A journey of a thousand miles...

• It is possible to drive 1,450 kilometres (900 miles) in a single day. I don't recommend it, though, and I think H ⁽¹⁾ is quite insane for being willing, nay eager, to undertake it.

  (1) Not his real name, obviously. I mean, what sort of monster would name their child H?

• Twice. Since we had to come back as well.
• I particularly don't recommend it without a skilled navigator, particularly if the roads are complicated. America might have roads that long without any features, but Europe is full of complicated bits. I disagreed with the satnav on numerous occasions, and I was right most of the time.
• "I've been on the new medication for four days now, and I'm feeling significantly less mad." Only 600 miles to go.
• We can drive all the way from France through to the Czech Republic without a single border check. Perhaps more importantly, we feel safe all the way. We have no reason to worry that a strange foreign government or unpleasant political situation could turn our trip into a nightmare. The EU is awesome! I sure hope my country never does anything suicidally stupid like leaving it.
• French motorways are fairly laid back, at least on a Sunday. Belgian motorways are a bit more busy. German motorways are much more intense. The French put more effort into beautification, while the Germans keep things running smoothly.
• French motorways do have tolls though. A surprising number of them, especially closer to the ports. Each one isn't a lot, but they add up, and stopping for them all gets annoying. The locals have some system for sailing straight through them, which I must look up before doing this again.
• Nobody obeys the speed limit on German motorways. Not even slightly. If you tried to, you'd be going so slow that everyone would have to drive around you. We make an average of 145 kmph / 90 mph across Germany.
• Dogs can get very bored on long car trips. This particular dog, N, a long haired dachshund, is not naughty or troublesome at all, but he does crave attention. This can take the form of attempting to sit on the steering wheel. At 90 mph.
• H's car is a lot like N – it's longer than it should be and very close to the ground, making it hard to manoeuvre sometimes. The difference is that N is never fast.

• All across Europe, there are thousands of wind turbines, way more than I see in Britain where progress is constantly held back by the NIMBY ⁽²⁾ brigade. Go Europe. The design of the tower varies a lot, but the blades are pretty much identical.

  (2) NIMBY: "I know they need to build {schools / hospitals / solar panels / turbines / roads / railways / supermarkets / houses / cell towers}, just Not In My Back Yard!" The same people then complain about how long it takes to get anywhere.

• Those turbines are seriously big. We saw some of the blades detached at the side of the road: they were as wide as a traffic lane and as long as two flatbed trucks.
• Do not mistake the place name Turnov for an instruction to "turn off"
• Oh gods below there's no WiFi
• Or phone signal
• Or, in fact, telephone
• Or heating
  
• Wood burners like that are really inefficient. It chews through wood like I chew through bandwidth.
• It's also very badly placed, right at one end of the house. Insulation is nonexistent, so it heats the garden more than the bedrooms.
• The light switches are deliciously steampunk. They turn with a satisfying clunk. I wonder if they still make them, or are they left over from the Soviet era?
• "Not worry, I bring tablet tomorrow, you have internet. There is just one problem with tablet, is I bought in Taiwan, and Google is all in Chinese."
• H's son, X, also joined us that night. He flew direct, which is much quicker and cheaper. But you can't fly with a doggie - they make you lock them up in the hold.
• We finally find the right roaming and hotspot settings late that night. Life may resume! At a price. Apparently I did live some number of years before the advent of ubiquitous internet, but I can't find any evidence of this online so I'm not sure I believe it.
• Wow, it actually gets dark out here. Is that a neighbour's dog, or a wolf?
• Is that a jar of lard or honey?
• The radio has a lot of familiar songs from the 90s.
• The Czech Republic is an odd mixture of communist-era neglect and modern renewal. International trade is a big part of what's making that renewal possible. Did I mention the EU is awesome?
• Czech people treat hospitality like a competition: who can get us to eat the most food, drink the most coffee, beer or something unidentifiable, give us the most entertaining time? It's nice, but oddly overwhelming.
• "You come to my forge, we have the best coffee. Really, the best coffee!" Cue the worst coffee I've every had.
• I made a nail! OK, I bashed at it a bit until the guy who knows what he's doing took over and fixed it. But still, I was hammering at molten metal!
• In hindsight, I maybe should have worn some gloves, a protective mask, or something...
• A lot of people have two homes. Not big ones, but they have a holiday hut somewhere to get away to. We go to one and invite some old musicians over.
• An old Czech metalworker on bass. A young English photographer on mandolin. Together they rock.
• In case you're not familiar, a mandolin is somewhere between a fiddle and a ukulele. It's probably the girliest instrument ever conceived. Yet in the right hands, it too can rock. X has the right hands.
• More musicians turn up. I have no musical talent at all. It makes me slightly self-conscious.
• "Come sit here, there is empty space!" ... points to a chair in the centre of the room, right in the middle of all the musicians.
• They won't even let me do the washing up.
• A Czech cover of the Fulsom Prison Blues, performed by a cluster of old folk musicians. Surreal and awesome.
• Two little dogs (S and Z, mother and daughter) run down the steps to meet us. Our dachshund N stands at the bottom of the steps looking up; S and Z stop on the steps looking down. A moment passes as they evaluate each other. Then with a simultaneous, aggressive "Yip!", S and Z both pounce on poor N.
• A cute Czech girl, K, with a guitar singing a sweet, sultry Bossa-nova style cover of 'Gangnam Style' in a mixture of Czech, English and French, accompanied by X improvising on his mandolin.
• X and K have eyes and ears for each other as they improv show tunes, folk songs and their own compositions. I content myself by claiming dominion over all the dogs. Belly rubs all round!
• Walking around Prague, thinking "This looks just like Deus Ex..."
• Except for all the tourists.
• X managed to score a date with a Serbian waitress at the Irish pub. A very short date, because he has a plane to catch in a couple of hours. The jammy -------.
• I spend two hours in Poland. It rains throughout. This may or may not be a fair representation of the country.
• Polish roads - at least the ones we travel on - seem significantly less well cared for than Czech ones. Again, this may not be fair.
• "I want to take something back for everybody. What is the most Czech thing I could get?" "Becherovka." "I was thinking of some chocolate or sweets..." "Becherovka." Every single person gave the same answer.
• You know how neat Russian vodka is so smooth and easily palatable? Becherovka isn't.
• There's something moving in the loft. And the other side of this wall. I'm not used to sleeping near wildlife.
• I now know a couple of dozen Czech words. One of them is 'coffee'; two of them are 'yes'.
• Strange communist era sculpture, depicting loyal workers and soldiers, devoid of individuality and joy. I wonder, is that more or less creepy than old church depictions of the devout in heaven eternally singing God's praises?
• It's our last day here, and we have cash left over. Nowhere outside of the country will take Crowns, so we spend it on petrol then give the remainder as a tip. Then in the afternoon we try to get a cup of tea at a cafe in a village, realise they won't take a credit card or our Euros. Immediately the man in the queue behind us, who speaks some English, offers to pay, and also gives me a 200 Crown note (US$9 / €7 / £6) for "tea and coffee", and will only take a €5 note as compensation. People here are generous. Now how am I going to get rid of the rest of these Crowns?

Comments

[Da Fennec]

Parts of the US suffer from NIMBY as well. Done a little over 600miles in a day and that's really tiring can't imagine 900 without multiple drivers