After a whole night without any sleep on the FC United Boogie bus we headed up through the low countries, with Looking for Eric banging on like a Childrens' Film Foundation flick with tourettes. FUCKING FUCKING FUCK FUCKING FUCKING eric FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCK postmen FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK united FUCK FUCKING FUCK and i would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling FUCKING united fans.
Up through France, into Belgium, Holland, then finally Germany. Highlights, apart from the wealth of onboard activity organised by Stan and Blakey and the opportunity to watch fellow passengers smoke their way through the service stations of Europe, were the amount of deer which could be seen from the coach windows. Them and hordes of Grey Herons, who seem to have nothing better to do in Europe than hang around at the side of the motorway dreaming of fresh roll mops and black coffee.
We finally reached Hamburg at about 15.30. Well, the outskirts of Hamburg, which we skirted for a while until we found our way to the St. Pauli Elbe tunnel. A 1911 construction which took us deep, deep, deep into the ground under the Elbe river and coughed us up near our destination, the palatial three-star Hotel Budapest, in the St. Pauli area of Hamburg.
"It didnt look like that on the website," observed the man known only as H, who had sat next to me for the majority of the nineteen hour journey, quietly supping cider and managing to not crush me when he fell asleep, sitting up. He's a big fella, I may have been permanently affected. I agreed; the graffiti-scarred building was not the gleaming white ode to German cleanliness we had anticipated when scouring the internet for details of where we were headed.
Inside, it was clean but functional. Two of the 'beds' were actually giant pouffes; ideal for a giant to rest his feet on. I went for one of these as I'm built for that sort of thing and because I knew I'd be tired/drunk enough by the time I lay down on it to guarantee a good night's sleep.
At about five thirty it was decided that a look at FC St. Pauli's ground, the Millerntor-Stadion, would be a good idea. At about five-thirty two we arrived there. Nods and smiles were exchanged with those with whom nods and smiles are normally exchanged in Bacup or Matlock or some Yorkshire Hell Hole like Osset. The 'alright, mate?' accquaintances. Except this time we were in a beer-cap strewn, graffiti-covered and sticker-friendly part of Hamburg. In Germany!
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