June 8th – Van Trouble on the road to Vienna

On the long drive to Vienna, we stopped for lunch at a motorway service station, and we were hit by the smell of burning oil. On opening the bonnet, it turned out that our oil cap was no longer there and that there was oil splattered all over the engine.

We are not mechanics, so not sure if the cap had just come off or blown off, we called the breakdown people. They were remarkably efficient and arrived within the hour, and although the guy spoke about 10 words of English (which is more than our 5 words of German), we think he told us that it had just come off and there was nothing more menacing. So, he fitted a replacement cap topped up our oil and went on his way, smiling to himself at these idiot English people who effectively called him out just to fill up the oil.

Of course, he may have been telling us there was something more serious and we're none the wiser. Before he drove off I tried my longest German sentence of all time, "alles gut, ja?", followed with a thumbs up and quizzical look. He hastily replied, "ja!" and sped off. I think that means we're ok, doesn't it?