This is the tale of my random, spontaneous trip to France.
Sam (seen above) comes into my room on Saturday night to see if I want to go to France the next day. I couldn't think of a reason why not, as it was only 19 or so pounds. Noel and I decided to buy tickets to join Sam (who had already purchased tickets). We purchased the tickets, but Noel got the last ticket on the SeaFrance ferry. I had already purchased bus tickets to the port for Noel and I (hence the date), so was forced to purchase a ticket on another ferry, leaving near the same time.
We had purchased them late, and were unable to find an internet cafe to print the tickets. Finally, after a bit of travelling, we discovered one open and printed them off.
On the following day, we got up early and went. There were no problems until after my female cohorts had parted to get on our respective ferries. Sam was leaving the country to restamp her visa, which was about to expire. She was only going to return to the country for another 4 days, but the passport control official had told her that she would not be eligible for a visitors visa, as she had 2 years to travel. In the end, it would all be up to the passport official when she came back.
We got to port over an hour late due to all the added security after 7/7. We realised we only had half an hour to do whatever, as we were expected to check in an hour before leaving port (also due to the new security measures) and ended up exchanging our tickets for a later ferry.
So we left the port and walked for a bit ... in the rain. We ended up asking a nice french lady who worked for one of the ferry companies which way into the city centre of Calais who gave us prompt directions in English. We followed her directions to the tee. Signs seemed to agree with what she was saying, so we went without question. We walked past factories, sewers then onto a mud track. We started to worry when we left the dirt track for no track, but were following the road past factories still, and following the signs to the city centre.
After about 20 minutes of walking, we found ourselves in civilization. The first street we come to, was Rue de Bitche, as seen in the picture above. We continued to follow the signs into the centre for another 15 minutes, seeing nothing but closed shops, rickety houses and dodgy looking people. These were definately the slums of Calais. Some date, eh?
We ended up cutting our losses and walking back so we could catch the ferry. Not 5 minutes did we walk before we found a map showing that we had gone in a nice circle around the city centre. Another 10 minutes later, we saw our first taxi. Going into the city centre. Then our second, then our 5th, 6th and 7th. When we got to a roundabout closer to the port, we found that we had gone the wrong way (despite the signs telling us we had gone the correct way). There, we saw 3 busses going from the port to the centre.
We ended up getting back to the port in high spirits. We had made it back in time to get some grub. We went to a pub in the port. Lets just say that the food was less than stellar. A piece of buttered baguette with a piece of ham that tasted quite bad. The wine was worse. It tasted like it had been let to sit in the hot sun for 5 days or so, then chilled. Not good at all.
When the girls and I went to get on our ferries, I was scowled at by the passport control official and asked to move behind the line (I had one foot just grazing the line, the other was behind it). At least Sam got her visa stamp.
I got on my ferry half drunk, half sick from the wine. Had a nice chat with some brits about my fascinating day of slummishness, then went to sleep for about an hour.
My ferry left about 10 minutes after the ferry the girls were on. Aparently, there was port congestion. How the hell do you have congestion on a port when there are only 2 ferries going to and fro? In any case, I ended up getting to Dover an hour and a half late, but 15 minutes before the girls. We arrived just after our bus had left. We paid to get new tickets for the last bus and waited.
The bus driver was not happy when I asked if I could take my laptop bag on the bus. I just wanted some snacks and such to tie me over as I was feeling quite ill by now. I let him have his way and stowed the bag below the bus, then had a very uneasy trip back home.
The trip was a lot of waiting for nothing to happen. I spent a total of 5 hours on a ferry or in a port waiting alone. At least I got a good story out of it.
I will never cheat on Danny again. Well, I might but ...
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