schattenraum

As you might or might not know, I spontaneously found myself joining Theresa’s one week tour of England. This is some sort of diary.

day 1: friday, sept 14.

location: hamburg, street, street, street, leeds
shirt: commodore
mood: sleepy

Yesterday had Theresa and me travelling from Berlin to Benni’s flat in Hamburg. Nice people and beer there, something I think will be the standard situation for the next eight days.

After something like four hours of uncomfortable sleep we embarked on a seven hour drive to Hoek van Holland to get onto the ferry leaving at 2:45 pm. Soundtrack: Death in Vegas, Die goldenen Zitronen, Jose Gonzales, Kid606, Autreche, The Beach Boys.

Another seven hours aboard the ferry had us watching the Simpsons Movie at the ferry’s own cinema and passing some more time sitting on the floor and playing an unscripted little concert, Theresa on the guitar, me on my laptop, all connected to the small battery powered guitar amp. Surprisingly, nobody told us to stop although we were sitting right in front of the passenger cabins where people most likely tried to sleep.

Arrived in Harwich at about 9 pm local time. Five more hours of driving, all done by brave Benni with support by plenty of caffeine (and me, I hope). Soundtrack: Sex Pistols, Reef the lost cauze, Themselves, Tunng, Modest Mouse, André Galluzzi.

Only two detours due to construction work on our way to Leeds. Some confused time searching for Paul’s (the tour’s promoter’s) house. First impression of his neighbourhood: A group of young men hurled these plastic fence poles of a roadside construction site at the car driving right ahead of us. Finally arrived at Paul’s house. Had some not-quite-cold cans of not-quite-good Heineken beer we bought on the ferry. Finally, nice and comfy bed and sleeping bags waiting for us after being awake for 24 hours and 10 minutes. End of day one.

Things learned:

• Panic about driving on the left side on the streed subsides after an hour (at least for me in the passenger seat–I’ll have to confirm that driving myself tomorrow).
• You can be dead tired after a day of basically sitting around (if it involves three countries, 13 hours on the road and 7 hours on a ferry).
• It is impossible to read street signs in England in the dark while driving by if you only have a faint idea where exactly you are going.
• I seem to have a completely different musical socialization compared to Benni and Theresa. I knew the names of about 50% the bands we listened to in the car and had heard maybe 5% of it before.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 15:58 and is filed under Gemecker, Ich, Musik, Pop vs. Kultur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.