Episode 21: Sunday, Bloody Sunday II, or: we did not learn from history and are doomed to repeat it.

So, apparently our struggles in Bremen should have been a warning: Germany as a whole just doesn't work Sundays. Bars and restaurants are allowed to open but shops either aren't allowed to or just don't. Obviously, this is an example of how even some of the more fiscally conservative European countries look after workers and as a worker and committed socialist I'm glad that my fellows get such a better deal here than I do. I just wish someone had warned us that Sundays would be a wash-out.

You might think it's no big deal, really. And you'd be right, except that the car park where we left the car last night is attached to a shopping centre and that doesn't open today either. So, we're stuck in Aachen. This means several things: 1) we can't get to the final of the football tournament this evening in Enschede, 2) we can't get to the hotel we booked in Antwerp tonight, 3) that's going to be a very expensive carpark stay, both in itself and due to wasted expenditure on the match and the hotel and 4) we've ruined our plan of being in a different city every day. Granted we didn't see much of Aachen yesterday and we wouldn't have had time to see Antwerp tomorrow but it's the principle of the thing. 22 cities in 22 days was part of the point, it was a challenge.

We managed to get a room for tonight in the same hotel we were in yesterday so that's no problem but with the car and the match and thinking I'd lost my glasses (found 'em, thankfully) and a host of other niggling little annoyances, today has been the worst of the trip.

Thankfully we should be able to make it to the channel tunnel in time for the train back to England tomorrow and I really can't wait to get home now but today has sort of soured the whole experience. It was supposed to be the culmination of the tour: the final game, being in three cities in three countries over the course of about 10 hours. Instead we're stranded with nothing to do and the knowledge that tomorrow's massive trek back home leads only to our first days back at work on Tuesday. Once I've got some emotional distance from it, today won't have spoiled the whole thing, of course, but it's hard to look at things that way just now.

Anyway, we got a bit of a look around Aachen's historic buildings today and they were nice. It's hard to be enthusiastic but if I was currently part-way to Enschede, I think I'd be looking back on them as fine sights to have seen.