So, the whole story takes place back in 2005, which means I was 6 years old. My parents, some friends of them and I went to France. A classical summer vacation at the Côte d' Azur. We had a nice cottage with a pool and all, so most of the vacation was great. Most of it? Yeah, for the ones of you who already visited southern France along the Côte d' Azur in summer will know, that the traffic jam reaches another level of insanity. For those who never were there, here's an example: The town we lived in is located right at the sea. Still, we had to drive a few kilometres, should be about 10, from our house to the beach. If I can remember right (which is quite hard for me, as I already stated, so I might exaggerate here) it almost took us about 30 to 45 minutes to get to the beach, and for that, we didn't even need to leave the town!
Well, of course you're not on a holiday to only chill out at the pool or at the beach. So we did travel around a bit to see some of the cities there, as well as Nice, St. Tropez and, to make that whole story a bit more F1 related, also Monaco! As you can already imagine by now, a lot of those travels were connected with a lot of traffic jams. You needed to plan about 2 hours for the trip to somewhere, and also 2 hours to get back home. As I said, just insane. The same story applied obviously also to the Monaco trip. But right there it was even worse than everything else we witnessed before. We didn't even park somewhere, because the possibility for that wasn't given, so what we did instead was (oh lucky me!) to try and drive around the F1 track! And that's quite hard, needless to say that the boundaries of the track are not build up on a normal day in Monte Carlo. Still, we managed to do that quite well, although I can remember we left the track unwittingly one or two times, but surprisngly always found a way back on it. I still have pictures in my head how we drove along the start finish straight and also passed through the tunnel, which was a really nice feeling, although we could obviously not do that at high speed like a race car, because.... well.... do I really have to tell you more about traffic jams?
But now, let's come to the story the headline is all about. I included that whole Monaco thing on the one hand, because that's an F1 blog and also gives a nice story which wouldn't be long enough for an own post and on the other hand, because it's also connected to the whole story, . But how? Well, the friends of my parents also had a son, who's even younger than me and was about 3 years old at that time. And in that age, he also already was a Michael Schumacher fan and got a Ferrari shirt bought in Monaco (he and his parents found somehow somewhere a parking lot, still don't know how the've done that, maybe they parked on a yacht or so). I as well tended to wear always a whole Michael Schumacher outfit (Ferrari shirt and trousers) during that holiday. One day, somebody of my parents (can't quite remember who) read somewhere that Michael Schumacher was having a vacation as well at the Côte d' Azur. When I heard that, of course I thought in my childish naivity, that we would somehow see him, but which was of course completely unrealistic. Or was it?
Some days after those news, we did another trip to one of the smaller cities in southern France. Therefore, we easily could find a parking lot this time and surprisingly there were almost no cars driving on the street. I was wearing my whole Michael Schumacher outfit again on that day. It was lunchtime, so we searched for a restaurant and walked along that street. Then, a cyclist appeared on the street, dressed in wine-red and drove slowly into our direction. When he was at our height, he got slowlier and looked at us, especially at me and the son of our friend. That friend is the father of that son and he looked that man into the face, stood there a moment quite astonished and than shouted excited: "That's him! That's Michael Schumacher!" After he shouted that, the cyclist started to pedal faster again and drove further past us. I also was so astonished by that, I didn't even really noticed what happened right in that moment, all I can really remember is looking after him driving away. When I asked my father about that whole story later, who also looked Michael into the face, he said he grinned after our friend shouted those "That's him!" words, and had a Ferrari backpack on his back. But I'm not to sure if that really was the case, that was nothing that I really looked for.
