Nothing New in Vienna

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Welcome back to our blog! Here we continue with stories from the past few days.

Sunday:

After we had reluctantly left the beautiful 'Terre de Ferme' (with the promise to come back in the summer), we had to steer towards our next destination. The problem: All roads lead to... Lyon! No matter where we wanted to go now, it was hardly possible to avoid passing through Lyon, because all the major and minor roads led there. But we definitely didn't want to endure another big city disaster like in Besançon, and many people warned us about the legendary crime in Lyon.

That's why we initially only drove a short distance to Belleville (the name sounded promising), which was still quite far north of Lyon. On the next drive, we could then bypass Lyon and land far enough south to avoid all the criminal Lyonnaians.

Unfortunately, Belleville was not as belle as we had hoped. It was especially quite éteint (=dead) for a tourist town on Sunday. There wasn't even a small café where we could enjoy the sun. So we just took a quick look at (and inside) the local church and then decided to leave this somewhat dreary and heavily trafficked place again. Since the clock showed only 2 pm, we dared to take the drive that should take us south of Lyon. The place we had in mind because of its campgrounds was called Condrieu and was located near the larger city of Vienne, where we were hoping to see some sights and finally experience some culture again.

However, when we arrived in Condrieu, they rudely turned us away because the campground was only open for motorhomes starting in March. Or maybe just not for us. And right after that came the next bad news: two hikers pointed out that Rosti had left several stains at its location...

This marked the beginning of the recurring cycle that Rosti is so famous for. He has a problem, we have worry, despair, fear, helplessness. So we parked on the next free parking lot we could find and accepted that we probably couldn't accomplish much until the next morning. To distract ourselves from all this, we took a walk through the town and discovered a little pizza shop where you could take your order in a cardboard box. The operators seemed to us like father and daughter and treated us with great kindness. The father even provided us with a pretty little table and two chairs. This made us the perfect advertising image for any French bistro: Young lovebirds sharing a pizza with lots of garlic and drinking rosé wine from plastic cups. Well, almost perfect.

With our nerves soothed by the luxurious care, we went to bed in our warm bed in the cursed, incontinent Rosti, somewhat happy and above all full...

Monday:

Oh yeah, Monday. Probably the longest day I've experienced in a while.

The morning began with the return of our worries. So we started by calling everyone who knows something about cars. Our workshop in Weimar advised us to tighten a screw in the engine again. But other than that, it wasn't such a big deal. Also, overnight, thanks to a trick from Stephan, we had realized that the liquid under the car was probably oil-like. So we first topped up with motor oil. But we were probably a little too generous because the subsequent measurement showed too much oil now! Great... After endless googling (the word is in the dictionary!!!), we found an 'oil drain plug' on Rosti's underbelly, which we now used to get rid of the excess oil. So a very wisely spent morning. Result: It was still dripping and now we had a lot of things contaminated with used oil in our baggage...

Our plan then looked something like this: go to the service station to finally empty our toilet, then go directly to the next workshop. Both turned out to be more difficult than expected.

The service station was only accessible via a huge detour (and many mountains) and we quickly gave up on this task. In a small parking lot, we asked the nearest car driver where we could find a workshop for our problem and our unusually large height. She was incredibly friendly and helpful, but unfortunately also incomprehensible with her rapid French.

Although our conversation consisted of simple, repeated sentences, we managed to explain our problem to her and she offered to take us to the nearest workshop and ask around.

David stayed with Rosti and used the time to look up important technical terms like oil, engine, damage, and fluid that we might need in further conversations.

So I was pushed towards the helpful French lady with a smile on my face and off we went. She raced through every sharp curve without batting an eyelid, like Rosti probably doesn't even dream of, and I was a little scared for my life in this tiny car with a total stranger with whom I couldn't communicate at all. But of course, she only had good intentions and brought us to a Renault workshop. But they couldn't help us.

After the workshop search yielded no results and the brave French lady advised us to call our insurance company, we had the idea to call the ADAC (German automobile club). They quickly found us a suitable workshop nearby and after a slightly awkward farewell to our helper – where most of our huge gratitude probably got stuck in the language barriers – we drove very slowly towards the workshop. The workshop looked like a half junkyard full of discarded vans and trucks, but the mechanic, who reminded us a lot of Commissaire Adamsberg, behaved cleverly and professionally and had already been informed about our problem by the ADAC. After some investigations and a ride around with the engine open (how could he hear anything afterwards?), he beckoned us over and pointed to a spot on the engine where oil was clearly leaking out. He made it clear to us that we could continue driving, but cautiously and with regular checks of the oil level (according to him, every FIVE km!).

We were supposed to report the problem, a leaking cylinder head gasket, to our workshop and claim our warranty.

But every time I called the workshop, my call was simply forwarded to the answering machine.

So at the end of this day, we sneaked with Rosti first to a supermarket parking lot and then to the next motorhome parking lot (in Vienne) that we could find.

The scorecard of the day:

A lot of stress and worry, a workshop bill of €160, a severely slowed down onward journey with Rosti, and an upcoming warranty battle with our hometown engine workshop.

So today, we decided to leave Rosti parked. We are in communication with the engine workshop. But we don't really know any details yet. For now, we just have to wait. At least Vienne is not the worst place for that. The bar (which would probably correspond to the tea room in Weimar), where we are currently sitting and mooching off the WiFi and electricity, is really nice and casual. There are all kinds of alcohol bottles placed around for decoration, but probably also for use at other times, and the chairs and armchairs are extremely comfortable. There are all sorts of artists and people adorned with body art around us. And the freckled and bearded waiter occasionally asks us sincere questions about us and our journey.

We hope to be able to report some news to you soon.

Until then,

David, Lotti, and somewhere also Rosti