Nothing (much) To Report

Righty…I suppose I should pick up where Whale left off I suppose.

But yeah, Brugge was so smashing. Chocolate shops as far as the eye can see, and lovely cobbled streets. And it just had this lovely smell - everywhere you went. I think the people of Brugge just smell nice or something.

So yeah, our limited time in Brugge was up. Much as we wanted to stay and sip Belgian beer - we had a ferry to catch!

Although there isn’t much traffic in Brugge itself there were very little signs to tell you where the hell to go. We were being jiggled all over the place on these lovely cobbles as we found ourselves actually driving towards the town centre. Gaaaah! We got to see quite a bit more of Brugge as we wound our way out (by following other cars that looked like they knew where they were going). We got stuck in traffic because there was a car accident on the main road heading away from Brugge towards the highway. We had Flemish radio on, and it probably told us all about the car crash…if we could only understand what they were saying. I, however was busy being impressed that my car stereo was telling me what song they were playing! Easy amused.

By now, time was ticking and all we could think about was getting our fill of Begian beer somewhere…but could we find a bloody supermarket? Not a chance! Belgium must have hid all it’s supermarkets that day. Not to worry, we thought - if I put my foot down, we’ve got time to nip into the Carrefoure at Calais. So thats what we do…we zip back along that big road between Belgium and France, childishly laughing at the town names on the way (they were funny though) and we left behind the beauty of Belgium and found ourselves back in the grimness that is: Northern France. I was actually hoping for some better “ta-da”ness when you move between Belgium and France…but it’s just one sign. Blink and you’ve missed it. I guess Europe really does have open borders.

Our trip was somewhat spolit on the way back, and to our surprise - the mellow Belgians actually turn into mad idiots on the road. I *assumed* that you couldn’t overtake on the right, so when I encountered someone going slower than I wanted them to, I just tootled along behind them hoping they’d pull over at some point. Aha, what I find to be the Belgian way of dealing with this is: tailgate *me* really dangerously for a good long while, pull into the right hand lane, pull back out into the gap between me and the slow guy in front, brake, then pull back into the right hand lane to undertake the slow guy. Well - I know what to do next time I’m there

We pass back along the road we had wizzed along earlier (past the signs for Dunkerque…me slinking in my seat for wasting so much time there on the way) and we’re soon back in Calais. Time is very much ticking. We (read I) missed the turning for Carrefoure….and we then realise we’re on one long straight road that only leads to the ferry! Gaaaah! We’ve missed the last chance to fill our car up to the brim with beer! We go through passport control, because we have to there’s nowhere else to go…and I notice a sneaky road to the right which would take us back to Carrefoure. I’m very much up for it…Whale looks at her watch, looks at me, looks at how much potential trouble we could be in, wheelspinning out past passport control…and says nah, we’d better not. And for a moment, I was tempted, but even I had to admit that it would be cutting it very fine. So we opted for the sensible option and quietly got in the queue for the ferry. Overexcited at this point, I have to get out, smoke a fag and go take a closer look at the ferry itself. I casually wander past all the port officals with my camera and actually manage to get pretty damn close to the ferry. Bonus! I then see them starting to load the cars onto the ferry and decide that it might be a good time to go back to the car at this point…which I do.

Driving onto the ferry this time was much easier than in the morning…the French guys doing all the pointing had totally fucked up and we actually had to reverse off the boat to try again, not much fun I can tell you! Anway, I figured out where the grumpy looking French men want me to park and we jump out of the car, eager to get a good seat in the bar.

We then proceed to spend a good 15 minutes doing what can only be descibed as faffing and sit down with a nice beer. I then realise I want to buy some “duty free” (my arse) and head off to the shop, which is again, flooded with about 3 coach loads of 11 year olds without the enough euros left to buy anything and completely incapable of speaking French to the staff on the boat. Now, I always like to at least *try* and speak the lingo on holiday. I didn’t have much success in not getting any ham in my omlette, but they could see that we were making the effort! In fact, I didnt hear one English person attempt to speak French on the boat to the staff…which was odd, becuase the staff only ever seemed to speak French with only a few words, begrudgingly spoken in English. Even though we really wanted something to eat on the boat (which is great for me, as I’m usually sick as a dog on a ferry - thank you Travella tablets!) there was not one thing that wasn’t ham or just plain shit….or have a queue of 50 english school children in. So our best option was to stay in the bar and eat when we got back to Blighty.

But first we had to make it back in the country…. Got back to the car, lovely lovely. Drove off the ferry - all good. Drove through an archway with lots of cameras on…ok, must be normal. Got through H M Customs (or so we thought) and had a little woo yay, becuase I’d never managed to get through a ferry terminal without being “probed”. It was then, our woo yay was proved to be premature. There was *another* line of H M Customs officals to get through. Now, Whale says it was my nervous humming that got us pulled over, but I have the feeling that they’re just out to get me. Nobody else from our ferry was pulled over, and we saw estate cars with boxes and boxes of wine stuffed into their boots so much so that the exhust was dragging - but no! They wern’t stopped. Just us. I’ve been stopped quite a few times at airports too, once noticably just before getting on a plane bound for Moscow by 2 strange men in very “normal” suits. Hmmmm.

Anway - the H M Customs guy suddeny yells “stop” at me and comes to ask some questions: “How long have you been out of the country” and “Where have you been”. Answering these seemed to get his suspisions aroused even further, because we were then directed into the (now familiar) side room for probing. Doors closed around us as 2 officals came to search the car and take our passports off us and quite frankly, asking some very nosy questions! I should probaly point out that I do have some quite unusual stamps in my passport due to my naughtiness in Russia (thats for another post) so it must have kept them amused for a little while. Not too much later, and perhaps a little disappointingly they let us go on our way.

My head was spinning so much after this that I ended up in a little car park on Dover docks instead of the main road…but I’m now seriously thinking that they have my card marked! The rest of the evening, passed without as much excitement, particularly as we chose Folkestone as the place to dine. Never have I seen a deader town with so many bouncers! We found the ONE place in town that was serving food and plonked ourselves there to enjoy microwaved bounty. Not being able to take anymore excitment, we skipped desert and went to dip our feet in the English Channel to round the day off. It was *very* refreshing.

I then just had the 3 hour drive back to Gloucester ahead of me. There were many times I had to have the window open and to slap myself in the face as the hypnotic effect of the motorway was taking it’s toll on me. Finallly I pulled up outside Whale’s house and unloaded her chocolate from the boot and tootled my way back to Stroud. There were a number of suicidal bunnies on the way back through the lanes, which did nothing for my jangled nerves as I had to jump on the brakes to avoid them. I think I got home almost 24 hours after I’d left and was so buzzed up when I got home that I couldnt sleep for ages…but when I did it was fantastic deep, chocolate enduced sleep.

The end.

-Moosh