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I found a local hotel not far from the restaurant and dumped our clobber in the room. I contacted my friend Alberto and he informed me of the plan for the night.
Dave and Wes share the evenig with Roby, his family, and friends.
We were to assemble in the lounge area of the Pizzeria, drinks would be provided. Around 20 people would be here for the meal, the restaurant was trading as normal besides this gathering and the other diners must have wondered what on earth was happening. As you are able to see on the photos Wes and I wore our Roby shirts while Joel was attired in the Fortuna shirt from last season.
My family and I were seated opposite Roby and Daniella and were introduced to the other guests as “Guests of honour from England”. After all the opening speeches the food and drinks arrived. We were made to feel very welcome, and with most of the guests being able to speak English the conversation went on late into the night. Before the gathering ended, everyone got together for photographs.
We flew to Berlin airport and picked up a rental car for our holiday. I had purchased a Tom Tom sat nav system from eBay to help me navigate across Europe; this really was worth every penny! How did we ever manage before these systems were available?!
Roby asked if Wes and I would like to visit his home and look around his garage the next day. We made plans to meet up and left for a good nights sleep. We met up with Roby the next day and followed him to his residence. When Roby spoke about his garage, it is not like the one at the side of your house - it's massive! There are different areas within this building. There is a workshop area (all spick and span) with racks of machines that Roby has campaigned throughout his racing career, from mini bikes right through to the Aprillia that he won the Italian championship with several years ago.
There's also a large collection of paddock scooters from all the teams that he has been associated with. In his spare time Roby like to Super Moto and Enduro for he lives in the country side with open access. He has one each of these machines.
There are cupboards full of every set of leathers that he has owned, even the ripped ones when he has crashed. There are also shelves full of boots from today right back to his early years. You would drool at the unopened boxes of new boots that his sponsor has provided. We went inside for a coffee and chat and spent a good couple of hours talking racing, both past and present. Before Wes and I left, Daniella presented Wes with the latest D’Antin team shirt and Robby gave me 6 bottles of his own signature lable wine! WOW!!!!! Unbelievable, I still have to pinch myself to make sure that I did not dream all of this.
We spent quite a few more days in Italy, then drove back into Germany to stay with Jeff and Martina. I would like to pass on to the readers my observations. Jeff lives in the Chemnitz area of the former East Germany, it is full of forests and open country side. In all of these forests you are able to roam freely unlike the small ones here in the UK that are controlled either by private landlords or the National Trust. There is not a great deal of traffic and homes tend to be located in small villages and are all detached. Everything is neat and tidy and I suspect that the government has provided subsidiaries for these former poor communities. Most people here smoke, and cigarette machines are every where. They are located at bus stops and at random on the streets. They never get vandalised or robbed, unlike here in the UK where petty crime is “young men’s sport” as Jeff commented. As soon as I arrived back in Stockport after my vacation I saw the broken glass from bus shelters and phone kiosks…welcome home Dave!!!!!!!
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