I've never been into travel. Or, more accurately I hadn’t ever been given an opportunity to get into it. When one grows up, with little control over their lives, you don’t question the authority figures, you just go with the flow, and even though deep inside you question this treatment, when you do verbalise it, and pipe up, you’re either hit, beaten, verbally abused or your Mother comes up with yet another pathetic excuse, where she will always start blaming you, for the reason why you weren’t given an opportunity to go on holiday over the many years she, your sister, and your “step” relations did.
You are left looking on, feeling like an outsider, as your sibling, stepsibling, and your new “Father-figure” (which John Valle-Jones wasn’t – nor would he ever be recognised as, nor does he have that capability - he had/has as much parental instincts as a Panda – I do not mind plastering his name everywhere, shaming the man who abused me growing up. John Valle-Jones was/still is for all I know, just an absolute cunt of a human being and a sociopathic bully) and Mother go on various holidays, and you are assigned as the child who will look after the animals, and stay home, where you’re travelling fate is sealed.
You can’t argue. You have no foot to stand on. The decisions are made on your behalf, and you have no choice but to agree, and couple up the reality that she has gone out and got hers and your sister’s passport all sorted without even a flicker of interest in whether I might like to go or have a passport made… you know, just so you (meaning me) have that option and choice, whether I actually want to brave a holiday abroad or not.
I have a mother who used that one time I cried on an aeroplane when I was six, as sole reason why I shouldn’t come on the holiday - it was convenient for me to look after the animals as they holidayed it up.
So, in so many ways, I owned this role of anti-holidayer and personified it; each time a new holiday was planned, I would pipe up, “I am not going!” - owning my responsibilities to the animals left in the UK as they (Mother, John, Sister, Step-sister) went to Barcelona, Rome, Spain, etc. - to take some control over my fate and decisions.
It wasn’t on their terms; it was my terms.
It wasn’t until I got older and matured and my self-awareness opened like some Amsterdam lady of the night’s thighs, did I realise, I had fallen into the trap they had made.
Sick bastards.
“Wanna watch this show about travelling abroad?”
I have never sat and watched a travel TV programme in full, unless it was presented by Joanna Lumley – there was some slight transference of information and history fact that she imparted, but mostly I was entranced by her alien beauty. This beauty, this otherness of hers held me in a strange beam - where everything around her dissolves and there is just me and Joanna - who is talking to her audience, yet I believed was merely shared to me. Strange, but true.
Those shows aren’t for me, and the same goes for travel writing.
Travel writing, though no doubt has its fans and appreciators, is just a bit . . . b-o-r-i-n-g
Bu-bu-buh-buh-boring (can I pet the rabbits, George?)
I wouldn’t include myself in that most strange minority (and trust me there are fuck tons of stranger minorities born every day, in todays fractured, archaic world) who enjoy this type of journalism and expression. I also haven’t ever been that much into travelling myself, as I already mentioned, I took it upon myself to personify the British bumpkin.
Even at my healthiest, and most fit, I did not and do not enjoy the sensation of sweat, humidity, and physical exertion and different climes to those experienced in the UK, why put myself through a different lands own humidity levels and unpredictability’s?
I know the weather and the heats will be different and the translation of said heat and weather alters when you’re on said holiday as your mind simmers down, or relaxes more, and your whole essence and soul tunes into that holiday bandwidth. You are programmed to approach similar heats in a different fashion. You bask in it, and do not wince at it like Nosferatu introduced to a sunbed.
