They say that travel broadens the mind. I believe I may have blogged that before. I mention this as come Sunday morning, I was on my travels again. And my heart really, really wasn’t in it. I had packed the night before, so all was ready I just about managed to get everything in the new case, although it was a little heavy, and as it turned out very unstable when wheeled around. But more of that case later. I worked out, that I did not have to leave until 09:45 and get to Heathrow on time. So, come 09:15, it was time to leave the house, so soon after arriving back from our holidays. Jools dropped me at the station, I got my ticket and climbed on the train.
By the time we left Ashford, it was packed, three people around me, off to Clapham to see Stevie Wonder in concert. Sound like a good way to spend Sunday, rather than travelling to Germany. Anyway, I chatted some and my mood lifted some. At St Pancras I grabbed a taxi, just as well as the Tube seemed chaos, which the taxi driver confirmed. So, it would have taken me ages to get across London, as it was, I was at Paddington in ten minutes and on my way to the airport by half ten.
Check in was painless, as was security, so I had over two hours to kill before my flight. I had a meal at a Mexican place, which was OK, in that it was better than the one at Gatwick, but then anything would be better. I bought a book to entertain myself over the course of the trip, and made sure I was near the gate when it was called.
And away we went, heading over East Anglia, Holland and into German airspace. We landed with no delay, and was out of the plane and into the airport, through immigration with no problems. I collected my case from the carousel, and then made my way to the concourse looking for the car hire place. The instability of the new case meant I could not balance the work bag on it, and so became one of those dragging two bags in their wake. I stopped to look at some signs, went to move off and the handle of the new case came off. The case crashed to the ground. I let out a very Anglo-Saxon word.
As it lay there, I saw that a significant part of its stitching had come undone too. All on the first flight, it was useless and I would have to get a replacement. I picked up the case and staggered off to the car hire office. Anni joined me, and I got the keys and told where to pick it up from, and that it had a sat nav fitted. Perfect, what could go wrong now?
What could go wrong was the sat nav was in German, the display was in German, and we could not change it, we could not program our destination. We tried and tried. In the end we asked one of the staff, and they at least managed to program the hotel address in, and so we set off. We had a Ford Kuga, some kind of toy SUV, which was not too bad, but with it being late, me being in a bad mood and we selecting the economical route, the car took us in a tour of the Hamburg suburbs before deciding we had had enough and directing us to the motorway, autobahn, and onto Lubeck.
We arrived at nine, checked in and went back down for some dinner, which was very nice, and so arranged to meet the next morning for breakfast and the journey to work.
Monday.
Up at six, have a shower, down for breakfast, get ready for work. Out to the car to program the sat nav, it took some time and swearing, but we had it, and so off we set into the rush hour traffic, not that there was that much of it. We had to get some Euros, as there was a toll tunnel on the way, and needed €1.50 each time we went through. That done we drove off, sadly, I got flashed by one of five speed cameras as we came out of the tunnel, my first ever speeding offence. Or one that was caught, of course.
And so we arrived at the factory, and the day could begin in earnest. I’ll skip the details, so lets fast forward to the evening trip back to the hotel.
I made sure I drove at 1kmh under the speed limit for the duration of the 20 minute trip, arriving back at the hotel safe and sound. We had an early dinner, than I grabbed my camera and went out to take some snaps, as on the way back I saw the hotel was right in front of the old city gates, a couple of minutes walk away. Must be something worth seeing, even if not, a good walk, yeah?
I walked across the bridge spanning the river and through the gates into the old town. It was a mix of the old and new, but mostly old. At the first massive church, I heard organ music coming from inside, I opened the door a little and saw the church packed. I left, hoping that perhaps tomorrow if work finished in time I could have a proper look inside.
I walked on and came to another massive church, this was locked, but something else to look into, ahem, tomorrow if possible. Elsewhere, hundreds of young Germans with faces painted and draped in flags were heading to bars ready for the big game that night, I though I may stay up and watch, so headed back to the hotel, happy with the shots I had taken.
I lay on the bed to watch the Germany/Algeria game, but for me it was something of a disappointment, as Germany struggled to get going, and could have conceded three in the opening 15 minutes. My attention wavered, and and switched to the book, keeping an eye on the came over the pages. It went to extra time, which meant that by the time Germany scored their two late goals and won, it was twenty to one. Oh, how I would suffer for football the next day at work!
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