Europe, we're here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

24 hours later, and here we are by the river in Frankfurt, waiting for the leaves to grow on the trees..We brought some sunshine with us to help them along. It's cold and Michelle is shivering, but she soon found a good market and put on a thermo pile jacket, which has been great for the last few weeks - only 5 euros!

Sean was there to meet us at the airport, but the photo was a little blurry, due to the fact that he didn't have any beer in his hands, not even for me, good payback for the empty beer I sent along with his furniture from the Philippines!!

He's got a place perfect for him, a walking street area with non stop bars/restos, even a Filipino Karaoke lounge 20 mtrs away for those lonely cold nights. We stayed 2 nights with him, and it was good to be back on some fast internet, even though my new IBM crashed again for the second time in 6 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!Got it going again, but lost a pile of files as usual.
We caught up with the last few episodes of 'Lost' and downloaded a couple of films.

We caught the ICE train to Bremen the next afternoon and Ellen picked us up at Bremen station, back to their house, some beers and bed. Here's Michelle looking really worried at 250kph on the ICE train to Bremen


Next two days were involved with seeing as much of Bremen as possible, a city I really enjoy because it's small, compact and full of bars. The main square is lovely and sunny, when it's sunny.........


I had to fly to UK and see my mate Bodders to find out which particular mode of transport he was going to lend me for the Summer, so I left Michelle with Ellen and Ralf and jumped on Ryanair to Stansted. Bods was there to meet me, again, no beer in his hand, what's happened to Europe????????Damn Pigs and breathalysers, infringement of personal freedom, I call it. What's wrong with having a few beers and cruising around so long as you don't have an accident!!!!! I've been doing it for 35 years..........Here's the chuggabugga captured by Kodak (Sony, actually).

Unfortunately, I only had 2-3 cylinders and a very poor battery condition and an overheating engine due to low power, and I had my foot on the floor for the next 800kms which took me 19 hours in total!!

However, here's Bodders pointing out the invading Vikings approaching his castle on the shores of the North Sea.........


And here's his castle, another fine fellow who insists on living right next door to a pub, in fact, he claims it is only 12 paces from back door to pub, what a guy!!!!!!!!


The beautiful tulips dominating the photo are courtesy of the lovely Lizzie, who was, sadly, absent during my overnighter with the Boddo. Maybe she heard I was coming and managed to escape.......We actually crashed out around 8.30 PM, totally sober and tired out after repelling Vikings.

Next day was the start of my worst driving experience EVER. Luckily the land is flat for the 800 kms to Bremen or I would have returned to UK from Dunkerque or Oostend, both of which I passed at the top speed of 45 mph, guzzling gas and pouring water into the radiator next to me as I'm driving along, being followed by 2 million honking trucks who are not allowed to overtake cars most of the time..... Stopping constantly at fuel stations to fill up the fast emptying tank, was a juggling match - I couldn't stop the engine coz it wouldn't start again, so had to decide whether to fill up the radiator with water before or after fuelling, before it overheated too much. In the end I filled it up first, got fuel, got more water from the garage, filled the radiator again, and then drove off quickly (ha ha) to get air moving through the radiator. The engine wasn't turned off till midnight and a half, when I arrived at Ellens' house in Bremen.

The garage which charged my mate 600 pounds for a full service had replaced, as normal, the contact points, HT leads and spark plugs, but had neglected to connect TWO of the HT leads to the distributor.........duuuuuuuuuuuuuuh! One was completely disconnected and the other was giving a short jump every now and again...Three and a half tons of campervan, driving along on only 1000 cc instead of 2 litres.

I should have checked everything as I normally do but, didn't stop and look due to the battery situation and overheating, I'm a silly boy!

Imagine how it felt like when I fixed everything in Hamburg - I was in a Porsche at last. Even the battery cables hadn't been tightened on the terminals, what a bunch of ...kers, get your money back if you can Boddo....

Stayed for a night outside Hamburg with Tim and Younggi (spelt right????). Had a wonderful dinner of huge asparagus, it's the season right now and I love it. It was good to be back out in the countryside with fields, woods, horses and the smell of muck spreading in the nearby fields.

Here is a picture of a HORSE.



This is right next to Tim's place, lovely area for walking and being peaceful, in fact it's so peaceful it's hard to sleep in total silence.

Next day was a great hassle free trip up to the ferry at Puttgarden, over to Denmark, up past Copenhagen to the 10 minute crossing between Helsingor and Helsingborg in Sweden. Only hiccup was almost running out of fuel 20 kms away from our 'final destination'. A lot of fuel stations in Sweden are badly sign posted and many only take the gas station credit cards, it's a pain in the ass, even for Swedes.

So, we arrived at Staffan's factory on a Saturday afternoon, and immediately opened a beer and went inside to watch Concepcion Mike working with Liz..They do the weekend day shift, it pays more and there's not many people around. In the end I had to help out a little with a fork lift coz they were a bit short handed....



Here's the final (temporary) resting place of the Chuggabugga, next to Mike and Thomas. we all have to move from here soon, but for now it's ok as a gypsiy camp inside a factory fence.....




So, I'm working night shifts at the weekend on the computerised machines which process the raw material and then press out big blocks of styrofoam, which are then cut into smaller shapes on the production line floor during the day shifts. It's really cool coz I'm on my own in the factory at night, no-one to bother me, and only the machines to bugger me up sometimes. I've proved to myself that I have a brain, coz these machines are difficult to understand, and I was running them after two days.....respect Ali G aaaaiiiiahhhh. Anyway, means I earn as much in one night shift as the other guys do on five days shifts, and I'm happy with it, I get the whole week off to do what I like, that's normally drinking beer and looking out of the fence right now, but trips are planned very soon for overnighters away, exploring.

Michelle handles the boredom well, and is taking good care of the house and me, our kitchen is well stocked, the fridge works great, we've got non stick pots and pans, warm bedding, a shower and loo nearby, satellite tv, internet, and two roses to take care of.

Life is good, and the sun is still shining, with temperatures of 30 degrees cent forecast for this coming weekend.

Next update soon.......LOL