Just got back from my ED trip on Monday.

Flew into London on 7/30, and then took a one way flight to Munich on 31st - did the usual Mariemplatz/Haufbrauhaus stuff on Sunday. And then came the 1st of Aug - my ED delivery date. Du to jet lag (and probably the exceitement), I was up at 3am... and took th subway to the ED delivery center. Reached there at exact 7:30am, but there were 5-6 people waiting for me. There was a line at the reception and I asked the guy in front of my if that was the ED delivery line, he said yes, and it turned out that he was wrong (he had a silver 325 and was from Tallahausse, FL). Anyway, the guy who received us after we pressed the bell on the ED gate took my passport and asked us to go upstairs to the cafeteria. It was after an hour that my name was called - I went downstairs and Judith and I sat in a room, and I signed some papers etc. total time taken was 20 mins. Then I told her that I had the nav DVD with me, and she initially thought that it was a burned copy of the disk nad said that I have to warn you that 2 weeks ago one gentleman came with his own disk and it melted inside the Nav since it was a burnt copy - I got a little hesitant since mine was a rented copy - but told her that I was ready to take the risk. Then she took me to my baby - which was in the first spot on the right after you enter the delivery vehical parking lot. It was love at first sight - I was feeling unsure about my color after ordering (Arctic) - but it is just perfect. the Beige leather felt just right.... she was a beauty. Anyway, she told me about the controls and stuff (she didn't know everything though).. and then disappeared (which was fine with me since I got to spend time with my baby) ... then we took the key taking pic... took the car to the front and took more pics. So we have the hotel address in the nav and it was about 2miles from the pickup place. (I stayed at the Arabella Sheraton - a note of caution - it is not nice. I later foudn out that Sheraton has a whole sub chain of hotels called Arabella sheraton which is intended for Arab travellers... and the whole place was full of Arabs.... the atmosphere wasn't nice - and they confused me for one of them... and used to always greet me with their 'Salam ale kum'.... it would just ignore them. There was construction around myhotel and I was at the final traffic light at the round about - my light turned green and I was just about to proceed when I saw another car come from the left (he ran a red light).... I braked hard.. and stopped, however the guy on the right lane next to me carried on and the guy rammed into him - at this point my car only had 4 miles on it. I probably wouldhave started crying if he had hit me. So we reached the hotel, pickup the rest of the people in our party and headed to Salzburg. From there we took a detour to Eagle's next, which was where Hitler had his bunker on top of a mountain - but the last bus had already left for the day (no car access). Headed to zurich from there. Next day was spent in Zurich (it was raining), and then to Interlaken area (Grindelwald valley). After spending 3 days in Grindelwald area, we headed back to zurich, and then the next day drove up north till Baden-baden and then to Paris. After a night in Paris, we left for London the next day in the afternoon and reached ahead of time to Calais from where we were to catch our ferry to Dover. In england, I was a little scared about their drive... but it wasnt too bad - i just followed traffic. The roundabouts were what scared me the most. The next day I drove to heathrow, and reached one hour before the drop off place opened. removed my license plate etc and the drop off person (Kim) was very understanding in expediting the process (since my flight back to SF was leaving at 11am and they opened at 9am). I was able to drop off my car at 9:30 and reached the airport at 10am... just in time. My odometer reading at the point of drop off was 1897, avg mpg was 25.

Finally, I just got an update from the London drop off person that my car is leaving Southampton on the 20th of Aug on a Vessel called the BUJIN.
It's ETA @ Port Hueneme is 13.9.05. I can't wait.

Pics of my ED trip are at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/am_ver...er74/my_photos