Starting toward home!

Fortunately, we packed before leaving the apartment yesterday morning.  We were able to get up and out of the place in about 20 minutes.  We had to wake at 5:30am for our first Metro to and 6:50 train to Calais.  It was a very easy start to what became an interesting two days.  I did sleep on this train most of the way! 

In Calais, we had switched the time we were taking the train during booking and ended up booking to one station too early.  We got off 5 miles from the doc where the P&O Ferry would take us across the channel at 1545.  It was only about 0930 when we got off the train.  We were in the middle of no where land in terms of this non-urban country.  We could see roof tops near by so after a failed attempt at calling an Uber – haha, we starting walking into town.  We walked a train through the woods!   It took by someone’s house and onto the street where we could turn and walk down to a local café.  I think it might be more a bar than café but several locals came in for coffee or beer to sit a few moments and read the borrowed local paper.  A couple of fellows came in like it was a morning routine, one had beer and one had wine.  It was 9:45 in the morning.  They stayed a while to solved the worlds problems it sounded.   I have no idea because of course we don’t understand French but it was fun to witness!  While we sat, John was able to get us on the next train coming through into Calais!  He has been amazing at getting us where we need to go!   We didn’t want to overstay our welcome so after three cups of espresso for John, we decided to walk their little town and came across an artisan bakery.  Of course we stopped for more bread to go with the chocolate croissant we each had at the first train station.   That all ended well with us on a tiny three car train taking us into the city.  

Our intent in Calais was to walk into town for food and then to the ferry.  It was all a little further than expected plus the temperature was 54 degrees and so windy.  We were not dressed for that!   We finally found food but realized that were running short on time to get to the boat that we absolutely could not miss if we wanted to get across to London for our flight home on Saturday.  There was a sweet lady answering our questions in her broken English and our lack of French.  Our hope at this point was that we could call a cab but needed cash.   We had tried to spend all of our cash so we only had about 12 Euro – probably not enough for a cab.  Walking distance we were, in miles about 1.5.  We inhaled half of our food, paid the bill and started walking.   The cold vanished pretty quickly for us.  We were walking at a faster pace that we probably exercise on a regular basis and carrying our packs.  I must have given the police a desperate look the second time they went by us because they came back around and stopped to see if we were ok.  They were kind enough to give us a little more detail about our path like landmarks to watch for.  One officer was giving the other one English word or two that would guide us for each turn.  We made it with about 15 minutes to spare and got on the ferry!  That’s a process in itself to be foot traffic on a ferry!   We joked that this memory would be right up there with our getting lost on the bike trail in Arizona.

 

The ferry was a really nice ride with snacks and drinks for our journey.  It was a good thing because we needed to get more sustenance after that walk.  We relaxed, stepped out onto the deck occasionally to see the views and relaxed more.  Outside our window a sea gull was drifting along side just moving up and down enjoying his lack of need to flap his wings!  The kids are such troopers on this trip!  We were able to go out on the deck to stand in awe of the White Cliffs of Dover as we approached!  The sea gull were going  The sun actually shone down on them for a short while as we approached.  Upon exiting out boat, a car picked us up within about 10 minutes.  The rail strike in all of England today seemed to be a hamper to us and did cost an unexpected chunk but we were all glad we didn’t have two more trains to navigate and a car carried our bags right to the door of the hotel!  

 John took the kids down for dinner, I opted for a quiet moment in the room alone.  Honestly I was too tired to care about dinner.  Not so much with growing kids – they need to eat all the time!  Haha!