Friday 22nd October 1999

Vicki was arriving on this very day so most of the day was taken up confirming hire cars and insurance and such things. I also spent most of the day chanting the mantra of "Wrong side of the road, wrong side of the road, wrong..." since I'd be driving in Germany for the first time since arriving.

The car arrived and it was a nice shiny red Golf with the *coolest* irridescent blue dashboard lights. It didn't have electric windows but it did have seat heaters - what's all that about then? Anyway, blatting off down the Autobahn goes Steeley but the car tops out at about 170km/h, not bad mind and I made it to the airport in 45mins. The odd thing is that after all I'd heard about the German autobahns and the silly speeds you can get up to on them I was a little surprised to find they were mostly dual carriageway, most of them had no streetlights and they are stupendously bad at draining the water off the roads. It's not much fun hitting a puddle at 110 mph I can tell ya.

Had a couple of beers in the Airport, grabbed Vicki and headed back to the hotel. I'd left the vehicle in the car park and it's one of those places where you must validate your ticket before getting in your car, now I didn't know this did I? So there I am looking at the exit barrier control thing trying to work out where to put the money when the penny drops. Fortunately nobody had pulled in behind us so I just hooned off backward and found another space. Got the old ticket validated and we were off again, except that I had to get out of this space and back to the ticket machine. I did a [ rather nifty in my opinion ] three point turn, but on one of the points I kinda went up this kerb type thing which was kinda marking a corner. "No problem" I thought, "it's a hire car" so I duly dropped off the back end of the kerb and there was an almighty crunch where the body of the kerb hit the car. Oooops! Vicki and I were chuckling about this when I realised I had to do it again to complete my three'ish point turn. Crunch! went the car agin. Anyhow, we finally escape the kerb thing and this car-park employee was pissing himself at me. Wasn't my car so I chuckled along with him, waved him a cheerio and was away.

Once at the hotel we dumped the car and headed out for a meal at the Asian restaurant down the road. Food was OK but nothing too special.

Saturday 23rd October 1999

We decided to head down and have a look at the Alps and go for a mooch around nearby. So out came the map and there was a huge lake just near Lindau which was at the Southern most bit of Germany on the border with Austria. Comedy moment was when I parked far too far away from the car park ticket dispenser and had to climb way out of the window to press the button. As I was climbing back in I hadn't notice the machine spit out a ticket, so I waited, and waited, moaned, grumbled, swore, waited some more. "What are you waiting for" asked Vicki. "The ticket, what do you think" was the obvious reply. She pointed, I looked, she pointed some more, and I looked some more. It seems the ticket was spat out almost immediately and a huge queue had formed behind me. I tell ya, me and car parks just don't mix.

Lindau was very pretty, we sat by the lake and had coffee/beer/wine and had a wander around the shopping centre. It's pretty much just a big touristy place next to the lake. I think Hitler's summer retreat is around there somewhere but I can't be sure. After Lindau, with the Alps looking at us invitingly we tried to go there. This involved crossing over into Germany and negotiating our way through a few villages. Not an easy task when the ba*tards don't put up enough signposts. In the end we just decided that if we saw a hill we'd go up it. After a while we popped up through the clouds, with severely popped ears and then it started getting good. There's always something that severely freaks me out about [ in a nice happy way ] about looking down on clouds. So we just kept going up and up and up. The sides of the road occasionally had crash barriers but mostly it was a case of go a few feet to the right too much and you're dropping several hundred feet down a near vertical slope. It was cool but pretty bloody scary. Vicki didn't appreciate it when I started buggering about and driving deliberately close to the edge.

So that was the Alps, after which we made our way back to my pad in Blaustein via a traditional Bavarian pub/restaurant where we drank a little beer and ate schnitzels. Once at chez Steele we ditched the car and wandered down to "Captain Hooks" where the two of us got blitzed and staggered home.

Sunday 24th October 1999

We awoke and decided a spot of breakfast was definitely in order, so off to Ulm we went and found a pretty good cafe to eat in. We both opted for "The Americano's" which was cornflakes, ham and eggs, fruit, bread rolls with butter and jam, along with an orange juice. Since they were serving beer I opted for a couple of beers to wash it all down with, Vicki had coffee. Far too traditional if you ask me.

Feeling refreshed we went for a skulk around Ulm doing a spot of window shopping. Top Tip for the boys, it's always best to go window shopping with a chick when the shops are firmly closed. I dunno what it is about Ulm, whether it's the Home Furnishing king of Southern Germany or something but there were *sooooooo* many shops with cool lamps, and umm chairs and stuff. It almost made me wanna go out and buy a house so I could justify buying this kinda stuff.

Following the window shopping trip we strolled hand in hand [ awwwww ] down the city walls of Ulm, looking at the Danube before eventually driving back to the hotel and chilling for a while.

I then drove Vicki over to the airport where she boarded her flight and then just cruised back to the hotel.

Monday 25th October 1999

Nothing

Tuesday 26th October 1999

Richard, Mark [ Brit tractors ] and myself went down to a place they call "The Rubber Switchblade" [ don't ask ] for a few cold ones, then onto Murphys for a lot more cold ones. Got home bladdered. It was at this point [ and I can only assume this ] that I decided to have a midnight snack of an Aero bar, in bed - as you do when drunk.

Wednesday 27th October 1999

I awoke to find the whole of my face, arm, back and bed covered in melted chocolate. Yeah, I know what you're thinking.....it was definitely chocolate. It smelt like chocolate, it tasted like chocolate and there was an Aero wrapper stuck in the middle of it.

Richard, Mark [ Brit tractors ] and myself went down to a place they call "The Rubber Switchblade" [ don't ask ] for a few cold ones. Richard left early. Mark and I didn't. Upon arriving home I didn't eat an Aero and didn't awake the next day covered in chocolate. However the bed was still covered with it as I hadn't had the time or sobriety to clean it off by this point.

Thursday 28th October 1999