The last few days have been an absolute blur. Actually I don´t think there is a word to acurately describe the diffusion and scattered firing of synapsis going on at the moment. At this point, not much has gone according to plan. Other than the driving aspect, Murphy´s law has been in full effect. About 2 hours outside of Berlin, the French car, a Renault, decided it was done being a utilizable piece of machinery. Whilst yours truly sat filming in the backseat of said car, the years and miles caught up with our lucky driver and created a beautiful symphony of swear words and grinding metal. After a few moments of playing the blame game amongst each other, the cast hooked a tow rope to the Renault, which is illegal on the Autobahn, and drive to the nearest town. Now, at that point in time, none of the cast or crew knew just how we would get all this sorted out. We had planned on being in southern France that night. After gassing up the remaining cars, a very faint comment was made about the production vehicles tires. It was disregarded. We pressed on.
About four miles later, on the way to a town called Hof, our producer´s voice came over the walkie talkie saying that a tire had, as he described, ¨blown to shit.¨ This was the tire that had been mentioned at the gas station moments earlier and totally disregarded.
At this point we all looked at each other with wide eyes, realizing the severity of the situation. We had no spare for the production vehicle. It was too late in the day to go to a parts store or automotive repair shop because in Germany, business close around 7. There are no ¨on call¨repair men like in the states. We were standing beside the fastest highway in the world, with twelve people and only two working cars.
The decision was made to send the mechanic, also a cast member, and our producer, cast as well and the only German speaker, to the town of Hof to see what kind of miracle, if any, could be pulled off. The rest of us began discussing worst case scenarios, who´s eating who first. Who has more meat, who´s the most useful to the group. The usual. And here, reader, is where I sat for the next six hours. On the side of the German Autobahn, sharing four sleeping bags between ten people. Why so few bags you ask? Because a select few thought we would not need one prior to Africa.
The next 48 hours were pretty much a nightmare. Every silver lining seemed to crack and fade away as the group dealt with our stay in the little town of Hof. By some stroke of luck, our mechanic located the one tow service guy in a 10 mile radius to come pick up our production vehicle. At the same time this was happening, the German highway patrol had picked up on the fact that our little French car had a giant orange tow strap attached to it. Charming as he is, our producer and resident German talked them into letting us tow to Hof and use the Autobahn.
After a tow to the service station and a few phone calls, we realized we had no place to stay for the night and proceeded to set up tents and cleared room in the remaining cars and slept in the field a block from the station.
We spent the entire next day in a McDonald´s. This is not an exaggeration. Twelve hours we sat in a fast food restaurant. Given, it was literally the nicest Micky D´s I´ve ever set foot in, but no one, not even the absolute worst of your enemies, should spend that much time in a McDonald´s. By the end we realized that the music that had been playing all day was on a two hour loop. Which brought us to the conclusion, McDonald´s never expects a patron to spend time over two hours in one of their restaurants.
Anyway, here´s how this whole thing wraps up. We ended up finding a replacement car, almost the exact same to be exact, but was unavailable for pickup until the following day. We found a house\hostel type thing and settle in for night two in Hof. I think it should be known to the reader the amount of Star Wars references made because of the similarity of Hof to Hoth. Hooray for nerdity.
We awoke first thing wednesday morning to an angry German home owner, that had at some point in our 8 hour stay, become so upset with our noise level that he made us leave four hours earlier than previously expected. He still served us coffee and bread with cheese. Sucker.
We spent the next few hours at a ¨cafe¨next to the service shop. It was a truck stop diner. I´m from Kansas. Germany can call it whatever they want, but it was a truck stop.
The mechanic, along with a couple cast members, resituated bags and tires into the new Renault, aired up tires, and topped off all the tanks in the other cars. After a game time decision, we all decided that the next leg of driving was going to be a straight shot to Barcelona with no stops. A rotation was made between drivers for the next 16 hours and we blew straight our of Germany, across France, and straight into Barcelona last night. We found a horrible hostel, parked the cars in a guarded lot, and went our separate ways for food and libations. I guess you could say I got a good night´s sleep. If by good night´s sleep you mean sharing a room with 11 unshowered bodies and only netting about 3 hours, then ya, I got a great night´s rest.