Constantly you’re privy to holiday discussions and public outpourings – your virgin ear just tunes in, and the weather, the climate, the whole thing is gilded in a pathetic new sheen. You cannot help but take it all in, and try and fight against it, rationalising as to why all these outpourings are the exact reasons a holiday isn’t for you. People. Heat. A clamoured forced one to two week rush. As it was so spoken about you put on a hardened exterior, not willing to reveal your inner soft sensitive core – they’re amping up the holiday hype, and like most sexually active people do, sensing a virgin in their midst, both trying to goad you into the action of sex/holidaying or generally just boasting, you are forced to suffer and to stake a claim in this “argument” or situation. Constantly holidays were being had and pitched to and around me by the great holidayers – whilst little old me, the timid holiday-virgin wilted at these public displays of holiday-affection. I don’t care. I was anti-holiday, like most virgins I was more than ready to convince myself I am too. I don’t want it. I will get to it when I wanna get to it ! Using the past issues of passport denials or fuck ups as proof, testament that the fates of holidaying were not for me, able to go to bed, smugly, knowing, holidaying wasn’t for/destined for me.
The travelling by car thing I am alright with. If you can wind down your windows or you have a fairly decent AC-installed in one’s car, I am happy to sit and appreciate come what may on these long drives.
It wasn’t until I met Laura, perhaps the only person in this world who loves to drive long distances and doesn’t moan, groan, or kick off about the journey in of itself, that the anti-holiday demon was slowly being exorcised; it was Laura who introduced me to this idea that a holiday isn’t just about going beyond one’s own horizons/island, that there are holidays, escape days available to us in the UK. Something was changing in me. I wanted to go further afield. Though I wanted this, I wasn’t then seeking out materials to guide me, push me, further my new want and resolve over popping my holiday cherry.
So, though UK away weeks or weekends did light a fuse, I still didn’t seek out anything to read, all travel related - as in travel journals, articles, big puff pieces on big puffier news-sites and esteemed newspapers. And no, I didn’t seek out my comfort in the form of a novel/novels. My point still stands, I never would hunt for materials to educate myself; not deliberately. Well, not that I know of. Meaning I wouldn’t queue for hours to meet the less famous Theroux (no, not Justin Theroux, I meant Paul Theroux, Louis’s Father) and I wouldn't deliberately reach out for a book about somebody's journeys to this country, or that country, or that most auspicious place that everyone must go to, and all just so they can feel included in this false thing called society and “culture”. I wouldn’t go out of my way either to grab a book by Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux (sorry Louis) or Jan Morris, and whomever else is expert in travel writing.
So no, I will not go out and read, let alone buy a book, all for the sake of travel writing passed off as entertainment. It isn't the kind of writing I find in the least bit interesting. It is usually pretentious twaddle, written by a person in a position in life to indulge – going on holiday as a career is overindulgence. And being a not well-travelled pleb, having only been out of my own country twice - (Aha! you are not a virgin I hear you cry…well, let’s look at it like this – when one plays with themselves and squirts their sperm, or when younger their phantom jizzum, is that a virginity popping? No. You haven’t experienced the full immersion in breaching one’s virginity, and let’s if a girl breaks her…ahem, her you know what, lets say by over exerting herself by exercising or a playground accident, if said cherry is popped, she is still a virgin, in so many ways, and that’s how I view my first two ventures abroad, so leave me alone) - I don't reach for these types of books.
Maybe because I am a little jaded and UK-centric/or I am just a homebody hermit who likes his home (which is a lie, I think the UK would benefit from certain areas getting the Putin treatment) the whole Holiday conundrum is a repetitive cycle or trying, failing, and reinforcing my hate of everything holiday related. It doesn’t appeal to me, and nor does the idea of writing about travelling.
Yet somehow this is what I am doing, during our long travel to Bad Griesbach in Germany.
I am compelled to document everything… every minor detail… every feeling… every and what kinds of things that have happened to us, or that we have studied and translated between the two of us, me, and Laura (my fiancée). What most gets me is less the history, and the places and histrionics ingrained in its textures and DNA, but the experiences, the fish out of water moments, the advantage of being able to see, smell and appreciate different scents, textures, and studying people, hoping that they don’t think you’re some foreign creep or thief. I love people watching and I like the idea of people watching people who are so enraptured by me, the alien, the outcast, watching them. Knowing me knowing you, people watching, there is nothing we can’t do, knowing me, espying you, a-huh!
