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Published: September 13th 2008
GENEVA CH
'Pearl' on departure dayDay 1 (Wednesday - 3 Sept): GENEVA CH - WIESBADEN D
After a my last working days (team offsite in the French Alps) I left Geneva with 'Pearl' and drove all the way over the Swiss/French Jura mountains to Basel and on to Wiesbaden. Whilst the weather conditions were just perfect for the first couple of hours, they dramatically changed once in Germany where there was rain, rain, and... more rain.
What a relief to finally arrive in Wiesbaden to meet up with Steffi who only had left Geneva for good a couple of weeks earlier. Meeting up with her brother Basti, his girfriend Francesca, and some more of their friends in a great little restaurant/bar next by was just fantastic, and of course we've had a couple of beers (and a shot...) too many...
Day 2 & 3 (Thursday & Friday - 4/5 Sept): FRANKFURT D
When leaving Wiesbaden I found out that someone had tried to break into my Pearl, soi needed to find someone to fit my partly destroyed foldable roof. Basti, working in a garage, couldn't help me, however, the official Citroen dealer in Mainz sent me to the 'Entendoktor', a specialist on 2CVs, and whilst
FRENCH JURA
First challange for Pearl shortly after leaving Geneva i hade a great schnitzel in the local restaurant, the roof was fixed for a bare EUR 20!
Since it was still raining, i decided to spend the afternoon in the Kaiser Friedrich Therme in Wiesbaden, a great spa offering a vast variaty of wellbeing treats. How relaxing that was!
Far more relaxing than the pub quiz I was going to with Roli and his friend Leif in Frankfurt in the evening. Far too many beers and dificult questions(how the hell know's Phoebe's twin sisters name in the TV show Friends???) made us clubbing on till the early morning, and I guess it's needless to say we felt pretty miserable on friday...
To overcome the misery, we went to 'Best Worscht in Town', a curry wurst stand offering a great choice of different curry spicyness levels, from 'easy/ok" over 'quite hot' to 'diabolic'.... godd stuff though!
In the evening we went to the Markt where they're selling all sorts of wine and you sit or lay on the grass and enjoy the upcoming weekend. By coincidence we've met Bettina & Felix there, and it was really great to see them again and go for some food later on.
Of course
SWISS JURA
Vallee de Joux - beautiful we couldn't miss the mandatory last drink before you go home, however, finally managed to do so and ended up playing on Roli's PS2, with me winning after all! Roli, next time you get your revenge... ;-)
Day 5 (Saturday - 6 Sept): GRONINGEN NL
Leaving Frankfurt on very early saturday morning (hey, 9:30 isn't really that late, is it?!?), I've had beautiful weather conditions which allowed me to follow the Rhine river up to Bonn, seeing the famous Loreley on my way up there. A couple of hours later I stopped by in Hengelo to have a quick coffee with the Siesling family (parents of GVA Erwin-Heinrich), which was really nice.
I then drove on country roads up to Groningen in the north of Holland, where i met Jelly at a Couch Surfing BBQ at a beautiful little lake. That was really good fun, and it was great to see Jelly again after we had first met 2 1/2 years ago in Laos where we both were backpacking. On top, she lives in the redlight district, and the word window-shopping has a completely different meaning there...
The evening ended with a great bunch of people in a pub
and then in a club, so i was absolutely knackered when i finally fell on my matrass at 5am...
Day 6 & 7 (Sunday & Monday - 7/8 Sept): BLADEL NL
Leaving Groningen, I took a nice ride over the Avslutdijk (separing the Ijselmeer from the Northsea) to Amsterdam, where I simply had to stopp at no. 42 Haarlemstraat for a legendary Shoarma dish! delicious!!! Overseeing the street and the entrance of Hotel Arrive, lots of memories of the old days crosses my mind....
The second half of the day was spent with driving to Bladel in the south, passing by in Leusden where Pieter, Miranda & the kids live. Unfortunately, they were not at home, so I only could leave a message and hope to meet them the next time I'll be around.
Arriving at Francois' place in Bladel ("Bloody Bladel") was quite as epxected: Parking the car, a warm welcome handshake & some bottles of beer (both Jupiler and Dommelsch) - and i was happy. We of course also went for some more bottles in the village, but i was just soooooper-happy to be able to sleep in the other day.
On monday we took the bycicles
to drive out to the Bladel soccer club, a fantastic 8-football-pitches ground with an own self-made canteen, offices etc. Really impressive! Hundereds of volunteers have worked over months to build it.
