GBXM "World Tour" 2012

[DR1665]

Nice place. Great to see your pics.

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VERY COOL.

You know, this is exactly how I met Cat, actually. Once upon a time, I had a series of pictures in rotation on the header of my personal blog. Turns out one of them was a Galant VR4 belonging to a friend of hers - same registration plate - and we began talking Mitsubishi and rally on Twitter. Small world, isn't it?

Thanks for the comment. Glad you like the pictures, mate.

[DR1665]

13 June 2012: Day 5
Wednesday was our flex day. There is never enough time to see everything you can plan and there is a good chance you'll come upon things you didn't even know existed which you would really like to see while you have the chance. This is why I always try to play things loose. Andy gave us a ride to the local train station in Northampton and we took a LondonMidlands train into town.


Cat said we were lucky to get a brand new train, but this thing was spotlessly clean and quiet. You could have a conversation with someone across the table from you or across the aisle without raising your voice. AND NOBODY WAS TALKING ON THEIR CELLPHONES. Well, I did hear *one* guy take a call, but he quickly told the other party he was on a train and would return his call as soon as he reached his station. IT WAS GLORIOUS.


We found ourselves at Euston Station, which was very nice; like a very busy, municipal airport back in the States. Travelers with luggage and commuters blended almost seamlessly here. Despite the hectic pace of everyone trying to meet their connections, it was still very clean and orderly. We stepped out into a lovely morning and began walking toward St. Pancras Station, which Cat said we had to see.

After a quick stop at the London Library, where we got to see the Magna Carta, some of Shakespeare's notebooks, and original sketches by Da Vinci (see what I mean about flex time - had no idea - unfortunately, no photography allowed in the FREE exhibit), we rounded a corner and found ourselves face to face with an incredible piece of architecture - St. Pancras Station.



Inside, we would see just how sublime rail travel can be in Europe. The entire location was covered with steel and glass dating back a hundred years or more, and high speed ICE trains sat silently at the center. There was a champagne bar right next to the platform where people in suits and ties were sitting in deep, leather booths, sipping bubbly as they fiddled with their iPads and laptops.

If you live in London, you can walk into a place like this, have a glass of champagne, and then take a seat on a train which will drop you in the middle of Paris in just over two hours for something on the order of US$100 round trip (coach). That's faster, cheaper, easier - and more pleasant - than it is for me to FLY from Phoenix to Las Vegas, which is only a 45 minute flight.



After a quick walk around at St. Pancras, we hopped a tube to Farringdon, where we would meet another online friend for the first time. Adnan is a buddy of mine who runs a car news site called CarThrottle.com. We've been emailing back and forth for something like three years, but this was the first chance we had to meet. Had I not had my own magazine idea in place back then, I might be working with him today. He had just moved into new offices in Farringdon and took us all to lunch at a 50s style burger joint in a basement. Very tasty.

Unfortunately, he had to get back to the office, but it was nice to finally meet him - and introduce him to Cat. I hope the two of them end up working together in the future.

[DR1665]

13 June 2012: Still Day 5
After lunch with Adnan, we continued on foot, past the Old Bailey (which I recognized from that movie where the guy in the mask blows things up).



We made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was massive on a scale I've not seen in decades.



Our camera accidentally went off whilst we were inside. No image can do this place justice. Imagine the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but 10X bigger, and 110% more real, and you might be close. There were tombs and mausoleums and all kinds of neat stuff located all around the area open to the (non-paying) public. Simply incredible to see this place.



London Taxis were everywhere, naturally, but I'd been wanting to snag a picture of this one nearly a week! Also hard to not think about the It's On the Meter guys featured here on ExPo over the last year. Much respect to those guys. That's for sure.

[img[http://gearboxmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/20120613_163827-e1341357126357.jpg[/img]

Obligatory Range Rover shot. (Though I bet it must be nice to have a private parking space in front of a building built in the 1600s in central London.)



Seeing all the suits run down the pub after work for a pint (or a glass of wine) made us thirsty.



So we stopped into the next pub we came across without a mob in the doorway smoking (they've recently outlawed smoking in bars too). Ended up a place called "The Hung, Drawn, and Quartered." Which had a noose prominently hanging over the bar. Named after the punishment for high treason back in the day, the pub was once home to a friar or monk or something who documented the atrocities of civilization taking place just outside his front door for a number of years. At least, that's what the menu said.



From there, it was a short walk to the Tower of London, which appeared completely by surprise, as Cat got us all turned around (intentionally, I suspect) prior to finding the pub. This was on our list of things to do, but we didn't know it could take a full day to see, especially if we wanted to see the Crown Jewels, so we decided it was best to just have a walk around the exterior. (There are documentaries on Netflix which are encouraging for our next trip.)



We saw the Tower Bridge, which I guess I'd kind of forgotten about, really, so it was an added bonus to see it appear as we rounded the Tower grounds to the Thames.



I asked Cat if they ever raised the bridge anymore, to which she replied they indeed did, but only for really big ships like the battleship parked across the way. What? I was so busy taking a picture of the Shard (which just opened last week, by the way, and is the tallest building in the EU at this time).



