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By joel, September 6, 2009 11:09 am

I got my rental car today. For some reason they did not have a diesel car available (I figured it would have been easy to hire a diesel car. I guess not), so I ended up with a 1.4L TSI mk6 golf, 6spd. The quick trip back home on mostly city streets got me about 8L/100km on average (my wagon tdi would be probably get similar), so hopefully it will get better mileage on the highways.

I drove the car around quite a bit later today with two other people in the car. It sounded like it was working quite hard at 130+ kph, and the fuel consumption suffered, but I still averaged about 6.5l/100km with mostly highway driving… not too bad. It’s about the same as my wagon at home in these conditions. I had just hoped for a diesel car here so my consumption would be even lower on my long drives I have planned. Diesel is about EUR 1.09/L here, and gas is about EUR 1.30/L or so. It’s a big enough difference that driving a gas car will cost me more than I would have liked.

I really wish I could have my car here. It would be so much more fun to drive, get similar mileage, and still be cheaper to fill up. That said, this one isn’t bad. I have already forgotten several times that I’m driving a mk6 though because it looks and feels, inside, just like a mk5. It’s definitely a mk5.5 to me.

I love seeing all the European cars. Seeing Mercedes and Audi’s pass me on the Autobahn in the unrestricted areas is a truly religious experience… wow.

We went to ‘Worms’ today… south/southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It has a huge cathedral that was built in the 1200s (I believe), on top of where an older church used to be. It’s so old that it has been upgraded/rebuilt in different architectural periods. It’s quite amazing to see a building so old that it has never really been “done” being built or worked on. I took several photos of this church in & out, so I’ll post those later. We walked around the town center a bit, had some ice cream, which was interesting. It was more like gourmet ice cream compared to what we usually have in the US.

We then wandered east and north a bit through the countryside.. meandering through some small towns into the hills. I was extremely beautiful and the roads were awesome (though not very wide, and without lane markings, so it’s impossible to really “enjoy” them).

I have quickly realized that due to the construction and ’stau’ areas the speed limit changes quite a bit on the autobahn. It’s almost impossible to keep a consistent speed. You can go from unrestricted to 100, to 80, and then to 60 kph all in about 300 meters, and then 500 meters later you go straight back to unrestricted.

Today is Sunday. Almost all stores are closed. So to buy a coke I had to go to on of the rest stops on the autobahn. The cost of the .5L bottles were about 1.80 EUR.. a liter was nearly 3 EUR. That’s insane. After seeing this I will definitely need to go to a supermarket and pick up a pack of .5L or so bottles and stay away from the filling stations.

As a lot of people know, the Fanta drinks here are not the same as “Fanta” in the US. It tastes better here for sure. They also have “Mezzo Mix”, which is cola mixed with fanta orange. It’s quite good and I wish they sold it in the US. I also am really enjoying having fresh non-HFCS Coke. We can get this in the form of “Mexican Coke” in the US, but it’s usually a little older since it has taken time to arrive from Mexico.

It’s now about 8pm here and I’m trying to decide whether I want to stay another night with the friend in Darmstadt and then head out in the morning (I’ll have about 1.5 days to get to Nürburg), or whether I should head out tonight so I can have a little more time to drive and see things. I think I just decide as I’m typing this though. Staying here tonight saves me some money, and I definitely need to save money where I can on my daily costs (food, overnight, and fuel). So I suppose I’ll start out early tomorrow morning and drive northeast of Frankfurt before looping back west toward Köln and then back down along the Rhein before getting to Nürburg Tuesday evening.

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By joel, September 2, 2009 4:18 pm

I severely dislike packing. I procrastinate until the last minute. Nothing has changed this time around. I now have only tomorrow (Thursday) to pack for my trip to Germany before I fly out on Friday. Thankfully it shouldn’t be a huge deal to pack, but it will definitely take time to finish moving files to my netbook, getting some last minute information, charging batteries, washing clothes, and so on. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep much tomorrow. But it will be worth it.. flying to Germany in less than two days now. That’s worth some sacrifice.

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By joel, August 26, 2009 12:12 pm

I was just sitting and thinking about the highways I need to drive on before Winter arrives this year. I haven’t been on the North Cascades Highway in about six years, and I have skipped past most of SR-12 east of Mt. Rainier for about eight years.

(click image for Google Maps)

It’s nearly a 14 hour drive in total.. over 600 miles. I would stop and spend the night at Sun Lakes State Park in Dry Falls (one of my favorite areas in the state).

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dry_Falls_WA.jpg)

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By joel, August 26, 2009 7:29 am

I don’t know why I did this, but I waited until I had ten days before leaving to try and reserve a hotel room for my stay around the Nürburgring in Germany. Obviously, only two weeks before a full open track day at the ring, most hotels are rather full now. It also seems that most hotels and guesthouses have just one or two single bed rooms, with the rest being two bed rooms. Their single bed rooms tend to range from about 35 – 50 euros, but the double bed rooms jump up to over 80 euros very quickly.

So at this point I’m not really sure where I’m going to stay while at the ring. I had wanted to stay nearby so I could experience some of the atmosphere from the people and the cars that had traveled to the Eifel Mountains to experience motoring bliss. Now I may just settle for experiencing the Green Hell. I doubt I’ll complain too much

In the mean time, I’m just finishing up a few last pre-trip issues, working on a packing list, and counting down the days until the plane takes off. Ten days to go!

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By joel, August 20, 2009 4:33 am

I’ve been across the border into BC four times now. The first time was when I was much younger; with my grandparents to see Pt. Roberts. The last three times have been only for the annual Great Canadian VW Show. The most recent show was last weekend. I had intended to try and take a ‘quick’ side trip up to Whistler after seeing a little of Vancouver (which I still have yet to see), but ran out of time.

On our way back I caught a glimpse of the mountains. Now I know that I must get back up to BC this year. I may end up making a loop, but this would obviously require an over night stay around Vancouver. That may not be a bad thing though since it would be an excellent excuse to see the city a little more. I honestly can’t wait to take some photos around the area.

I hope to be able to do this in late September or early October. We’ll see how I feel once I get back from Germany next month.