Arrival

Date: Mar 13 1994

Technically, I'm still a German resident, and will be for at least a half year (since I don't have a UK work permit). And while I'm in Germany, I pretend to be a UK resident, since I can't legally drive there anymore since my Canadian license is only good for 1 year after moving to Germany.

I drove my car over from Germany. In case any of you consider driving from Germany to France, Don't. The tolls cost $364,556,324. You get ripped off. Although the French make excellent roads on the surface level, it's never occurred to them that it might be useful to connect them together. So if you take the expressway in the wrong direction, try to enjoy the journey because it will be 10,000 miles before you can turn around. There are big cement walls preventing you from doing a U-turn. Unless you take the first exit, pay a big toll (each toll I paid came out to around 25 - 30 $), pull a U-turn behind the toll-booth and get another toll ticket to head back in the opposite direction. I think I ended up in Morocco.

French customs tore me apart at one of the toll gates in the middle of the country. The road signs never give a direction. You're supposed to know that GT67YgfY78, France is in the general direction that you want to go. And if it's clouded over and you can't tell where the sun is to figure out what direction you are going, don't try to be smart and look at what direction solar panels on funny devices along the road are pointing. They point in exactly the wrong direction. So I saw more of the south of France than I wanted to see. Poor dumb French have zillions of towns called Sortie. Must be confusing...

Luckily, my car didn't explode from dumping its brain juice until I was a ten minute walk from where I was going to stay the night in a hotel in Baloney, France. I left my car in Harlem, France and luckily it wasn't broken into. I filled up my car with anti-proton juice or something in the morning and continued on my way. I ended up going for 2 days eating nothing but Mars bars.

The ferry crossing was uneventful. It's neat the first 15 minutes but then it gets kinda boring and you start watching the tourists.

There are no gas stations in the UK. I've starting making my own gas in the backyard now out of miscellaneous stuff. I don't think my car likes it. I took the M11 in the wrong direction and ended up in Hell. post-note: I've now learned that the signs on expressways saying Granada means gas. At the time, I was wondering why someone would want to rent a TV along the expressway...

So I'm living in Saffron Walden which is probably around 15 - 20 thousand people. Its about a 5 to 10 minute drive to work where we sit in a empty field and watch archeologists dig up old people. I now have a color NCD X-terminal on my stolen desk in this empty field. I just ordered a color NCD and some moderately-mega fast modems (until I get V.FAST or ethernet) for home use. I will have a reasonable home working environment before I have a couch in my unfurnished 2 bedroom house. I slept on the floor for a week.

So school kids here have a great sense of humor and must be incredibly well organized. They all wear the same thing! They wear these suit type things and ties. It must drive the school-teachers nuts!

There are some cool things on the road here. I've seen a couple of Lotus Super 7's, a 3 wheeled Morgan, and an Aprilia RS125 Extrema. cool stuff.

It's great to be in a country where I can buy soft loaves of sliced bread and make peanut butter sandwiches, or toast. And go shopping on Sunday. And buy neat old stuff. I almost bought a cannon for the living room. I had the choice of a cannon or a chair. I wanted the cannon but then I found I didn't have the room for either. My house is less than 12 feet wide. It has no dining room. No place for a table for eating stuff off of. I keep my bicycle in the living room. But it's a great place and the neighbors are either super-quiet, or dead. Its about a 10 minute walk from the center of town and 5 mins to the crumpled castle. It looks like a monster ant hill.

Most of my meals I have in pubs. I like bar food. And it's a more fun atmosphere. The previous tenant at my place told me all the places to go if I wanna get beat up.

When you sit in a double decker bus, the best seat is the upper front left. The streets are so narrow when you're passing through various villages that you keep thinking you're going to smash into somebodies bedroom. It takes a while to avoid the impulse to duck when tree branches smash into the bus window in front of your face.

Anyway, nothing new. Life is real busy and mega interesting.