You know those road trip movies where absolutely everything that can go wrong does? And you think there is no way this could ever happen for real Well many years ago it did happen, to me for real. If it could go wrong it did.
At the time I was living in West Germany while serving in the British Army. During the summer I had met a girl who was a professional ice skater and was touring Europe at the time.
I decided to travel down to Lille in France and spend the weekend with her. Late afternoon on the Friday after my duty had finished I set off on my journey, estimated travel time around four and a half hours.
Outside the city of Dortmund, I turned off the main road and headed along the main highway to Essen. After driving for a minute or two I could hear the sound of sirens behind me. It appeared I was being pulled over by police. Thirty minutes later and several Deutsche Marks later I was on my way.
I had been driving a while and decided I needed a change of music the radio was driving me crazy. I lent over and reached for a cassette, the next thing I know I have crashed the car into a row of traffic cones. I slowed down and pulled over to inspect the damage. I was one very lucky guy, only a busted tire and a few scratches on the bumper and quarter panel.
A moment or two later the police drove up once again, leaning over me with a large automatic weapon he asked me what had happened. I told him my tire had popped and caused me to hit the traffic cones. The policeman began to nod his head; great they had bought my story.
I returned to the car, wondering what would happen next but was soon on my way heading for Antwerp. If you have never been to Antwerp trust me you don’t want to go. I spent maybe forty minutes travelling one kilometer. When I eventually got through the traffic the road was nice and clear and I drove for an hour without incident.
Once again I was wrong, I had gone the wrong way and now I was totally lost somewhere in Belgium. Finally, after another two hours, I finally made it to Lille. The journey had taken me nearly nine hours and I still had to find the stadium. After driving around for some time I eventually found it and met her, all was well.
We drove back into town, parked the car and went for dinner before checking into the hotel. I went down to the car to collect my luggage, looking forward to enjoying what was left of the night. The car was gone. It had been stolen, and I never saw it again. Some trips stick with you forever. It was 1989