Friday 8th October 99.

This day began with a hangover as myself, Dom and Vicki had been out to ummmm some boozer the night before to celebrate nothing in particular. I eventually dragged myself out of bed at about 10am and wandered down to the car hire place [ absolutley reeking of alcohol ] to pick up my Fiat Punto to assist in my move out of Barnes. Got the veeee-hickle, which was surprisingly nippy for such a piece of shit car.

I loaded up my P.C. which is now on loan to Claires Dad and headed toward Cambridge for a rendezvous with Claire. Unfortunately Claire's boyfriend was hanging around the office so she couldn't leave. So I zipped passed Cambridge and we met in some oldy-worldy pub on the A11 to Norwich. We had a spot of lunch, caught up on old times, put the PC into my old car [ man I love that car ] and I went back to London, whilst Claire went back to Norwich.

Once at home I began the painful task of packing up all my crap in preparation for moving it to Vicki's house. You never realise just how much stuff you accumulate until house moving time comes. I dropped one load at Vicki's and then grabbed the tart to come and help me pack more stuff. We went back to chez Steele and she cleaned the kitchen [ cheers Vick ] whilst I pretended to pack stuff in the living room whilst actually watching Maverick. Anyway, slept at Vicki's that night.

Saturday 9th October 99.

Got up at about 7.45am since I had to drop the car back in Putney. Scooted over to the flat to grab the stuff I'd forgotten [ clothes in the tumble dryer, bedding from the spare room, kettle, mugs, stars from my ceiling, ramekins.the list is endless ] and was back at Vicki's for 11.30.

Vicki, myself and Al [ Vicki's bro ] spent the afternoon in Clapham drinking beer and eating Mexican food whilst watching England get battered by the All-Blacks :( Then Vicki and I had a snooze whilst waiting for Aggy to get his hairy arse over to Vicki's house before we went out for a Thai dinner.

We ate in Crystal Palace at an excellent restaurant whose name eludes me. Prior to eating we went into some boozer which is *the* worst boozer I've been to in my life. There was about twenty people in the entire place and a DJ playing kicking techno loud enough to make your ears bleed. This coupled with the fact that a fight nearly broke out whilst we were in there adds it to my list of places which I'll never re-visit.

Ate dinner, grabbed a cab, drank wine at home, slept.

Sunday 10th October 99. D-Day.

Today was the day that I was leaving England. I had to unpack all the crap that I'd hastily packed into bags and repack the stuff that I needed to take to Deutschland with me. I managed to get the stuff I needed into two large bags, one duffle bag [ yes, the famous duffle bag that I take everywhere with me, like Ford Prefect's towel ] and one record bag. Vicki and I just kinda mooched around for most of the day, Vicki trying not to cry and me trying to make her feel better before setting off for Heathrow at about 2pm.

We arrived at Heathrow with pots of time to spare, so I checked in my bags and the two of us headed for the bar. Two pints later with 30 mins before they closed the gate I decided that one more pint of Stella was in order. Halfway through the pint there was an announcement for a Mr. Steele to proceed to gate whatever and I had to ditch the beer and leggit. mowd.

Getting from Stuttgart to Ulm wasn't a big problem and neither was getting up to the hotel. What was a problem however is that the feckin hotel was shut for the night. There was a sign on the door that said if you check in when the hotel is closed then use the intercom to the right and dial 901, or something like that. So I did.no answer.so I tried again.no answer.and again.no answer. Abso-fecking-lutely marvellous! I'd pretty much resigned myself to sleeping outside the hotel when a German woman turned up who was also staying in the hotel. She had the foresight to call and say that she'd be arriving a little late and they left her key in this digi-safe thing.

It took us a while to work out how to get the key out of the digi-safe and when we eventually did I could get into the hotel. I started bedding down in the corrdor using my bag as a pillow but the German woman was having none of it.

"You must come and sleep in my room" she said. "Errrrr, no thanks I'll be fine here" was my reply. "I insist" were the next words from her mouth. "No really I cant do that" was my reply - you must understand she wasn't too attractive! "Don't be silly, now come on" as she practically dragged me off the floor.

So, 5 mins later I find myself in this strange womans hotel room. She kindly took the duvet and blanket off her bed and gave them to me, whilst she slept in a jacket, which was awfully kind of her. She is called Renata and comes from Frankfurt. Thankfully she didn't get frisky in the middle of the night, or if she did then she wasn't very good as I slept soundly all night.

Monday 11th October 1999

After a screaming fit at the receptionist I got the key to my room and went back to bed for an hour.

First day at work was rather boring, I had no computer and spent the day reading documents. In the evening I went for a walk around Blaustein in an attempt to get some food from the supermarket.but they were all shut. I had to make do with a box of pringles and a bottle of wine from the Esso garage next to the hotel. The wine was rather good and it was only 6DM - two of your earth pounds. Early night and lots of sleep in an attempt to catch up on the previous nights lost sleep.

Tuesday 12th October 1999

Tuesdays day at work was a little better, I got my computer hooked up and managed to get my web access and e-mail sorted out which was cool.

On Tuesday night I went into Ulm for a mooch around. Nice town, much smaller than London and probably smaller than Cambridge. Coming back I thought I'd catch the train to Blaustein so I sorted out a ticket and asked the train chick what platform it went from. The woman reckoned it was platform 4 in 5 minutes. So off I wander to platform 4 where there was *the* cutest chick, but as I was sober I didn't feel able to wander over and start sprouting crap at her in a vain attempt to bed her.

Anyway, five minutes went and this train rolls in. I was a little perturbed by the platform sign saying it was the 19.24 train going somewhere that I cant remember since I was supposed to be catching the 19.31 train. I jumped on anyway and as we pulled away I watched the sign change to the next train being the 19.31. Arse. I managed to convince myself I was on the wrong train and jumped off at the first stop. I had a look at the map and discovered it was the right train after all. Shag! Then I looked at the timetable only to discover that the next one wasn't due for over an hour. Not a happy bunny! So I had to walk back to Ulm which took me about 30 minutes and got a taxi.

I decided to unwind with a sauna which I shared with some naked German bloke. He proceeded to explain that the done thing in Germany was to jump into saunas with your knackers hanging out. I was aware of this but I didn't think it applied to hotel saunas. Oh well, next time.

Wednesday 13th October 1999

Work was dull, but after work I met up with some British contractors at the bus stop who were Mark, Trev and another Mark. Trev was leaving on Thursday so we arranged for beers on the Thursday night.

Went straight back to the hotel and chilled for a while. Made a few calls then headed down for my sauna sans kit. Quite a liberating experience. Fortunately I had the place to myself so my first naked German sauna wasn't too trying.

Thursday 14th October 1999