Hmm...We started hiking down the road, looking for a sign pointing to Calais. We had 24 hours to kill before our ferry left, so this was a great way to occupy our time and see rural France...
Eventually, we saw a town in the distance. We knew the road led to a highway, so we took a detour across a few fields...
After walking for a couple of miles, we came upon a patch of forest with a path leading into it. Still of the mindset that we had hours to kill, we decided to explore a bit...
"That's a nice forest," we thought as we walked along the path. Then, we found what looked like an abandoned shack. A place to sleep for the night,perhaps..?
Perhaps not. The shotgun shells and broken beer bottles strewn about the place were tell-tale signs. Also, we saw a brand new video camera and a perfectly made bed through the window. I am %100 sure a serial killer used this place for his victims. We left immediately...After another hour of walking, we reached Calais. Our plan was to find the beach and sleep in one of the beach huts. For some reason, probably exhaustion, we took the most roundabout way to the beach possible. It took something like four hours to get through the town and we were unhappy about it. Calais is a dump. Broken glass, chavs, and shabby buildings probably constructed in the 1970s were all it had to offer. I learned something on this trip. Port towns SUCK..!
But, finally, we made it to the beach...
We found a beach hut that had been ransacked and decided to fix it up so that we could sleep there for free. It was a two hour project...
Eventually, we gave up. A word of advice. If your floor is covered in sand, it's less work to find a new place to stay rather than clean it up. This is the best we could do...
Home sweet home. Notice the makeshift door. That was an attempt to keep the cold out because, by now, the sun was setting...
Suddenly, the temperature dropped to "Fuck-it's-cold-and-I-can't-feel-my-fingers". Flower and I started collecting wood for a fire. Simon..um...
...Put fishing nets and things made of plastic and metal on top. The smoke was unbearable and sent me into a coughing fit that completely obliterated my voice box for the next week. I was unable to speak for several days afterwards. Also, this was when I developed conjunctivitis in both eyes...At midnight, we were fed up and decided to hike to the ferry port to see if we could catch an earlier boat. The Calais ferry port is the most confusing place on earth. We walked miles around the docks before we found an entrance and, of course, the doors didn't open. So, we sat in the vestibule and froze for five hours waiting for the port to open...
Not my most attractive moment. At 5:30 AM the doors opened and we took the first ferry back to Dover. On the way back, mother nature gave us a treat...
It had been the adventure of a lifetime, and I'm happy to record it here on this blog so that I'll never forget the trials and tribulations of being stranded in Europe with no money and no place to stay. Taken at face value, the trip was a complete disaster. From the botching of the original train ticket times to bringing Simon along to running out of money, almost everything went completely wrong. However, it was the biggest thrill I've ever experienced, and I wouldn't change a single thing about it. Stay tuned, because in a year's time I'll be taking a month long trek across the USA before flying back to Europe. Now that I have experience in the ways of getting around and surviving, the hardship to enjoyment ratio should be a bit more even...That's all, we shall now return to our regularly scheduled programming..:-)
-Matt
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