Maybe I have flicked through a Joanna Lumley co-authored book, only to admire the eternal youth she has been granted, but the furthest I've ever reached, in relation to reading travel writing is by the likes of Will Self - who is one big headed, insufferable (shame to admit this) brilliant wit and writer, whose aim goes beyond mere location scouting. Or let’s take William S. Burroughs for example and his journeys for yage/ayahuasca.
The only pieces of writing centred on somebody's experiences travelling I have enjoyed are if the author interests me, and if it isn’t all so lofty and lardy-dah! - if it is at all condescending, I will stop reading it and go onto some other chapter or part of the writer’s collection of essays; they must have a purpose, a reason/a travel raison d’etre.
My inclination and attention most often is attuned/focused when it is in search of another artist’s history, whereby the author is retracing another’s artists steps - that stuff suits me fine, and if it is an expedition or something of that ilk, I am gung-ho. I also would usually only read a book about one’s travels and experiences when the writer is somebody I already know and have an affinity for/and their works. Also, the writer, let's say John Waters, won't write any old journalistic piece - we know this, that the author or artist we are biased enough to state, “I would read a travel book by him, but not ‘im!” – will go someplace altogether different compared to the prose of a Bill Byron or Paul Theroux; so we go in expecting the unexpected; a type of work that is less of a guide and used as a platform to boast, that the travel writers-elite themselves would grow beetroot red over, witnessing an outsider like Self or Waters to cover the ground they feel is theirs to tread – why beetroot red? – well, whether in jealousy or abject horror (the travel writer being a supposed rare species of scribbler and authorial voice, the sect whereby this type of expression should be sequestered and kept sacred, with the likes of a Bill Bryson looking fellow) - I got to state the obvious, what other colour would they turn? Blue? Meh. A book or piece with a purpose and theme by a writer I know is where my head is at.
But, Zak, I can hear you say, you can’t knock it until you try it.
Yeah, but…no!
I appreciate when a fellow writer, actor, artist, seeks to attain some divinity of the creator they are so beholden to, which is attached to some alternate culture - that of an artist they admire and wish to follow in the footsteps of.
So, what is my purpose of writing this?
To try and keep myself sane.
I'm no travel expert or historian.
I don't expect many to give two flying fucks about my experiences and issues and phobias, but luckily Anthony McIntyre gave me the thumbs up on sending him entries on my current journeying and experiences in Germany, and it feels more like that I have a purpose, and place to shove these raving thoughts onto.
So welcome to the first part in what will be called The Holiday Virgin.
Yes, the virgin is me.
♜ ♞ ♟
I've obviously lived a sheltered and boring life. I had never been on a Ferry. Not until 14th July 2023. Which was three days ago from today as I type this up on Laura’s laptop.
Yeah, it was a new experience. The worst of it was before we hit the seas, heading toward Dunkirk, which was where me and Laura first ended up seated – salivating over the lukewarm, grungy looking budget breakfast our ferry provided – having left at 4.00am, still physically and mentally exhausted, only having moved into our new Flat not a few days before, which was a big move, from two different locations. We did it ourselves. No removal-men. Which we both agreed, we’d not do next time.
Whilst sitting in the cafe/restaurant area, the ferry was bopping up and down, I had anticipated this was the worst part of the whole experience, the bopping, yet still couldn’t control my manic imagination, envisioning the likes of me and Laura projectile vomiting perpetually over each other, like from some scene from a South Park sketch.
What I had feared might have been a sickening experience from the off was only experienced in the first fifteen minutes, when we were still in port. The bopping did make one experience nausea of an altogether different style compared to travel-sickness or a booze-up, and a strange vertigo. Once we deported and were away, it was just a two and a half hour wait, contending with walking end to end of the ferry, facing exits/entrances to the ferry's top deck - to get some air and admire how truly stuck we are in the middle of nowhere, to only be stopped by natty looking yellow tape warning us not to go any further. I felt like pressing my lips against the frame that held the door, hoping to get some form of oxygen that hadn’t been mixed with thousands of others. All of them we came across, all seemed to be cordoned off, which Laura thought might be to do with the strong winds.
