The tour begins!!!

I was lucky that my boss let me leave work early at 8.30pm as I still didn’t get to bed until 10.30pm and to sleep until 11.30pm. Thankfully I had loads of adrenaline when my alarm went off at 2.00am as a new tour starts today!!!

I packed and left the house at 3.00am and got to Dover by 4.20am to board the 4.45am sailing on the Pride Of Dover to Calais. Thankfully the boat was quite empty so I had breakfast on board and changed up some money. The tours are so much easier with most of Europe using Euros and not their own currencies. Back in 1996 I had to decide ahead where I would be likely to buy petrol and get enough French francs and German Marks accordingly! The Euro / Sterling rate wasn’t quite as good as it has been as I got about 414 euros for £300 (which equals about $450).

We docked at 6.15am UK time = 7.15am French time and there was nobody at French passport control so I just drive right through. I then started the long journey to Hannover. When I left home the mileage on my car was 2,311 and when I reached Hannover it was 2,703 so it was 392 miles. I stopped a couple of times for breaks but my car is VERY uncomfortable to drive on long distances! As it’s a right hand dive, it’s not too easy to overtake as I can’t see as well but that wasn’t really a problem on the Autobahns. (I drove from France into Belgium, into Holland and then into Germany!) I did have a quick 10 minute catnap at one point but it was very hot and my car got stuffy! I’ve managed to catch the sun on my right elbow where I had it out of the window too!

I got to Hannover by 4.00pm and the festival was very well sign posted! It was in the Messe area of Hannover (all German cities have these Messe areas where they hold exhibitions). I parked along the side of the road and within two minutes walk I was in there! They looked in my bag but were more concerned with people not taking bottles in than cameras.

I’ve added a very thorough review of the concert at http://www.KasimInfo.com/2005/06/03.html but for most of the afternoon and evening some friends and I just sat and chatted until we made our way into the crowd. I then had a perfect view of Kasim so I was happy!

After the concert we met up with some more friends and then I set off at about 12.10pm. As I was really tired, my plan was to stop as soon as I found a hotel outside of Hannover but I had to drive for about an hour before I did! I was really lucky as I took the last room there (79 euros) ! It was at a motorway stop place but had three beds. Unfortunately there was no tea making facilities there but luckily I’d brought my kettle along so I had a much needed cuppa before I fell into bed at 2.00am!

Tour total – 492 miles