Tunnel

A.k.a. 'The Day We Drove Through 5 Countries': Yes, fact fans, we started out in England, crossed the channel, and then drove through France, Belgium, Holland (just clipped that one!) and Germany - ending up in Dortmund where we had a lay-over before the following day's push eastward. Beck spent her penultimate Uni year in Dortmund, so we had a very pleasant evening re-acquainting ourselves with the U-Bahn, Florian the Fernseturm and the Alter Markt - though we arrived too late to check out the Museum am Ostwall art gallery (a favourite haunt), which has apparently relocated to a swish new setting in the old Union Brauerei (so I guess we'll just have to make another return visit sometime soon...) We had a very nice dinner at Zum Alten Markt, too, where Katie finally got to experience her long looked-forward to first taste of schnitzel, so it was a pretty historic day for the Primes, all told! The only temporary lull was when my camera gave up the ghost and was only finally brought back to life (after much grumpy messing about) by the act of holding it upside down, turning it on and hitting it, very hard, three times with the edge of my hand (something Beck swears she'd seen as a fix on the internet but which I only tried as very much a last resort.) I'm afraid I didn't take many pictures again as a result...

I never listen to music very deliberately on holiday (though I always take my ipod in case of emergencies); just the radio if we're in the car, or one of the small number of 'safe' CD's that float around in the glove box (You know, Bob Marley, REM, things that have a broad concensus of acceptability to the whole clan....), so I thought it might be interesting to make a note of what songs were making their home naggingly in my head during the withdrawals. Today it was 'No Hope' by the Vaccines - possibly not an auspicious sentiment for the start of the holidays, but I think it was probably just up there because it's just so damn catchy...!