Ramblings

I was thinking the other day how European travel gives endless opportunities to revel in the smutty humour that we English love so much; in Holland for example,every day I pop down to the local village coffee shop for lunch, I have to walk through a small alleyway that has a large sign above -"Winkelpassage" - I can't believe that I still snigger every day.

This past weekend me and LF were in Hannover, Germany, as the taxi drove past the first road sign that said "Ausfahrt" I started giggling, this carried on the more signs I saw. Not forgetting the endless opportunity to start singing in a monotone voice " Bahn Bahn Bahn , on zee Auotobahn".

Authentic Japanese tea house (donated by city of Hiroshima) in Hannover gardens

Then there is the opportunity to confirm the racial stereotypes we have in our (my) head ( by the way I'm old enough to remember pre-PC days when you could say what you thought without fear of being prosecuted) ; I remember fondly the 'Costa wars' of the 1970's fought out at every Spanish hotel where German and English holidaymakers were staying - every morning at 5am the Germans would go down to the swimming pool and 'reserve' all the sun-loungers by placing towels on them,then return to bed.

A couple of hours later would see groups of Brits wandering around cursing as there was nowhere to sit, this would then escalate as the Germans finally turned up at 11am after leisurely breakfast to claim their places. I remember things escalating, voices raised, towels floating in the pool, "who..me." expressions. Oh the fun.

Anyway, this weekend we were at a conference, and sure enough, Saturday morning when we entered the hall just before the start, here were hundreds of empty chairs, all with a little piece of paper placed on them with a hand-written 'reserved' sign. Oh how I laughed at the memory!

 

German Hi-speed train not going very fast - stopped again somewhere

Oh and by the way, I discovered that German trains don't always run on time, another urban myth exploded. On the positive side, there is nothing finer than relaxing in the town square on a warm spring evening watching leggy blondes weaving their bicycles through traffic, thin summer skirts blowing in the breeze.....


Anyway, this blog is supposed to be about motorcycles, so an update.... as Troubador foresaw, when I turned up at my local Triumph dealer they fell over themselves to give me a test ride on a Tiger 800. I did ride one last year and thought it was OK, if not exciting, but time and my dicky hip now makes it a
more attractive proposition, especially the taller XC version. The dealer also made me a fairly derisory offer for the Thunderbird, but I might just take him up on it to take away the hassle of selling it online. Hopefully, the next post should have some positive news.