Birmingham is situated rather far away from the Eurotunnel through which we’ll drive home tomorrow. That’s why we are getting closer to Folkestone today to catch an early train tomorrow in hope of arriving back at home in Switzerland earlier in the evening than before.

As it happens, I know someone in the area whom I wanted to visit for a while.

We’re on the road for almost four hours to reach the southeastern edge of England. But then we see the famous white cliffs of Dover. They look just like the ones in Beachy Head but in an urban surrounding.

I get out of the car in a small town outside of Dover and wait for my ride on a meadow next to the sea. Which then turns up: a DeLorean Time Machine from my favourite movie ‘Back to the Future’.

I met Steven two years ago in Lucerne when we went to see Back to the Future with a live orchestra playing the film’s music. The venue’s organisers had booked him and his time machine to offer the audience a highlight for the intermission and before and after the show. During the day, the time machine was stationed outside the Schweizerhof hotel where I spoke to him for quite a while. I met him and his time machine again in London last year when we went to the London Film and Comic Con to meet the film’s actors Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd.

We take some photos before we drive up and down the town for a bit. While a DeLorean converted into a time machine would never we permitted by the road traffic licensing department in Switzerland, it’s perfectly road legal in the UK. A reason for me to move to the UK one day. 😉

While I already sat in a (respectively: in this) DeLorean, I have never driven in one. It’s an incredibly good feeling – also from the passenger seat. There’s not that much space in the car and I ask myself how Marty AND Jennifer fit in only one seat in the end of part I / the beginning of part II. The seat is very comfortable, though. Only getting in and out of the car needs some practice.

Steven shows me everything, including opening the reactor chamber and how to insert the plutonium tube, or the smoke in the interiour and through the air vents in the back. He points at some parts that are often forgotten when people turn their DeLoreans into time machines. His one is completely screen accurate. It ways converted by the same team that restored the Hero A car from the films. That’s why they know all the details unknown to others.

We continue to the hotel after an exciting day. Both of us are rather tired and could need holiday from our holidays.

We order dinner to be delivered to the room and go to bed right after eating.