September, 1997 (continued):
My visit to Sweden continued with a two-hour drive to Norrköping with Hakkan (NRJ’s Stockholm music director) and Henri Paul (from France). The trip was both extremely uncomfortable and rather embarrassing for me.
About one hour into the drive, I became increasingly uncomfortable. It couldn’t be carsickness; I had carefully taken Dramamine before leaving the hotel. But I felt worse and worse.
When we were just 15 minutes away from our destination, I asked Hakkan to pull over. I knelt down at the side of the road for ten minutes while Henri used the occasion to smoke (he had graciously refrained while I was in the car).
Finally we decided to move on, got into the car (an Audi, borrowed by Hakkan from NRJ), Hakkan started the ignition…and then we heard a computerized voice: “Warning: The engine has been disengaged. Consult your owner’s manual,” and the engine went dead.
This happened several times. We couldn’t find the owner’s manual, which we assumed was in a glove compartment…but we couldn’t even find the glove compartment!
Finally we got out of the car, got back in, started it up…and sped away before that damn voice could catch us.
Vildmarkshotellet
The Vildmarkshotellet(hotel) is located on the grounds of Sweden’s largest zoo. I made it to my room around at 6:00PM, drank some water, flopped onto the bed while waiting for 7:00 when restaurant would be open for dinner… and slept until 5:00 the following morning.
Actually, I awakened after a few hours, noticed a boxing match on the tv set I had left silently on, watched the match, then went back to sleep. The bout was on Eurosport, with commentary by an incredibly annoying British announcer:
“The German fighter keeps moving to his left, which is exactly the wrong thing to do against someone whose best punch is his right. I’m sorry, but I just get so cross when I see such blatant ignorance of the fundamentals of boxing!”
Next: The return of my appetite…Its second sudden disappearance…. Cloudberries….and What The Maid Did In My Room While I Was Sleeping.
