26.09.2003 - 12:29 p.m.

Have returned from a coupla days in Germany ( hence forth to be known as Hermanland ) it was with work as a chance to meet my supplier out there and my manager ( to be known as MA ) to sort out some formulation and marketing things with them at the same time, but descended ( unsurprisingly ) into an unbridled 'drinking into the night' escapade with the next day in the office doing very little other than trying to keep my eyes open in the face of insurmountable boredom and a droning voice talking about the finer points of co-solvents and iso-paraffins, the second night was a very good meal and then drinking until 5am, we gave up on the second day in the office completely ( primarily because the person who would drive us to the office was also drinking until 6am )and spent the whole day sitting in the sun in a cafe near Hamburg station drinking water / coffee / OJ and watching the world go by.

Of all the places to go in europe, hermanland is by far my favourite, italy may be full of renaissance beauty but it's also full of italians, france is full of the french which spoils everything, spain is too busy torturing animals and sleeping to pay much attention to anything but themselves and the low countries are just places to drive through, it may be because for most of my professional life I've worked with hermans so I've got used to them, but they are still by far the most exuberant and generally happy of europeans ( although as a disclaimer you'll get wankers in any country, but there's less of them in hermania )

I'll spare you the minutes of a six part journey ( two flights, two days, two nights ) but there are some shapes of weirdness and alot of firsts that stand out so I'll cover them in no particular order instead.

1) It was my first time in Hamburg, nice place but no different to any other northern european city of a similar age and history.

2) Autobahns generally have long stretches with no speed limits, being driven to the factory on day 1 meant sitting in a car for about an hour, the driver, who will be called M, always drives fast ( regardless of the season or weather ) so we're 4-up in an Audi quattro on a two lane highway at about 220kph, which I later discovered is between 140 and 150mph, I've never been that fast outside of an aircraft and I wasn't too happy doing it in a car. Accidents on the autobahns are usually fatal.

3) The plant ( proper word for a factory ) is in the former east hermany, not been there before either.

4) Several times a year I'll have a dream ( not like mr king though ) and it will be set in a completely unfamiliar location, usually I can work out where the REM scenery has come from but every now and again I find myself somewhere new and I wake up more confused than usual, a week or so later I've I forgotten the dream and then ( as has happened so far ) a bit further down the line I find my self physically in that unfamiliar place which is a happily disturbing event. This happened at the plant, as I walked from the atrium to the corridor of offices I recognised it as 'one of those places i've dreamt about' and it all came flooding back, in the dream it was deserted and I was exploring but also slightly fearful for no apparant reason, and all that came back, I don't think it showed though. Just goes to show that there is more to this plane of existance than what appears on the surface, but you'll never notice it unless you hush up occasionally and listen really hard.

5) Night two, we met with a business friend ( H ) of MA and together with me and A from the plant office went out for dinner in a characterful wood panelled haus styled around an 18century ship next to the hotel, H is a smiling, happy herman and great company, and ordered a round of Aqua Vitae, the waiter returns with a tray of shot glasses and a piss coloured liquid and H says "just drink it in one" so I did, it tasted like a single malt whiskey and I kept it down as well. Apparantly this starts as pure schnapps in norway, it's casked and then put on a ship to australia, it stays on the ship and them comes back to europe and in crossing the equator twice it leeches some colour from the casks and gets it's flavour ( even though it still ends up tasting like whiskey )

6) On night 1, A ( who had picked us up from the airport ) took me and MA to a local bar for "typical bavarian fare", having been to bavaria and really liking it I thought 'no problem' the weissbier was tasty but strong but then he ordered some weisswurst for us to try, I got a deep bowl with 4 fat white sausages floating in a thin gravy, I tried one and it was similar to eating window putty wrapped in pigs intestines, mmmmmm, as good as it sounds, it repeated on both of us all night and I could still taste it the next day, and a night on the weissbier is the shortest route to bad guts and a ring of fire, I couldn't eat through the next day until dinner.

7) The mirror or Evil - the mirror in the bathroom was reminscent of a fairy tale, except instead of pointing out how beautiful you are, or ( more likely ) how less beautiful you are compared to the milk-maid down in the village, it makes everyone ugly regardless. On the morning of day 1, despite a leisurely 4 hours sleep, I hauled myself into the shower and caught sight of my fizz and was appalled, 'how can I go see normal people looking like the walking dead ?' I thought; the whites of my eyes were completely bloodshot, my skin was a sort of pale, tired yellow with thin capillaries showing through my cheeks and the minor shadows under my eyes were thick black bruises. I decided then that there was nothing I could do about it so I might as well go to breakfast but once in the mirrored lift I had another look and I looked nearly normal, only one eye was partially bloodshot and I had some colour in my face, I decided then that it must have been the evil mirror showing me what I felt like, not what I looked like, phew.

8) After dinner of night 2, it was into Hamburg for bars and more drinking, I stayed on the Holsten all night, so despite the shots races H and I were having felt ok on day 2. At about half 4 H and I decided we'd had enough and made our way to our respective hotels, MA and A stayed and continued drinking until about 6ish.

9) Was still drunk on waking on day 2, by 11am it was clear that A wasn't turning up to take us to the office, me and MA found a cafebar with an outside sitting bit, and we sat there from 11 until about 5pm, A dragged his sorry carcass out of bed about 2pm and joined us for lunch and we stayed until A took us back to the airport, I like cafe bars, cheap food and drink and the world passes before you while you rip the piss out of it, which leads nicely to:

10) Herman fashion. A few words. It was a souce of great amusement for us, herman women seem to buy the strangest shoes we've ever seen, for a smart office type wear most had insubstantial skeletons of winklepickers and most had really short heels, like they'd had an inch cut off them but she was going to wear them anyway, pointless as shoes 'cos I'm sure a determined insect would puncture the soles should he be stood on. Trouser lengths, many wore trousers, few wore trousers that reached past their mid calf, and to bridge the gap they had tights on with silly shoes on the end, it's like they express their repressed hermanic desires through their footware, weird. If there's anyone out there who visits or lives in Hermania, have a look and tell me I'm right.

And the best bit was none of it cost me a thing, the others all had company cards and payed for everything, great. I used the euros I got on the way out to buy whiskey for me da and normally expensive cosmetic stuff for J, two days of sights, two nights of excessive alcohol, all of it free. Don't think I'll get to go again though, so I'm glad I ripped the arse out of it.