But yeah, that's how I met Michael Schumacher, at least kind of. I guess the reason why he drove so slowly past us, was because I wore that whole outfit with his name written big on my T-Shirt, as well as the son of our friend, who wore his Ferrari shirt as well. That would at least also explain why he grinned at us (and of course also that he got recognized). And well, why he drove away after we recognized him is also understandable. I wouldn't like to spent time either with crazy German fans during my holiday, that he obviously had, just like we heard earlier during our vacation in the news. Maybe he was also a bit startled by that shout, because it was a really loud and excited one. Some of you might think, that it's quite sad that he didn't stop and had a little chat with us and today I also think a bit so, especially because he got his really bad injury now and nobody really knows how it stands about him. But hey, as I already mentioned, on the other hand it's more than understandable for me, because it was his holiday. And I really think he was a bit shocked :D
Well, that was an a bit more private story about my experiences with Formula 1. If you had any similar experiences like I had there, or even met Michael in person too (maybe also talked to him), just write that into the comments, I'm keen on learning about that! If you want to hear more stories and about my opinions about Formula 1, just subscribe to the blog, I'll try to get out at least one post per week. Thanks for reading!
Georg
#KeepFightingMichael
But now, let's come to the story the headline is all about. I included that whole Monaco thing on the one hand, because that's an F1 blog and also gives a nice story which wouldn't be long enough for an own post and on the other hand, because it's also connected to the whole story, . But how? Well, the friends of my parents also had a son, who's even younger than me and was about 3 years old at that time. And in that age, he also already was a Michael Schumacher fan and got a Ferrari shirt bought in Monaco (he and his parents found somehow somewhere a parking lot, still don't know how the've done that, maybe they parked on a yacht or so). I as well tended to wear always a whole Michael Schumacher outfit (Ferrari shirt and trousers) during that holiday. One day, somebody of my parents (can't quite remember who) read somewhere that Michael Schumacher was having a vacation as well at the Côte d' Azur. When I heard that, of course I thought in my childish naivity, that we would somehow see him, but which was of course completely unrealistic. Or was it?
Some days after those news, we did another trip to one of the smaller cities in southern France. Therefore, we easily could find a parking lot this time and surprisingly there were almost no cars driving on the street. I was wearing my whole Michael Schumacher outfit again on that day. It was lunchtime, so we searched for a restaurant and walked along that street. Then, a cyclist appeared on the street, dressed in wine-red and drove slowly into our direction. When he was at our height, he got slowlier and looked at us, especially at me and the son of our friend. That friend is the father of that son and he looked that man into the face, stood there a moment quite astonished and than shouted excited: "That's him! That's Michael Schumacher!" After he shouted that, the cyclist started to pedal faster again and drove further past us. I also was so astonished by that, I didn't even really noticed what happened right in that moment, all I can really remember is looking after him driving away. When I asked my father about that whole story later, who also looked Michael into the face, he said he grinned after our friend shouted those "That's him!" words, and had a Ferrari backpack on his back. But I'm not to sure if that really was the case, that was nothing that I really looked for.
But yeah, that's how I met Michael Schumacher, at least kind of. I guess the reason why he drove so slowly past us, was because I wore that whole outfit with his name written big on my T-Shirt, as well as the son of our friend, who wore his Ferrari shirt as well. That would at least also explain why he grinned at us (and of course also that he got recognized). And well, why he drove away after we recognized him is also understandable. I wouldn't like to spent time either with crazy German fans during my holiday, that he obviously had, just like we heard earlier during our vacation in the news. Maybe he was also a bit startled by that shout, because it was a really loud and excited one. Some of you might think, that it's quite sad that he didn't stop and had a little chat with us and today I also think a bit so, especially because he got his really bad injury now and nobody really knows how it stands about him. But hey, as I already mentioned, on the other hand it's more than understandable for me, because it was his holiday. And I really think he was a bit shocked :D
Well, that was an a bit more private story about my experiences with Formula 1. If you had any similar experiences like I had there, or even met Michael in person too (maybe also talked to him), just write that into the comments, I'm keen on learning about that! If you want to hear more stories and about my opinions about Formula 1, just subscribe to the blog, I'll try to get out at least one post per week. Thanks for reading!
Georg
#KeepFightingMichael
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