I sit now at the hostel´s internet bay. We were kicked out of our room at 10 this morning but basically set up shop in their back meeting room. They don´t speak English so it´s easy to just play naive and utilize their resources. We leave today for southern Spain and tomorrow we hit the ferry. Off to Africa. Hopefully the northern countries have decent internet. Oh, and I still have my towel. So Í´ve got that going for me.
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About four miles later, on the way to a town called Hof, our producer´s voice came over the walkie talkie saying that a tire had, as he described, ¨blown to shit.¨ This was the tire that had been mentioned at the gas station moments earlier and totally disregarded.
At this point we all looked at each other with wide eyes, realizing the severity of the situation. We had no spare for the production vehicle. It was too late in the day to go to a parts store or automotive repair shop because in Germany, business close around 7. There are no ¨on call¨repair men like in the states. We were standing beside the fastest highway in the world, with twelve people and only two working cars.
The decision was made to send the mechanic, also a cast member, and our producer, cast as well and the only German speaker, to the town of Hof to see what kind of miracle, if any, could be pulled off. The rest of us began discussing worst case scenarios, who´s eating who first. Who has more meat, who´s the most useful to the group. The usual. And here, reader, is where I sat for the next six hours. On the side of the German Autobahn, sharing four sleeping bags between ten people. Why so few bags you ask? Because a select few thought we would not need one prior to Africa.
The next 48 hours were pretty much a nightmare. Every silver lining seemed to crack and fade away as the group dealt with our stay in the little town of Hof. By some stroke of luck, our mechanic located the one tow service guy in a 10 mile radius to come pick up our production vehicle. At the same time this was happening, the German highway patrol had picked up on the fact that our little French car had a giant orange tow strap attached to it. Charming as he is, our producer and resident German talked them into letting us tow to Hof and use the Autobahn.
After a tow to the service station and a few phone calls, we realized we had no place to stay for the night and proceeded to set up tents and cleared room in the remaining cars and slept in the field a block from the station.
We spent the entire next day in a McDonald´s. This is not an exaggeration. Twelve hours we sat in a fast food restaurant. Given, it was literally the nicest Micky D´s I´ve ever set foot in, but no one, not even the absolute worst of your enemies, should spend that much time in a McDonald´s. By the end we realized that the music that had been playing all day was on a two hour loop. Which brought us to the conclusion, McDonald´s never expects a patron to spend time over two hours in one of their restaurants.
Anyway, here´s how this whole thing wraps up. We ended up finding a replacement car, almost the exact same to be exact, but was unavailable for pickup until the following day. We found a house\hostel type thing and settle in for night two in Hof. I think it should be known to the reader the amount of Star Wars references made because of the similarity of Hof to Hoth. Hooray for nerdity.
We awoke first thing wednesday morning to an angry German home owner, that had at some point in our 8 hour stay, become so upset with our noise level that he made us leave four hours earlier than previously expected. He still served us coffee and bread with cheese. Sucker.
We spent the next few hours at a ¨cafe¨next to the service shop. It was a truck stop diner. I´m from Kansas. Germany can call it whatever they want, but it was a truck stop.
The mechanic, along with a couple cast members, resituated bags and tires into the new Renault, aired up tires, and topped off all the tanks in the other cars. After a game time decision, we all decided that the next leg of driving was going to be a straight shot to Barcelona with no stops. A rotation was made between drivers for the next 16 hours and we blew straight our of Germany, across France, and straight into Barcelona last night. We found a horrible hostel, parked the cars in a guarded lot, and went our separate ways for food and libations. I guess you could say I got a good night´s sleep. If by good night´s sleep you mean sharing a room with 11 unshowered bodies and only netting about 3 hours, then ya, I got a great night´s rest.
I sit now at the hostel´s internet bay. We were kicked out of our room at 10 this morning but basically set up shop in their back meeting room. They don´t speak English so it´s easy to just play naive and utilize their resources. We leave today for southern Spain and tomorrow we hit the ferry. Off to Africa. Hopefully the northern countries have decent internet. Oh, and I still have my towel. So Í´ve got that going for me.