After ten minutes people appeared outside the porthole and we were furious, how did they get there?
In my mind, having almost waltzed my way into the fancy-swanky part, before Laura pulled me back into my rightful, budget place, I was pissed off, that the higher-uppers were given the option to venture out on the outside smoking areas/deck. Looking out to the smoking areas, I wanted to join them, to puff on my vape and admire the sea, to tick off from the sad sack bucket list that only the untravelled have which states: I Want To Stand On A Ferry And Look To The Horizon.
We figured out how to get out there, and by the time we finished admiring France from afar it was time to go back in, and secure ourselves a spot back down into the heart of the ferry – well, I liked to think of it as the heart, when it was the car-go hold.
Yes, these puns write themselves.
Upon reflection, what was the point?
In the moment it was so we didn’t get caught in the traffic jam of humans who will no doubt congregate and push and barge their way to a place we all were going to anyway, and considering we were all in the same boat (quite literally) and stuck in a queue that seemed never ending, me and Laura, like everyone else had no reason to secure such first place positions.
Yet, we did it, and we didn’t get out of there any faster than anyone else.
What surprised me was how fluid it was, getting out, and into the ferry. The whole passport thing was anticlimactic. A moment in time I had imagined for so long, to then be admitted onto the ferry in such a friendly manner, I felt conned of all the visions and social media footage I had watched, and evolved, and put myself in, where people are patted down, have cars torn into, looking for drugs, humans or animals – to be given a nod, first, then an even friendlier second passport-one-over by a sweet French lady, to enter France/Dunkirk, and no one checks your id/passport. It didn’t add up. Even Laura, far better travelled than me, seemed a bit taken aback by this.
Then we were away. And the following entries will be, well, about the journey, to our planned homestead/destination and whatever may come from there over the next two weeks.
My German Fatigue
I haven’t been abroad as an adult. For the love of me I have tried. The passport process isn’t an easy one; well, it is, it’s just that I am useless at pretty much anything and everything I try my hand at. Pass me an up to date flash phone and the device will instantaneously glitch, and all unknown variations of virus will corrupt it, that when I pass back a phone that a friend handed to me, to look at a photo of themselves on holiday - (Lies, I have no friends, but for the sake of my point, let’s go along with this) - it will be broken, or slowly coming apart, internally/digitally. The friend will never talk to me again, nor wish to share their photos with me in person from their cellular device. I am just a disaster zone. My handwriting is that of a child aged two years of age. That or a doctor with Parkinson’s disease, still signing scripts, determined to stick to the doctor-schemata of writing notes long-hand instead of over the laptop. But then again, if said doctor had Parkinson’s, the typed up digitally composed notes would be as illegible than that of which he wrote with his shaking, Muhammad-Ali hand). I could never keep my handwriting in the designated - and far too small - spots, that you’re meant to keep within the lines of, on said dreaded passport form.
When I paid for the Post-Office dullards to check it over, they always denied it. Three times in a row. Okay, not in a row, there were a few years in-between, but it felt like in a row. Why leave it so long in between? Well, finances (I spent my passport money on books and films) and I had always left the post office declaring, “It isn’t worth it, I am destined to struggle in England, and England only!” and it took a lot of goading to get me to initiate this process once again. There was always some excuse or reason for one Zak Ferguson to not get a passport, and to forever be trapped on this not-so-grand island of ours.
It wasn’t until Laura - my patient, determined, and get things done kind of person - partner in crime/life took over the process, and suddenly it became a reality. I was worth a holiday. I was going to pop my holiday cherry, with her already popped and lubed holiday-bulb.
It was done within the usual time span and then, hurrah, huzzah, I was granted a passport. So excited I was, by owning this thing I always assumed everybody else had but me, I even had a mini-photo shoot of receiving it. (image below; pathetic, I know.
