Oct 30 2008
Calais…
Calais unfortunately deserves its own post. I wish Calais would have been an uneventful stop on our way from Paris to Dover, but alas no.
We arrived in Calais in such good time that we actually changed our Sea France ferry tickets to an hour earlier. Al and I were both excited that we would be able to see the White Cliffs from the English Channel. Although it took us longer to go from Paris to Calais as it would have taken us to go from Paris to England, we were happy.
HAHAHAHA.
We arrived in Calais to find out that we had to take a bus from the train station to the ferry station. Unfortunately the bus only came every hour, and it didn’t follow the train schedule at all. We got to wait for almost the entire hour for the bus. Lucky us. Finally we got on the bus to the ferry station. And there were some interesting gentlemen also waiting at the bus stop who told us that the Red Light District in London was in Soho.
At the station we asked if we could change our tickets to an earlier time. We felt fortunate that they allowed us to. The ticket lady told us to go through customs at 6:00 to be able to get to our ferry at 6:30. That gave us an hour and a half to eat something for dinner.
At 5:50 the fire alarm came on. I know I usually ignore a fire alarm unless I can see smoke, and it seemed that everyone else was ignoring it too. Then suddenly police officers came into the restaurant and forced everyone to leave. As I had more luggage than everyone except Al, I waited for everyone to go in front of me. Unfortunately this is NOT what a police officer had in mind for me. He looked at my luggage and said something insulting and very fast in French and then proceeded to grab my suitcase and my arm and dragged me to the elevator. He threw in my suitcase and pushed me into the elevator, and then grabbed an English Gentleman who was still drinking a beer on the way out and put him in the elevator with me. Then he pushed the ground floor button. While the elevator went down the English Gentleman looked at me and asked, “Are we not supposed to use the stairs when the siren is blasting?” I could do nothing but laugh.
Meanwhile… Al at this time is going down SIX FLIGHTS OF STAIRS with the heavy suitcase and most of our wine. On the elevator, it was 2 FUCKING FLOORS! How this translates into 6 flights of stairs at 10 steps each is beyond me. Finally, a nice English fellow offered help. We only had 2 more flights to go. What Crap! Fucking Calais!
(THE GUY IN THE BLUE WAS THE POLICE OFFICER THAT “HELPED” ME INTO THE ELEVATOR)
I finally meet up with Al outside and wait to see what is going on. We asked an officer if we would miss our ferry because of the alarm and they assured us that we wouldn’t because when the alarm goes off none of the ships can leave.
LIARS!!!
So why the alarm you ask? This is when it gets really funny. Apparently some lady FORGOT HER PURSE IN THE BATHROOM, so they called in the bomb squad.
YES. THE BOMB SQUAD. Really? For a fucking ladies purse? Those French are nothing if not extreme.
(THE BOMB SQUAD)
(IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS GROUP IS THE LADY WHO FORGOT HER PURSE IN THE BATHROOM)
I am still pissed that I missed my ferry because some lady forgot her purse, because we did miss our ferry. We were the first through customs and we ran to the dock and we still missed the ferry.
Oh, then we got yelled at because we ran to the dock. Apparently we were supposed to wait for the shuttle. Here’s the thing. The nice English gentleman who stamped our passports said NOTHING to us about waiting for the shuttle. But it wouldn’t have mattered because the fucking Polici lied to us about the ferry’s staying put. Fucking Calais.
(OUR VIEW OF CALAIS RIGHT BEFORE WE GOT YELLED AT)
(FUNNY AS HELL SIGN WE SAW WHILE WAITING AT THE DOCK)
Finally we got onto the ferry and it fired up to go, only to then cut the engines. Then an announcement came on saying they had a medical emergency and had to call the paramedics.
30 minutes…
Another 30 minutes…
Yet another 30 minutes…
(THE PROMISING VIEW WHILE GETTING ON BOARD THE FERRY)
(WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE INSIDE THE FERRY)
Finally the engines fire up again and we are off. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate car alarms? I swear every car below had one. Plus someone forgot to put on their parking brake and their car moved and hit another one. I hope they had insurance… I didn’t know that. It would have made me laugh if I had know that. The Cowboys ipod
(CARS ON BOARD THE FERRY)
(THANKFULLY THERE WERE LIFE PRESERVERS ON BOARD)
Well after dark we arrived in Dover. Al and I were pissed we missed seeing the White Cliffs during the day. We could kind of see them at night, but it wasn’t what we were hoping for. This entire trip would have been better if we would have had more Pounds or Euros to buy beer. In Paris we forgot to change more money and there was NOWHERE in Calais to change it.
To get to our bed and breakfast we needed to take a taxi. Luckily Rachel had given me the last of her Pounds and I had enough to get us there. We gave the taxi driver our address and asked if 10 Pounds was enough, because if it wasn’t we wouldn’t be able to pay him. Luckily it was enough.
Finally we were in Dover.
Stumble it!
My head would have melted.
I’m sorry you missed seeing the cliffs in the daylight. That just means you’ll have to go back one day
wow… fun stuff!
I have to be honest it took me three tries reading this whole thing… everytime I got to that danger sign, I began laughing uncontrollably.
Hillary… ours were already melted.
Aaron… sooooo not fun, but funny.
Jason… that sign made my day. I laughed so hard when I saw it even though I had ran for the dock to watch my ferry slip away.
I admire you guys for keeping a good attitude and finding the humor in all your misfortunes in this part of the trip. I would probably have had a nervous breakdown and they would have set the alarm on me. WTF is up with that danger sign? It makes NO freaking sense!
I think I’m glad that I’m not going to Calais when I go to France next March! It was very entertaining to read, even though it sucked for you. Sorry that it sucked.