Dear diary,

I forget things. Things that matter to me. For example the road trip through Europe in 2012. Six countries, three weeks, two persons, one car. And millions of memories. As well as 5000+ kilometers.

It was Twan van Dijk who inspired me to write it down. To remember the fading memories. "Like snow for the sun" ... a Dutch expression. And without knowing it of one another we both set off traveling through Europe in search of the greatest road ... wait for it ... "in the wooooorld"!

And yes ... I watch Top Gear. Like gazillions of others.

The road trip was, besides being inspired by this Top Gear episode, initially intended as a farewell to my first car ... an Audi TeeTee. The idea was to sell her after the road trip. Sorry ... "it". Sell "it". But besides the car, the other ingredients of the road trip were:

• The Netherlands
• Germany
• Switzerland
• Italy
• France
• Belgium

And in addition to that, with Rebecca in the passenger seat (as the part-time navigator) and yours truly in the driver seat (as ... well ... as the full-time driver) and our bags in the boot, we found the ideal weight distribution for the car. And off we went ...

But ... before we went, we both had to fly all the way from Australia to The Netherlands, because that was where the car was. Well ... Rebecca flew from Japan to Australia, where she had lived and worked. Then we flew together from Australia, where I live and work. Aaaaanyway ... I'll skip the flying scenes and cut straight to: