D-Day +2 (Dresden - Prague)

I'm afraid I made a bit of a mistake last night. Instead of having a nice sociable beer or two with fellow competitors, I became the ringleader in a major first night boozathon. I got a bit excited to be frank. The joy of having made it through the first day without death or destruction went to my head a bit. Literally. The mistake being that I was first behind the wheel this morning and it hurt quite a lot. 

The beers in Dresden were quite moorish and came in 1.5L pitchers, served at ones table. No gap between drinks required, just solid Pilsner quaffing all night long. 

Between the four of us, we've managed to stitch together a reasonable proportion of the evening from our combined memory fragments. We did indeed talk to fellow drivers and apparently had a great night. The late night trip to McDonalds was revealed as an extra special forgotten treat this morning. 

I'll dwell for a moment on the Ibis hotel booking us into twin rooms which was in fact two doubles. When queried, we were advised we could either spoon in the double provided, sleep on the sofa which in their view was pretty much the same as a bed, or go and find ourselves another hotel. Except that they then advised Dresden was fully booked and we had absolutely no chance of finding another hotel. So I decided to have a personal word and a 50% discount was duly negotiated and refunded on the spot. 

While checking in this morning, we were treated to a German oompah band doing The Great Escape theme tune. Very funny and a great touch from the organisers. 

People

All is well in the car. Teams are getting to know each other a bit better and starting to swap stories. A FTO that flew past us yesterday at about 3 million mph apparently died of cambelt failure a few hours into the rally. Well if you're going to go, you might as well do it trying to break light speed huh? 

Vehicle

Well the old girl seems to be just warming up to this rally lark! We're still losing horses from under the bonnet and the clutch is riding very high and frequently aromatic but the run from Dresden to Stalag Luft III was clear and stress free. No hiccups, grinding, whining etc. above the now familiar set of noises. She's done about 1100m in three days and seems to be loving her last hurrah! 

Conditions

Beautiful driving weather. Cracking weather for anything really. Well except skiing perhaps. Warm, bright, dry. Lovely late summers day. 

Culture

Flippin loads! Dresden is a really nice city. Unexpectedly so. Great evening culture and there the history of course (Google it). 

Dresden at sundown

The first stop of the day was Stalag Luft III in Poland. Small museum blah blah blah. If you're into that sort of thing (and I am) it was an interesting place to visit. If you're not into demolished POW camps,
it's probably not worth your time to be honest. 

Harry

Billy, Jerry, Gary

Arrived in Prague about 6pm with every intention of having a quite one. We'll see. Personally, I'm well up for a mug of cocoa and an early night. 

Car Interior Smell Rating - Feet. Definitely feet, no question about it.  

....for the avoidance of doubt, the sofa was employed last night in our room in order to avoid any, you know, unpleasantness. I mean we're mates and all, but come on. 

I am unable to confirm or deny the same was true of the other two. Given the state we were all in, I'm quite frankly reluctant to ask.