Annika's mum, Christine, celebrated her birthday over the weekend. We couldn't miss the celebration so decided to make our way to GrossBrembach to join in. Our options to get there were train, car pool or hire a car. Luckily Annika's new job comes complete with a corporate rate with Sixt, coupled to which, one of our friends, Michael, wanted to go home for the weekend as well, so, as they say in the Oil & Gas industry, it was very cost effective for us to hire a car.
So on Friday afternoon I met Annika at the local BMW dealership, which also, coincidently, happened to have a Sixt counter buried within. I say coincidently because I suspect that there maybe some Gentleman's agreement between BMW and Sixt. We had chosen a diesel VW Golf as our preferred ride but when it came to collection it seemed there wasn't a VW to be found on the BMW premises. So we were upgraded to a 1 series BMW but they didn't have any of those either so we were upgraded to a 3 series BMW. That suited me just fine as I have a soft spot, which occasionally becomes quite hard, for BMWs.
We found our Black 318D in the basement sitting poised ready for action. After a quick familiarisation session we were ready to go. As we negotiated the car park the 318D, instantly recognising we were in a parking situation, gave us visual and audible feedback as to where we were in relation to things external to our car. I will digress a moment and speak about my lovely wife. In our early days together I found out that Annika had only one means of communicating the fact that she was uncomfortable with something external to the vehicle in which we were travelling. That thing could be, for instance; a pedestrian about to cross the road without looking, a cyclist travelling on the wrong side of the road, a car broken down on the side of the road or a car indicating to change lanes in front of us. The means of communication that she employed was to clutch the dash board and scream loudly. It took quite some time for me to convince her that a far more effective means of communication, offering me as the driver a far more effective means of avoiding what ever it was she was concerned about, was to describe what was causing her concern. Unfortunately, back in that cold basement car park, with the 318D beeping and flashing, she resorted to her old ways. I stopped the car and we had a conversation about how far we had to drive and how important it was that the driver should be alert, confident and to some degree relaxed and that having the passenger scream every time the car beeped was not going to be conducive to a comfortable and safe journey. Once we were "aligned", which in the Oil & Gas industry means that the client has convinced the contractor to do what the client wants and not what the contractor wants, we got on our way.
Fifteen minutes later we picked up Michael then we were heading North. Driving the diesel BMW on the autobahn I couldn't help but remember my dad's old diesel ute which had a 2.2L engine, a top speed of 120kph and 0 to 100 in 8 minutes. The BMW had a 1.8L engine, a top speed of 220kph and 0 to 100 in 8 seconds and still managed to get 7.2L per 100kms over the entire journey. I love driving in Germany, I mean it, I really do. Driving at 170-180km/h on a road that is more like a race track, Annika and Michael talking without needing to shout, the stereo playing quietly in the background. Other people on the road knowing how to drive, using their mirrors, being courteous, it is fantastic. When I say 170-180km/h I don't mean sneaking up to those speeds occasionally, I mean that when the speed limit permitted, which was more often than not, that was the speed we were doing. The BMW guzzling down diesel at a rate of between 5 and 8 L/100kms depending whether we were going up or down a hill.
We arrived at Annika's Mum & Dads in time for abend essen and a nice refreshing beer. It was good to be back in Grossbrembach with Annika's family.
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