street games

let me cite a few words from „the xenophobe’s guide to the germans“: “the germans love their cars more than almost everything. while the italians reserve this kind of adoration for their children, germans prefer to keep their children indoors so that their cars can play safely on the streets.” how true. german autobahns are a wonderful place for playing, unless you play too hard... some stretches do have speed limits, and when the weather is good, the police lurks in the greens and bushes that line the highways and interstates, trying to catch those who think that “speeding” means “qualifying”.

well, speeding isn’t really that bad – it may be costly and could earn you some “points” in the national delinquent driver’s registry in flensburg, but drinking and driving is much worse. germans get their driving licenses for lifetime. once you have it, you never need to refresh it – unless you get caught drunk, or get into an accident with a glass of beer or two. how low your alcohol level ever might be in such a case – it just doesn’t matter. once they find traces of alcohol in your blood, you are guilty by law. in this case, your license may be taken away, not only for a few months, but also for years, and trying to get it back is so painful that only few will succeed. but let us not talk of such nasty things.

saturday is car washing (and lawn mowing and street cleaning) day in germany. and since the weather promised to be fine, i drove to that kind of car wash where you can wash your car by yourself. to be honest, i won’t even think of letting a pair of hairy plastic brushes scratch the victory-red hull of my automobile alter ego! patiently, he endured the annoying procedure – what else should he do – until he was squeaky clean from top to tires.
by the way, corvettes are still not a common sight on german streets. i've met ferraris (mostly red and yellow) and lamborghinis (orange), but no corvette yet. once i was followed by a red ferrari, and people stopped and openly stared at us. strange…

that afternoon, i decided to visit the rheingau again. the rheingau is a beautiful countryside region approx. 30 km away from frankfurt, directly facing the river rhine, with lots of old castles, vineyards and monasteries. one of these, eberbach monastery, once was used as a film set for umberto eco’s “the name of the rose” (starring sean connery). unfortunately, it is also a tourist spot, and lots of them bloody tourists also crowded the streets. so i paid only a short visit to that famous place and drove on to johannisberg castle with its wonderful terrace, hoping for some refreshing drinks (meanwhile, the temperature had reached 79 degrees which is very warm for springtime in germany). but also here the tourists had claimed every seat available, so that I went back to my car and left.



nevertheless, i had lots of fun! i love the full, rich sound of the C6’s V8 engine - i just can’t get enough of it, and therefore i don’t need any music when driving. it would only be distracting… ;-)