But having a passport is like getting a car – you’re offered at least a chance of escape and opportunity. And once the passport was in palm, it was left in a drawer for a couple of years; you see, circumstances also stall one’s dreams of at least going on a holiday outside of their own country.
I was always left feeling glum. My Mother always made excuses as to not take me to places abroad with her new (toxic/poisoned toad) partner, which was a theme when they met – all they did was go on holiday; holiday after holiday, for nearly two years, until his Credit Card begged for him to stop and reality hit, oh dear Mum, John isn’t flush, he is a liar and sold you a life that he wasn’t able to obtain.
When I was growing up, the usual excuse used that as reason not to fight on my behalf to get me my first passport, one where I am not photographed in a booth on my Mother’s lap with my sister – was that “You don’t like flying,” and all because aged six I didn’t enjoy my second flying experience as one is expected to they thought, “Phew! Save money on taking him away. He doesn’t like planes!”
(This is the same Mother who thinks a holiday isn’t a holiday, unless you travel by air and sit by a pool and melt your fat from your body for two long weeks).
The first official holiday was when I was a wee babe and was more interested in Mother’s tit than whether the plane would crash or veer off course and collide with another aeroplane. So, this doesn’t count.
The second was to France, but I was young, and the whole thing passed me by, like most things did in my childhood.
Funny, that was counted as a holiday by my mother, though we Euro-trained it to France. Such a hypocrite that Mother of mine.
Still, it doesn’t feel like a holiday or the type of holiday that one experiences at a certain age. The gaps between holidays also seal the deal on my virginal self.
I had sewn my holiday vagina right up, ready to be popped at some later date.
It was always going to be at a later date, which many times in my life I thought as meaning, “never-fucking-ever."
♜ ♞ ♟
What have I seen of Germany so far?
Autobahn. Autobahn. Autobahn.
Oh, and... Autobahn.
It was freakishly unnatural to be on the right-hand side of the road, to start off with.
My designated job was sitting on the passengers left hand side and to tell Laura (my fiancée) when an oncoming car was speeding toward us, and when was a good idea to go, or to remind her, incantatory, to “stay on the right” – though my attempts to change Beyonce’s song lyrics to Irreplaceable were not as impactful as one hoped; though the change from left to right, it fit fine, I guess, but it generated curled lips, and though Laura probably was humouring me and my butchering of this 2009 pop hit, I think she took this butchering personally. What soon followed from that initial - "I cannot look, yet I must!" feeling was that cosy familiarity we acquire once put in a position where we can't escape it and must go with it/the Germanic-traffic-frenzy-flow. It in the end felt natural, and right.
I shared this thought with Laura, who by this point was wiry-haired, some strands of hair plastered to forehead, others stuck up, as if she forgot that you can’t rescue a hot cross bun from a toaster with a knife - looking as if she had gone three rounds with Mike Tyson; she turned to me, top lip curling, exasperated and annoyed at my stupid comment.
“You’re not driving!” was all she had to say on the matter.
I shut up.
I know when to keep my mouth shut…sometimes.
Happy soon to be wife (probably not for another few years, going the way of trying to attain a passport) happier life.
Most of our two days in Germany, officially, was stuck on an Autobahn, which forces you in so many ways to get used to the way of the European road-rules. You have no choice but to be on the right-hand side because it's either that or risk causing a pileup/one’s own death. The novelty does run out, quick, too. Then you're introduced to a new complex of roundabouts and roads, that state, “Hey! Hey! Hey!” – (camply) “we have something even more fucked to introduce you to!”
(Probably all this seemingly whacky speed reduction/enforcement is because people can legally ride around on those most aggravating electric scooters in Germany, whereas in the UK, now, any old trigger-happy-but-cannot-own-a-gun-policeman will use as an opportunity to launch themselves onto the kiddly-wink thugs that make up 99.98% of the users of these things in our humble sweet and not so savoury England. I’d join the police just to be able to legally rugby tackle these shitheads).