After a short ride to a nearby idyllic lake we cycles back to the village to buy some meat for the evening's BBQ, we took Pearl and drove all the way to Sint Anthonis to surprise Alice, Fred & their kids with an unannounced visit. You should have seen Alice's face when she realized it was me!!! So we spent a great hour or so with them before returning to Bladel where we grilled the meat and had - surprise! - some more beers....
Day 7-12 (Tuesday - Sunday / 9-14 Sept): LONDON UK
From Bladel I took the motorway to the Belgium ferry port Oostende, passing via Antwerp (beautiful!). Leaving the continent at great wheather conditions (sun out, blue skies) I fell fast asleep on the upper deck only to wake up after an indefinite time by some rain drops, realizing that I was obviously approaching the English coast...
The drive to London City was unspectacular, but it was nice to meet up with Christina again and
WIESBADEN D
Nothing stolen, but Pearl needs to be fixed have a chat.
On Wednesday, after sleeping in, i met with Karen for lunch at the Walkabout Aussie pub, and the rest of the afternoon I spent doing a sightseeing tour with my Pearl around whole London. Great stuff! In the evening we went for a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in Karen's area (Chelsea before meeting up with Eva & Aman in a nearby pub.
Thursday started pretty much like the day before: sleeping in, and lunch with Karen. This after having ignored the 80 pounds parking fine I found attached to my Pearl.... So I decided not to have her parked on the street anymore but accept Celine & Marc's offer to put it into the parking garage of the Swiss embassy. At 4pm I met up with Gourgeous Sarah in East London, and we've had some excellent tapas and a bottle of red wine whilst gossiping & discussing on how the heal the world... At 7pm I was meeting Karen, Celine & Marc at Baker Street tube station to take the train out to Wembley park and see Madonna on her Sticky & Sweet 2008 tour. The stadium is truly impressive, and the huge number of
people make you feel like a little ant... The music itself was quite ok (as long as she wasn't singing live....), but the show was really impressive. A real pop art concert. And it was also great to stand very next to the VIP podium and basically face beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson, Naomi Campbell & Fergie throughout the event.
On Friday I was picking up Nova (Celine & Marc's dog) at the embassy, and I went for a 4 hrs walk from Baker Street via Tower Bridge and Temple to Hyde Park Corner before returning her to Marc and meeting up with Christina and her colleagues at their office pub at Bishopsquare. A quite liquid hours later, I decided to go to the 80ies bar Reflex at St. Paul's, where I later on had some more pints with James and Roo. A blast!
On Saturday, Christina and I went for a extended shopping tour through the centre. Quite challangeing with jelly legs from the night before.... In the evening, a nice dinner at Borough Market (London Bridge) finished the evening as we simply did not have any energy anymore to go for some drinks....
Finally, on Sunday, after sleeing
FRANKFURT D
Dinner out with Roli, Carola, Sarah & Modj in again...., Raphy came up to London, and we spent the rest of the afternoon in the King's Head Pub at Borough High Street, watching American Football with two of Christina's friends (Shanda & Christina). After Raphy had left we spent the rest of the evening in a BBQ bar in SoHo until we were kicked out and cheated by a cab driver who probably thought he could give those "American tourists" an expenisive city tour - which kind of worked out for him until we told him off....
Day 13 & 14 (Monday & Tuesday - 15/16 Sept): SOUTH COAST (Eastbourne, Brighton, Borgor Regis), ALDERHOLT & SOUTHHAMPTON
Leaving London on early Monday morning (common, 9:15 IS bloody early!) I went for a nice ride to the south coast, via Eastbourne and Brighton. Lovely! Before meeting up with Ulli & Jon in Alderholt (north of Southampton), I went for a quick city tour through Southampton. Very nice city actually, nothing like what I had imagined (some ugly & dirty industrial place)! In the evening we ate chinese at Ulli's new home in Alderholt (in the middle of nowhere, but very idyllic!), together with a friend of them and Charly
the German shepard dog.
Since my Pearl started to make strange, queeky noises, a colleague of Jon's called a friend at a Southampton Citroen garage, and so I passed by there and they had a look at it. Apparently they need a grease injection pistol to make the front wheels turn smoothly again, but they didn't have one. So they simply took and oil spray to stop the annoying sounds....
For lunch i met up with Caroline in Botley where she works in a bridal store. Lots of wedding dresses, however, no inspiration for me really.... But it was excellent to see her again, and I'm looking forward to seeing her on Nov 22nd on the GVA Boat again!
So right now it is Tuesday evening, and I'm sitting in a pub steeling someone's free WiFi access.... TV is on with some football, and I guess I still have to sort out where to stay tonight... Will give Celine & Marc or Christina a call in a while... ;-)
And that's it so far. Bye now!
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