Yesterday I smelled like rancid sour dirt, incubating underneath a hot laptop and a rolled up sleeping bag in a 1.0 liter Nissan Micra with a broken ventilation system, windows rolled up to lower drag, a surf board on top, and a loose cigarette-lighter powering my laptop as I edited as many photos as I could on the long drive from Dunquerque, France to Munich, Germany.

OK, so no photos from Cologne or Amsterdam yet, but once I get to a reliable outlet I should be able to edit some more photos. That doesn’t doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy a few more from Dusseldorf though!

Here’s an abridged version of the journal I’ve been writing out every night after wandering around Germany with Team Great Job!

Our first day began Thursday at nine in the morning in San Diego, driving up to Los Angeles, eating a last American meal of Tri-Tip sandwich with baked beans and fries, and playing with dice in the airport terminal.  Surprisingly a bag of peanuts was overkill on the marathon flight – something like 16 hours – which was filled with decent meals, copious beverages, painful sleeping, waking up with dead legs and cottonmouth, and only one trip to the bathroom about two hours before landing at Dusseldorf International.  For topical in-flight reading I chose Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, a novel about a man reciting his life story into the black box of a doomed jetliner.  Waiting for Anja, our host Ryan met through Couch Surfing, storm clouds darkened the murals of Dusseldorf.  Hoisting our bags over our shoulders, she led us to her apartment in time to watch the lightning from h

I’m posting photos that Will sends me from his two months of travel for the Mongol rally and his adventures abroad. Right now he’s in Dusseldorf, his team’s first stop. I’m looking forward to opening my e-mail every morning, hoping for a photo surprise!
-Jackie

For everyone who hasn’t yet heard of the Mongol Rally, I am leaving for Europe tomorrow afternoon with three friends/teammates to soon begin a long journey from London, England to Ulan Bator, Mongolia…by car. The route is as unique as the 300 teams which are participating, and the one that we, Team Great Job! are driving will take us through Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and finally Mongolia in a car with an engine that is barely one liter. The roads will be extremely tough, but the experience will surely be one of a kind.