♜ ♞ ♟
The autobahn…or should I call it The Autobahn, as it deserves that distinguishing capitol T and then that sexy hard, erudite, commanding A - is a wonderous place to lose yourself, especially if you’re a British driver.
The Autobahn is like Rollerball, only these things aren’t housed in a stadium and event-ized – this is the highways of German Rollerball, just without the science fiction aesthetic – but the sentiment still stands.
Oh, The Autobahn, The Autobahn, let me play on Zee Autobahn. A place where the UK drivers are encouraged and given the legal access codes and thumbs up to put their fucking foot down on that accelerator and speed off into, well, more junctions and Autobahn. Endless stretches that spearhead into other lanes, and might I add tight lanes – teeny tiny, worm-ish lanes, which the German driver doesn’t seem to know how to navigate – how they don’t smash into each other each time and again is shocking, they either willingly drive like a Grade A scheisse-koph or just don’t know how to drive. It is beyond me to explain. A lot will be beyond me, as you’ll gather through my writing and my overt use of that turn of phrase. Perhaps the German drivers are just that bad at driving, and know what they do dear God?
Also, they may be unsure as to the legitimacy of driving on the right and are compelled to drive on the left. This is an extremely fascinating thought. Oh, how the world of Germany and their Autobahns are not great empirical gyres of molten steel and delimbed krauts is beyond me; there I go again.
Well, the plus side to being from England – oh, wait, there isn’t many pus sides to being from the United Kingdom - it that’s all the room we got and are used to driving on, and have perfected the sardine-can driving experience over the generations. The Autobahn, so sophisticated, so crucially German, perhaps even quintessentially European, driving on it, it is as close to that sequence in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3D scene- faced with avenues of never-ending stretches of angry German drivers, and occasional sweet and British-like Netherland drivers - those who like to give thanks in hitting their hazard lights in a quick fashion, and who seem to understand the necessity of indicators on a car.
The Autobahn was not the type of tourist-ing people had expected of us, my sister accusing me of not taking the opportunity to sight-see, and having a variety of people online constantly asking for photos (Of what? The bottle I pissed in?) and seemingly perplexed as to why we didn’t stop off at every location that’s name we might be familiar with.
Obviously this was coming from people who do not drive (which I don’t myself, but seem to know more than I should, when it comes to common sense when travelling abroad) and I hated the intimation that we were being (a) boring and (b) doing the exact opposite as to what they had dreamed for us, in that moment of contemplation when deciding to post a comment on Facebook.
But, no, I didn’t want to explain in minute detail that: it is impossible to freely tour like hitchhikers or bus-hopping/tourist-y sweat-loving walkers, when you have a fucking car – so, so far, so all right.
It is so far just an endless stretch of, oh some nice scenery, that is sped past at 81mph. The closer we got to our intended destination, our apartment, that was when we could bask in Germany’s superior landscape.
The Autobahn and these long stretches of infinite-concrete and tar were mostly used to get us to our intended destination, and to a service station for a quick piss and coffee/caffeine boost and hit.
When we got into the urban/suburban reaches, the tourist hotspots of Germany, that was when the snails-pace-living and speeds made themselves known to us, and confounded us, as the German’s seemed split between adhering to their own rules or knowing where the small print was written, and where it says they can speed, and swerve, and cut up each other for the sake of it – all whilst the small print wasn’t readable or made known to us two British folk. Through this urban jungle, Google Maps, and the ofttimes glitching inbuilt SATNAZ navigated to get us to our first night stay at an Ibis budget hotel. Which I might add, was overpriced for what it was. Also, what is wrong with Europeans, why do you sleep on beds no comfier than holding cell blocks? And have you ever heard of a pillow system that services the even-numbered things in life?
I could have experienced the same thing on a park bench with a wrinkly pillowcase over it for free and it would have left me leaving a better rating/review after, in comparison to this budget hotel. Eesh.
Day One complete, now time to try and sleep with the meaty and eggy combo stench of a German aircon system.
