Monday, June 11, 2007

Road Trippin'

There's two kinds of people in the world..those who like road trips and those who don't. I fall in the former category..endless open road, a fast car and good tunes always leave me with a smile. Europe doesnt have much of a driving culture though, between the price of gas and the cheap alternatives (trains, cheap airfare etc.) most people here prefer not to drive when possible. At least..in my experience.

This weekend i have to drive to France and back..in total about 14hrs. Why you ask? Well, to make the pilgrimage to the 24hr race in LeMans of course. If the 24hr race up at the Nurburgring is any indication, its gonna be another really good race. (pics from last year). To prepare for such a road trip is really pretty easy. You need drinks (non alcoholic of course), munchies, a radar detector, good directions and good tunes. I could've gone with the Blues Brothers checklist (sunglasses, full tank of gas etc. etc.), but that's a little cliché. Anyway, up until the directions, i'm good to go. I've read some real horror stories about driving in France like having to pay tickets on the spot, licenses revoked and returned to the Embassy many months later...things like that. For this reason, a GPS is prudent, preferably one that's programmed to warn of speed boxes. To fulfil the directions portion I'm borrowing a GPS from a friend here but with the tunes..I'll be honest, I'm struggling. I've got a ton of music on my computer and ipod but its feeling a little warn out lately. In trying some new entertainment i decided to try something completely new...audiobooks.

For those too lazy to read there are a number of websites that sell books from literally any genre you can imagine. I was sceptical, i thought it might be a bit strange to listen to someone narrate a book, but what the hell right?

So on to Itunes i went and i found 4 titles of my reading list.

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
Men In Black: How The Supreme Court is Destroying America
The Secret History of the American Empire

Ok i know, some of these might actually increase the chances of putting me to sleep, but under normal circumstances i'd like them, so we'll see. The author of the last one (the secret history) wrote another really good book called The Confessions of an Economic Hitman. If that book is any indication, the second will be really good as well.
So Friday night its off to LeMans. It's 7 hrs, dark out, i've got diet coke, audobooks, radar detector, GPS and I'm wearing sunglasses...Hit It!

Oh, and just to be safe, if the audiobooks failed, i downloaded a bunch of Howard Stern shows.