In Conclusion....

Well, as Chris pointed out, we're back home now. The final value on the pedometer is 3,294 miles - 6 less than I calulated (I will have to recheck my calculations to find out where my calculations went awry). I'm sat at my English computer, with my standard English keyboard, with the letters stuck on in the right order. I've driven on the right side of the road (i.e. the left). Had some bacon butties. Done my washing and used my own shower, where the water flows round the plug hole the correct way. Almost ready to go back to work tomorrow... almost.

I thought I'd wrap it up by sharing with you a few things that we've learned about Johnny Foreigner while we've been away.


Foreign Drivers

French: Are just rude. Don't really like indicating. Won't move out of your way if you're in the fast lane and you're going faster then them. Typical.

Italians: Lovely people. Haven't quite mastered driving in cars yet instead of scooters. They don't really understand that you are meant to stay within the dotted white lines.

Germans: Are by far the best drivers. Courteous, considerate and forward thinking. They probably don't want to upset anyone else after, you know, the war (which we didn't mention).

Tram Drivers in Eastern European Cities: Are not scared of anything. They drive their trams in the street over there you know. Stay well clear. They will crush your car like a bug, you capitalist scum!

BMW Drivers: Are the same in every country. Tw*ts.


Foreign Driving Tips

Motorways: They expect you to pay to drive on their motorways. Dirty foreigners. It's expensive as well - I reckon I spent £100-£150 on motorway stickers and tolls. In Austria we had to buy a motorway sticker and still pay tolls! But they did have some cracking tunnels. Oh, and if you get a ticket, don't lose it, or you will get shouted at by johnny foreigner.

Road Signs: They're all in Foreign! A lot of them didn't make any sense at all. We sorta looked out for things that looked sorta like the pictures on triangle ones, ignored most of the speed ones and anything we couldn't understand. Which didn't really cause us too many problems ;-) Or we don't think it did, I'm just waiting for some international speeding fines!

Traffic Lights: There are lots of variations in lots of countries, including horizontal traffic lights, flashing greens, helpful ones with timers on and flashing yellow ones. Basically the rules that we used were green means go, red means stop and flashing yellow means go if it doesn't look like you're going to hit anything.

Border Controls: There seemed to be clearly defined borders between the countries, but no one cared about little old us! Most countries were happy if you waved some passports at them, some didn't even want that! The man in Hungary actually looked at the passwords in a half arsed way. The worst were the English coming back from France who proper looked at our faces and everything. No one even checked the car, although I suppose it was quite clear, especially on the way back, that it was full of smelly camping stuff. But I reckon we could well have stored a couple of Ethiopan immigrants under our luggage all the way around Europe and earned ourselves a couple of Ethiopian Durkas (approx 0.0000003p - enough for a beer in Hungary)

Petrol Stations: They call unleaded petrol lots of different things in europe. After a while, I decided that putting some of the one that was the colour closest to green in my car would work best (Simon, take someone that can see proper with you). The car still seems to be working, but we will see what its like when it goes for its next service ;-)

Inter Driver Communication: It is customary, when in Eastern European countries, to make constructive critisism about fellow motorists' driving techniques, to keep up morale. The prefered method is to beep the horn repeatedly, whilst shouting "DURKA DURKA DURKA", out the window. If an especially well performed manouvre is observed, they may follow up by waving their arms repeatedly or, the ultimate driving complement, extending the arm with a fist made, knuckles pointing downwards, and then extending the middle finger. I discovered that Chris was already conversant with these European motivational driving techniques, which were used liberally in order to ingratiate ourselves with our new found foreign friends and in return, several drivers commented back on his exceptional driving skills. I don't like to be big-headed, but I did notice that several drivers chose to comment on some of my more skillful manouvres.


Foreign Food

Breakfast: Johnny foreigner doesn't understand that a growing English gentlemen needs some salt cured pig flesh and chicken ovulations for breakfast. They tried to fob us off with rolls and cheese and funny looking ham. Luckily for us, McDonalds sell Sausage McMuffins in all countries, although they're not called that. However, trying to communicate that to the whole staff of a Hungarian McDonalds was, well, interesting. The international language of pointing and making hand gestures works well here.

Eating out dictionary: In the capital cities, most restaurants will have a menu in English, even if that staff can't speak it, but out of the city I'm afraid you're on your own. In general though, your best bet is to choose restaurants that have big pictures on the wall, so you can point at stuff and grunt like the dirty English animal you are. For the less adventurous (Laura), the word for Pizza in every language is Pizza. If you don't like pizza, it's probably best if you don't leave England, although we have developed a useful list of translations that you may try shouting at Johnny Foreigner until you get something that looks familiar (if you want a drink and pizza and chips):

• Diet Coke: Coke Light
• Lemonade: Sprite (lemonade will just confuse people)
• Water: Aqua/Water sans gas. They drink a lot of fizzy water over there. The bastardised French/English Water sans gas seems to work best.
  
• Chips: Pommes Frites. This doesn't always work. Steak potatoes is quite a good word to use, it can get you either chips, potato wedges, roasted potatoes, sauteed potatoes or boiled ones. Shouting steak potatoes in a moment of desperation will ensure you at least some sort of potato based accompaniment for your meal. Whatever you do, don't actually ask for chips. You will get crisps on your meal. Duh.
  
• Quarter Pounder: Those of you that haven't watched pulp fiction (Chris) will not know that this is in fact a McRoyal. I think John Travolta explained it best when he said: "...man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is."

Flemish Meat Stew: Avoid. Nuff said.

Service Charges: Those dirty foreigners sneak a compulsory tip on to your meal! Watch out for it and make sure you don't double tip. Don't forget, 10 english pounds is enough to buy you three wives in Hungary. And that, I'm sure we can all agree, will only you bring misery and despair.


Anyways, that's about all I have left in me. I'm going to have a nice sleep in my big bed, all alone. So for now I will bid you adieu, and that is that. The end.


Fin