The Autobahn is like Rollerball, only these things aren’t housed in a stadium and event-ized – this is the highways of German Rollerball, just without the science fiction aesthetic – but the sentiment still stands.
Oh, The Autobahn, The Autobahn, let me play on Zee Autobahn. A place where the UK drivers are encouraged and given the legal access codes and thumbs up to put their fucking foot down on that accelerator and speed off into, well, more junctions and Autobahn. Endless stretches that spearhead into other lanes, and might I add tight lanes – teeny tiny, worm-ish lanes, which the German driver doesn’t seem to know how to navigate – how they don’t smash into each other each time and again is shocking, they either willingly drive like a Grade A scheisse-koph or just don’t know how to drive. It is beyond me to explain. A lot will be beyond me, as you’ll gather through my writing and my overt use of that turn of phrase. Perhaps the German drivers are just that bad at driving, and know what they do dear God?
Also, they may be unsure as to the legitimacy of driving on the right and are compelled to drive on the left. This is an extremely fascinating thought. Oh, how the world of Germany and their Autobahns are not great empirical gyres of molten steel and delimbed krauts is beyond me; there I go again.
Well, the plus side to being from England – oh, wait, there isn’t many pus sides to being from the United Kingdom - it that’s all the room we got and are used to driving on, and have perfected the sardine-can driving experience over the generations. The Autobahn, so sophisticated, so crucially German, perhaps even quintessentially European, driving on it, it is as close to that sequence in Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids 3D scene- faced with avenues of never-ending stretches of angry German drivers, and occasional sweet and British-like Netherland drivers - those who like to give thanks in hitting their hazard lights in a quick fashion, and who seem to understand the necessity of indicators on a car.
The Autobahn was not the type of tourist-ing people had expected of us, my sister accusing me of not taking the opportunity to sight-see, and having a variety of people online constantly asking for photos (Of what? The bottle I pissed in?) and seemingly perplexed as to why we didn’t stop off at every location that’s name we might be familiar with.
Obviously this was coming from people who do not drive (which I don’t myself, but seem to know more than I should, when it comes to common sense when travelling abroad) and I hated the intimation that we were being (a) boring and (b) doing the exact opposite as to what they had dreamed for us, in that moment of contemplation when deciding to post a comment on Facebook.
But, no, I didn’t want to explain in minute detail that: it is impossible to freely tour like hitchhikers or bus-hopping/tourist-y sweat-loving walkers, when you have a fucking car – so, so far, so all right.
It is so far just an endless stretch of, oh some nice scenery, that is sped past at 81mph. The closer we got to our intended destination, our apartment, that was when we could bask in Germany’s superior landscape.
The Autobahn and these long stretches of infinite-concrete and tar were mostly used to get us to our intended destination, and to a service station for a quick piss and coffee/caffeine boost and hit.
When we got into the urban/suburban reaches, the tourist hotspots of Germany, that was when the snails-pace-living and speeds made themselves known to us, and confounded us, as the German’s seemed split between adhering to their own rules or knowing where the small print was written, and where it says they can speed, and swerve, and cut up each other for the sake of it – all whilst the small print wasn’t readable or made known to us two British folk. Through this urban jungle, Google Maps, and the ofttimes glitching inbuilt SATNAZ navigated to get us to our first night stay at an Ibis budget hotel. Which I might add, was overpriced for what it was. Also, what is wrong with Europeans, why do you sleep on beds no comfier than holding cell blocks? And have you ever heard of a pillow system that services the even-numbered things in life?
I could have experienced the same thing on a park bench with a wrinkly pillowcase over it for free and it would have left me leaving a better rating/review after, in comparison to this budget hotel. Eesh.
Day One complete, now time to try and sleep with the meaty and eggy combo stench of a German aircon system.
🕮 Zak Ferguson is a co-founder of Sweat Drenched Press and the author of books like Soft Tissues, Dimension Whores and One Of These Days
Zak - that is prolific writing. Such a gush of energy.
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