Quite a "block" to "have a walk around the" if you know what I mean.



Not our train, but neat to see.



We hopped the Underground at the Tower station back to Euston, where we switched to our Midlands train on the tail end of rush hour. It was far more packed than the train in earlier, but still quiet and clean. Well, there was one guy in a suit who looked like he was cracked out on blow, all sweaty and shaky and whatnot, but otherwise, it was cool. We ended up laughing until we were crying about something inappropriate for a family-oriented site such as this, and ended our night with a curry at a place called Balti King back in Northampton.

[DR1665]

14 June 2012: Day 6
This was a tough one. The weather was brilliant for the first time and we were off toward Berlin, where we knew we would be reunited with friends we'd not seen in over two years, but it also meant we would have to say goodbye to Cat and Andy, our gracious hosts in England. Without them, our trip might have been a complete disaster.

It would also mean the end of our time with the fantastic Mitsubishi ASX4 diesel which had got at least 60mpg over the 1,000 miles we'd put on it since picking it up. I really, REALLY wish we could get these in the States.



We dropped the ASX at Gatwick Mitsubishi with a full tank of diesel and they kindly dropped us at Gatwick Avis to collect our rental car. (We couldn't take the Mitsubishi outside the UK or we would have kept it for sure!) The rental would prove a well-worn, black Volkswagen Golf TDI. At least I knew I would be driving something nice and, even if I could get one back home in Phoenix, at least I would be driving from the passenger seat, right? A new experience in a familiar set of wheels.

En route to the Port of Dover to catch our boat, we stopped for caffeine and McDonald's (quick and easy) on the motorway. That's where I ran into this guy.



Completely home made. That's a 2.0L, carbureted Ford 4-cylinder up front and it's turning an automatic gearbox (not the skull shifter). Nice to be able to just walk up to a stranger in a foreign land and have a chat without a language barrier.



We made it to Dover, parked in our lane, which then began moving almost immediately toward "The Spirit of Britain," which would be the biggest boat we've ever been on. Here's a model onboard. Apparently, it's the biggest Channel ferry in operation.



I took a picture of our dowdy VeeDub (so I could find it later).



Remembered what Cat had told us about blowing off the Mitsubishi meet to attend other automotive events in the area that weekend...



... and stepped out onto the open air deck at the stern for a nice Stella Artois and a view. Took so many pictures I'm beginning to lose track of which ones are hosted. This is the harbor wall protecting the Port of Dover from the rough seas of the English Channel. If you enjoy the TV show "Top Gear" as much as I do, then you might recall three Brits in the back of a Nissan pickup truck passing this wall on their way to France. It was pretty much smooth sailing on "The Spirit of Britain," but I can't imagine doing that crossing in anything smaller. No way. No how.

[DR1665]

14 June 2012: Day 6
We made land at Calais and drove into the French countryside. I don't speak a lick of French beyond what I've heard in the odd song, and I speak even less Dutch, so our goal was to make it to our hotel stop in Essen, Germany, with only a brief stop in Adenkirk, the Netherlands, to get some Euros from an ATM. I followed the signs for Bruges.



We didn't find an ATM in Adenkirk, but we did find an amusement park called "Plopsaland." Lowbrow, road trip humor ensues to this very day.



Always nice to see a fellow gearhead somewhere else in the world and know that you probably have enough common ground to overcome the language barrier.



After a botched attempt to make a quick stop in Bruges, the SatNav routed us through all kinds of tiny villages where they roll up the sidewalks at night. This picture was taken after 7PM and, although the sidewalks look like they are there, it is all an illusion. We stopped to hit the first ATM we'd seen in forever. It was behind a locked door. Ack!



At this point, we had been on the road over six hours without eating and Vanessa, my four-months-pregnant wife, was now seriously in need of something to eat. We were basically lost in Belgium, with just 10 Euros cash, no cell phone or data, and didn't even know how to say, "Do you speak English" in Dutch. Panic makes for a good teacher.

We found ourselves at a gas station, where we bought some lunchmeat, cheese, and potato chips to get us by. They were not good, but the good news was, the lady behind the counter recognized our UK license plate and instinctively spoke to us in English. She told us we were very close to Essen, maybe just over an hour. Whew!



As I mentioned, the snacks we bought were not good. My wife does not like to eat gas station food and deli products often taste funny overseas. Still hungry, very tired, and increasingly frustrated, we found ourselves arguing as the sun was setting (after 10PM) still who-knows-how-long-before-we-get-there. She was crying. I just wanted to get to the damn hotel. And that's when I saw it - BURGER KING.

They didn't take our American credit card (EU credit cards all have SIM chips in them now), and we didn't have enough cash to get what we wanted, but a revised order and a generously deep discount later, our marriage was saved over Whoppers and fries in Venlo, the Netherlands.

45 minutes later, we would be checked into our hotel in Essen, forgetting all about how rough Day 6 had been. Excited to make that final push on the Autobahn in the morning...