Berlin did not want to let me go.
We left early under a cloud. 3 hours set to Hanover. Every fucking German driver wants to kill themselves.
It was absolutely shitting it down with rain, and I’m in a Luton van with the wheel on the wrong side, and these fucking idiots… I’ve never seen anything like it. Visibility is virtually nothing, grey skies, constant rain. But still these guys are slamming it in their Porsche at 200mph in the fast lane. One fucker wanged past us at about 10am and then twenty minutes later we all had to wait while the fire brigade cut him out. He was okayish, his Porsche was totalled. We were close to that fool so he only cost us 20 minutes, unlike the guy in an Audi who did EXACTLY the same thing but was less fortunate and caused a triple strike. We sat for an hour because of him, just totally stationery, thousands of cars held up while they cleared the debris in the rain. Why?
German drivers. Honestly as soon as we crossed the border into the Netherlands it stopped. German drivers suck.
Both crash causing vehicles were in the same position, across the fast lane with their front in the central reservation. Basically both vehicles went faster than they were safely capable of driving in rainy conditions without a spoiler, they hit a bit of water and lost the back end, no time to react at that speed, tried to turn into the skid but felt it overcompensating that way, panic oversteered the other way with however much braking they were capable of between managing the control loss, too little too late, skewed round and found themselves horizontal to the road with their front end buried in the central reservation and their right neck whiplashed to arseholes. Bang. None of them looked fatal but they all looked stupid. It felt like karma really. I know what it is because the exact thing happened to me when I was in the slow lane at 2am too fast aged about 29 and I lost the back end in heavy rain braking suddenly because I saw a gatso that had been put up to cover some daytime roadworks. I was still managing the skid when I triggered the fucking thing but thankfully was sideways for the photos so never got a letter – or maybe it was out of film, it was in a really egregious place, at the top of a downwards slope of open road. I was in the slow lane and no other cars or wouldn’t have been bombing it, and I managed to get back control. Learned a lesson. I don’t think they can do that these days with the temporary cameras?
Berlin feels weird. We had ordered our Uber last night and it arrived. I called to Rhys “Hey mate, it’s on this side,” and two German lads came at us shouting “Yasser yasser burkha burkha” and evidently wanting to start a fight based on their perception of our foreign-ness. I think in their infinite ignorance they mistook our English for Arabic. And Rhys and I both have dark eyes and skin – he’s Celtic and I’m Hispanic and honestly that whole west coast is Tír na nOg, But we were lucky that the Uber came when it did cos they were lathered and spoiling for a fight. They looked a bit disappointed we had a ride as we got driven away by a lovely Turk called Metin who might actually have warranted the rage of two workshy boys looking for a Friday fight. They have outsourced responsibility for their anger. It’s common. You have to look yourself square in the face to really know that only you are responsible for your own happiness.
I’m happy to be out of Germany, almost home, almost dropped off. This has been a remarkable adventure. But today was one of the hardest days of driving of my life and I’ve covered hundreds of thousands of miles in so many different vehicles. The rain, the ears, the precious cargo, and… German drivers.
Still, I made it to Antwerp.
AlBarclay 