Time flies!
This summer it will have been two years since that momentous trip to Germany. Two years! About time then that I shared my write-ups from those days of Porsche-driving-delight. Should give you, dear reader, a little insight into that experience from the mind of a mid-fifties car guy on a most epic trip.
So without further ado...
Porsche Euro Trip Notes
For this grand adventure, I intend to keep better notes than the last European Delivery trip. This one has been a much longer time coming, with a lot more of a roller-coaster of emotion leading up to actually winging our way across the Atlantic to pick up our dream cars.
So, in order to not miss out on remembering things, I shall try to capture some details about what we are doing and how I'm feeling as we do it! Andrew will have all the minutia about roads, locations, timings and such - he's fantastically detail-oriented like that - so I am free to just take stock of the things that are striking me at any moment.
Onward!
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
Right, here we go. The grand adventure. Starts off with a delayed flight to Paris, but since there's a decent gap from arrival to train ride, no stress. I've not been on many wide-body jets in my life, and have to say they are much nicer than the little puddle-jumpers I usually take from Ottawa to NB. Crew Member Jenn lends me a travel pillow (which I've never used before) and it's magic. Can't believe I'm 55 years old and haven't taken advantage of one of these before!
After an easy flight (some kids did spill water on Jenn!), we have a couple of hours wait at the airport for the train and then I get to experience my first fast train travel across Europe. 320 km an hour to Strasbourg! It's quite terrifying when trains go by in the opposite direction at that speed! The beautiful countryside reminds me of scenes from Band of Brothers - old farmhouses and church spires, hedgerows and pristine fields. Minus the murder and mayhem.
Andrew and Brian pick us up in Strasburg easy-peasy and we drive to the local Porsche sportscar club to meet Bernd and Sven. They both have Boxster GTSs, both automatic with black wheels. We say the appropriate words and don't comment on the blackness. They seem genuinely enthused and excited for us and our endeavours and it's a lovely little visit, including a tour of the amazing garage full of member's Porsches where they can work on them whenever they want and also store them. Would that Ottawa had such a facility! There was a fellow working on his 1980s 911 in preparation for the upcoming Italian road trip, which is the bunch of guys that we brought the plaques from Dave for.
After the tour, we have a nice frosty radler in their clubhouse, which is chock full of photos and memorabilia. We drink it all in (literally and figuratively) while chatting and hearing all about the club and the upcoming trip, where they will ship the cars to Italy and then take the train down to go drive them. They took the little plaques and made framed pictures with a photo and stickers for all of the members, clearly quite the kind of thing they like to do. All in all that worked out very well. Anyway, a really nice welcome from them - Sven is keen to check out the GTS Chronicles and Bernd arranged for us to go and visit the exclusive manufacture CXX facility tomorrow! A couple of lovely fellows and a nice warm way to really kick things off for us - and all down to us meeting Dave through the forum and connecting us this way. Thanks Dave!
See? When you connect with people, and are generally nice, good things happen!
From there we go and dump our stuff at the hotel and head out to find a quick bite to eat. Time is getting late, and it is starting to rain, so we opt for a small burger joint that actually turns out to be delicious. Back to the hotel after that to clean up and get some much-needed shuteye. I am pretty beat from the travel, and just the initial ramp-up excitement of this momentous trip, but actually have to do some quiet meditation to calm my mind and get some shuteye. "It's just a car, it's just a car!" I want to savour every moment, whether that's chatting with some nice enthusiasts, munching on delicious food, or bantering with my tripsters. Can't let the anticipation of the red machine be all-encompassing.
Writing my notes from the day like this really helps - I want to capture things because there's so much to take in and if I wait until too much time has passed, I'll miss stuff for sure. Photos, videos, the eventual trip report will be huge and comprehensive thanks to Andrew, but I have to do my part too.
Day 1 done!
~ Luke
p.s. You can read the full, no-holds-barred accounting of this day at gtschronicles.com.
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