Today was Mark's 21st birthday!
We left Pünderich (as we found out it's called) after a large breakfast and another long-but-with-minimal-content conversation with the sweet old landlady, on our way to the Nurburgring.
The tracks were closed because of a race the next day. This was a slight disappointment at first, but we soon saw that there was still heaps to do apart from sit and watch flash cars all day.
We started at the F1 track. The museum there was quite good, and it was a shame we had to race through it to make the tour. But the tour was worth it - it took us over through the 'paddocks' as they call them, and because of the race the paddocks were full of cars, and beautiful ones at that, and were being tuned. We got to go up into the media room, and also up onto the roof of the control centre/pits building, and down through the whole pits. Lots of great photos and just a top atmosphere of everyone running around like crazy getting their cars going for the race.
Next we went up to Nordschleife, the larger road circuit that we were really more interested in anyway. There's an M5 BMW taxi you can get to race you around the full circuit and we were hopefull to get in without any booking. But again, because of the race the next day the whole thing was booked out. Oh well, we did get to see a few flash cars doing test laps at least!
From Nürburgring it was to be over to Dortmund, and off we went, TomTom leading the way. Unfortunately we got caught in a large traffic jam - nearly doubling the time it should have taken us to get there, and we didn't even make it all the way. My PDA (mini-computer that runs TomTom) went flat just when we really needed it, and we discovered the car charger for it wasn't working the whole time.
Bugger, so we took the next exit and found a shopping centre where we were going to see if we could find a map and something to drink. We walked into a travel agent and were treated once again to generous hospitality German style - he phoned up places for us, tore a couple of maps out of his phone book and gave us directions to a nearby hostel and instructions on how to get into Dortmund.
Sweet, so off we go to dump the luggage and onto the train, making sure to walk in the completely wrong direction for the train station, just to stop us feeling clever.
Dortmund was just about in a state of riot. By the time we got there (about half way through the first half) there were gangs of police roaming some areas, the main square had the big screen torn down, and everyone was crowding around smaller screens in other pubs. Glass and rubbish (rubble even if it sounds better) covered the streets, and we even saw some stormtrooper-cops.
Finally we found a decent sized big screen, downstairs in a food court, with hundreds of people piled on top of each other. Perfect! In we get and join in the going nuts for the last half of the game. It was great timing - we were just able to help shield a couple of fraulines from the storming masses (they were quite.. appreciative) and still had 45mins of tension before the Germans actually scored and won the game.
Such a top and unique experience.
We left Pünderich (as we found out it's called) after a large breakfast and another long-but-with-minimal-content conversation with the sweet old landlady, on our way to the Nurburgring.
The tracks were closed because of a race the next day. This was a slight disappointment at first, but we soon saw that there was still heaps to do apart from sit and watch flash cars all day.We started at the F1 track. The museum there was quite good, and it was a shame we had to race through it to make the tour. But the tour was worth it - it took us over through the 'paddocks' as they call them, and because of the race the paddocks were full of cars, and beautiful ones at that, and were being tuned. We got to go up into the media room, and also up onto the roof of the control centre/pits building, and down through the whole pits. Lots of great photos and just a top atmosphere of everyone running around like crazy getting their cars going for the race.
Next we went up to Nordschleife, the larger road circuit that we were really more interested in anyway. There's an M5 BMW taxi you can get to race you around the full circuit and we were hopefull to get in without any booking. But again, because of the race the next day the whole thing was booked out. Oh well, we did get to see a few flash cars doing test laps at least!
From Nürburgring it was to be over to Dortmund, and off we went, TomTom leading the way. Unfortunately we got caught in a large traffic jam - nearly doubling the time it should have taken us to get there, and we didn't even make it all the way. My PDA (mini-computer that runs TomTom) went flat just when we really needed it, and we discovered the car charger for it wasn't working the whole time.
Bugger, so we took the next exit and found a shopping centre where we were going to see if we could find a map and something to drink. We walked into a travel agent and were treated once again to generous hospitality German style - he phoned up places for us, tore a couple of maps out of his phone book and gave us directions to a nearby hostel and instructions on how to get into Dortmund.
Sweet, so off we go to dump the luggage and onto the train, making sure to walk in the completely wrong direction for the train station, just to stop us feeling clever.
Dortmund was just about in a state of riot. By the time we got there (about half way through the first half) there were gangs of police roaming some areas, the main square had the big screen torn down, and everyone was crowding around smaller screens in other pubs. Glass and rubbish (rubble even if it sounds better) covered the streets, and we even saw some stormtrooper-cops.Finally we found a decent sized big screen, downstairs in a food court, with hundreds of people piled on top of each other. Perfect! In we get and join in the going nuts for the last half of the game. It was great timing - we were just able to help shield a couple of fraulines from the storming masses (they were quite.. appreciative) and still had 45mins of tension before the Germans actually scored and won the game.
Such a top and unique experience.
posted by Tim at 10:07 pm
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