutes. 2 connections and over 2 hours to Ingolstadt.

Soon after we arrived at the station, it starts pouring rain. That 5 euro cab ride was so worth it.

Might as well use this time to write out some postcards to our family.

Our first train arrives. We’ve got two connections to make today, both really short, 4 minutes and 5 minutes. Hopefully the trains will be running on time today so that we can make the connections.

I am laughing because I am excited about the prank that I’ll be playing on JB when we meet up with her in Ingolstadt.

The hitchhiker sticker that randomly attached itself to my pack back in Asia is still here.

So much solar panels here in Germany.

OK, our train makes its first stop on time.

And here comes our connecting train, also on time.

A mother reprimanding her petulant child.

At this train, there were a group of guys all dressed up in lederhosen and drinking alcohol on the train. Every few minutes all of them would burst out in a hearty laugh over some joke. The laughing was so contagious that I started laughing with them as well even though I had no idea what they were laughing at.

Second connection, arrived on time!

Cool, we made all our connections today.

Double decker train. We sat not too far from the restroom and about halfway through our ride, some guy got sick and was vomiting very loudly in the restroom for about 5min straight. It did not sound pleasant.

Corn field and solar panel field.

Made it to Ingolstadt. This is right outside the Audi factory.

Just trains and trains of new cars ready to be shipped out.

Made it to the main station. And that’s our hotel on the left, literally right next to the station. Sweet!

Immediately after we arrive in the lobby, it starts pouring outside.

Very nice. The front desk lady was very nice and very helpful as well.

This is what $120  a night gets you in a very convenient location in Ingolstadt. In fact, we found out that some people stay here for Oktoberfest since it’s only about 1 hour by train into Munich with no transfers.

View outside of our window.

Our small shower, so this is about 50 bigger than the shower at our place in Rothenburg.

Soon after we arrived into our room, we got a message from JB that she too had just arrived in Ingolstadt. Since we are right by the station, we decided to meet up in the lobby.

Met up with JB and I gave her a very utilitarian present that’s been in the works since we started the trip. It’s a vomit bag from our first flight out of Austin, and I am offering it to her to use during Oktoberfest. Hahaha.

OK, first we need to find some lunch. It’s Sunday and almost everything is closed around here on Sunday. Our hotel said that there’s a Greek restaurant within walking distance that’s open on Sundays.

The rain stops just for a bit and we see some blue sky.

Found the restaurant, it was indeed open, but the kitchen was closed. Damn it!

Interesting color Allroad. Oh yeah, there are Audis EVERYWHERE in Ingolstadt.

Since our first lunch plan was unsuccessful, we decided that we’ll just take a cab with JB to her accommodation first and then we’ll go into the city center where we may have a better chance of finding something to eat.

Our Mercedes E class taxi.

We’ve arrived at the place where JB booked a room with AirBnB….except we got the house number mixed up so this was the wrong place.

Second try was a success.

Back into the taxi to take us into city center. It’s started to rain again. The forecast is for it to rain on and off all day long.

City hall. It’s raining kinda hard, we better find a place to eat quickly.

This place seems to serve food and beer. Good enough for us.

Prost!

Still raining outside. The city center feels pretty deserted due to it being Sunday and raining.

I think that’s supposed to be an aluminum swan.

Now that we’ve had some food and beers, it’s time to search for more food and beers.

Jesus with his built in umbrella.

Walked by the shop that we’ll be visiting to get some apparel for Oktoberfest. It’s closed today, unfortunately.

Sim cards sold at a vending machine. Can’t believe that asshole at Media Markt wouldn’t sell me one!

80s slantnose 911 kiddy ride.

It’s stopped raining for now, so we’ll brave the outside and have some drinks.

For some reason, I think the people who would buy a Lamborghini already knows that they want a Lamborghini without seeing this ad.

Now with tiramisu!

Couldn’t believe seeing a Dodge Ram here. This truck is probably more rare than Lamborghin is here.

Coupe Quattro. It must be nice to live in Ingolstadt and drive an old school Audi. I’d imagine the Audi headquarters still sells all sorts of parts for older cars, not to mention all the knowledge know how on troubleshooting them.

Another interesting color.

The decoration in the men’s room, a log. Chained so no one would steal it? Strange.

The other art work is more typical.

OK, time to bounce and look for another place to grab a beer.

But before that, some Doner Kebabs!

I want!

Washing it down with Mezzo Mix, Coke and Fanta mix.

Sooo good!!

Found a beer garden. Sweet.

I think this is about 3 liters of beers now.

As we drank, it started getting dark, rainy and cold. But we are having a blast!

It said alcohol free on the glass, we had to ask to make sure that it was just the glass and not the beer. It had alcohol.

Rain rain rain.

All of a sudden, we heard this loud Bang behind us. We looked back and saw that a lady had fallen over backwards on her bench. The force of her falling had knocked two other benches behind her over as well. Ouch!!

RL, being the nurse that she is, rushes over to help the lady up. All the while only one of her companions just sits on his ass without getting up to help. As the lady got up, she knocks over a wine glass from her table and it shatters. She seemed really drunk but she seemed to be mostly uninjured. So…I laughed.

As it got late, the beer sells closed their shops and we saw that there was this man drinking by himself. JB offered for him to come join our table.

Bernie is his name and when he came over, he bought some beers for us as well. Well, that’s nice. Bernie is a pianist and he says that Texas accents are tough to understand, like we’ve got gum in our mouths. Bernie is a little odd, but he was so nice and got us beers. Bernie spent most of his time chatting with JB while RL and I mostly listened on.

The night got colder and colder, and Bernie suggested that we go to this place that he knows of, the best place, that’s only a minute’s walk from here. We’ll be inside there and it’ll be warm and they still serve food on Sunday nights. We were all ready to go home, but since he had bought us our beers, I felt like that we had to return the favor so we went along with him for another round.

One minute’s walk, he said…

Well, he’s correct, it was just right around the corner.

We were the only people in here.

And it feels kinda divey with two older ladies running this place. This is not what I would think would be the “best” place, but oh well. Got Bernie and all us a round of beers and we sat down and continued our conversations.

During this time, JB managed to knock over her almost full beer on the table. Then 5 seconds later, as RL was trying to comfort JB and clean up the spilled beer, RL also knocks over her own drink. LOL!!! JB did say that she felt better after RL knocked over her own drink though since now the embarrassment is spread two ways.

About halfway through our beers, we asked Bernie if he was married or he had a girlfriend. To which he replied that he has many girlfriends. Oh, is that so…So naturally I asked him to tell us about his favorite girlfriend.

“She’s from Texas.”
“Oh really, where in Texas.”
“She’s from Austin.” With a bashful glance in JB’s direction.
“Oh…ok”

Bernie just crossed the line, and within 30 seconds of him uttering the words “She’s from Austin” we had excused ourselves and were out the door. Hahahaha…that was awkward…

We all hurried away from the bar, left nice, but creeper older man Bernie behind and got into a taxi. Take us home taxi!!

To be continued at Ingolstadt Day 2.