Going Home

I seem to be lacking on input on this blog lately. Sometimes I’m too busy… sometimes I’m travelling somewhere… sometimes I just can’t be bothered. However, I got time now, so I’ll get onto some updating!

I’ll mention a few things, but briefly. I have to talk about the way back home before Christmas and the time at home, too. So I’ll start with that.

So… as my car was in a dodgy state, I had to be careful with it on the journey back home. I wanted to buy a new car out here, and I did find a nice car. It was ideal. However, due to it being a left-hand drive, the insurance back home would triple. I can see where they’re coming from. It is more difficult having the steering wheel on the other side of the car, when the car isn’t designed for such road. It’s not easy trying to see what’s coming on the other side of the road when wanting to overtake a lorry. The view of the road is very restricted in some places, especially behind such vehicles, or being at a sharp junction and so on.

However, the trip home was in three legs. The first from Recklinghausen to Worms. The second was with Rob from Worms to Maidstone. And the third was from Maidstone back to Pontardawe.

On the day we left, we thought we’d call in Kaufland to buy some stuff, a crate of beer and some Schnitzel. I got my selection of different beers, a bottle of Sprite, some Haribo and a kick-ass Schnitzel from the Erich Zeiss. I must put extra emphasis on this Schnitzel.

Well, we got to the counter, and they had massive Schnitzels. And we thought that she’d cut them in half and give us a half each. But she didn’t. She cut them in half and put one on top of the other in the bread roll. So we had this massive Schnitzel in small bread. And the meat was good, too. It wasn’t dry crap that tasted and felt like rubber. It was soo good and succulent and faultless. It took me quarter of an hour to finish it. Just like the Cawlchen I had in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, I didn’t want this to finish!

And, when eating this Schnitzel, I looked up and saw these two guys trying to bump-start this tiny Renault Twingo through the car park. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. And with this tiny excuse for a car, this heavenly Schnitzel, the good weather that day, and good music blasting from the only working speaker of my car, it seemed things couldn’t get any better!

So we set off. I drove towards Kaiserlautern and into Luxembourg. As fuel is cheap here, we worked out that I’d fill about half a tank in Recklinghausen, and by the time we were in Luxembourg, it would be bordering on the red. So then we’d fill up and it should last until I get home.

The route was really nice, we didn’t go on many motorways. Instead, we went on trunk roads along the French-Belgian border, and then take the French A26 to Calais. At Calais, provided we had time, we would go to the warehouses to get beer and wine and stuff. We did it, but we got to the ferry check-in point ten minutes late. However, these people are rather flexible like that, and we managed to get there fine. Even so, it would have been possible to get on the next sailing.

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. Nothing much really happened between Dover and Pontardawe. Even though in Maidstone, I did get my first haircut since August. And come to think of it, my first English haircut!