Beer, Big Ben and good company. What more do you want?

Hi folks. I’ve been back since Sunday but didn’t had any time yet to tell you a bit more about the trip, until now.

First, there where some problems with the blog, as I expected. Posting small updates on my mobile phone didn’t work at all. Something to work on in the future.

Tuesday, 31th of March

We met in Brussels, me and Ivelina (a girl from Bulgaria who studies in Germany who I met in Brussels last year on my way to the European Hitchhike Meeting in Paris…). We where both late, because her bus had a 2 hour delay, and I missed my train. We had a beer while discussing where we could go to on our trip as we didn’t had any plans at all. Stonehenge came out as a possible destination, but Liverpool sounded nice too. We had until Sunday night to be back again to go to work on Monday.

We took the train in direction of ‘De Panne’ around 4pm, which is a Belgian city closest to Calais. On that train, we met a lovely guy: I needed to take a pee, but there was already somebody in. So I knocked on the door and I heard the guy inside yelling and cursing. I thought: “Shit, that guy is stuck in there”. So I tried to open the door but that didn’t work. Meanwhile the yelling and cursing continued… After a couple of minutes waiting the guy came out, drunk, with a beer in one hand and blood on the other. He asked me on a not so friendly tone:

He kept yelling at us for the whole ride on the train. He even got off at our stop in “Kortrijk” because he wanted to file charges against me. I said:

…never saw the guy again

We had to wait a half an hour to our next train to “De Panne”, so we grabbed something to drink out of my bag.

We got to the entry of the highway from “De Panne” to “Calais” around 8.00pm, which was a bit too late because there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and didn’t know if there still would be a ferry to take us to England that night. So to be safe, we went back to “Kortrijk” with the last train, went to my old student bar, got drunk and stayed for night at Sybren his dorm

Wednesday, 1st of April

We got to “Duinkerke”, in between “De Panne” and “Calais”, but hitchhiking didn’t went very well. Probably because there are a lot of people trying to get in to England without the right documents. If they catch you, the driver has to pay a 2500 Euro fine per illegal passenger. We stood there for over 2 hours, without any luck. We had to do something to pass the time:

We wanted to be in England by the end of the day, so we took the train to “Calais”, arrived there around 8.00pm and had a cup of coffee wandering if there still would be a ferry. An old guy, grey hair, big glasses and looked like he could be a wise mermaid, overheard our conversation and said the last ferry for foot-passengers is at 9.00pm. We took our stuff and went to the harbour. The wise mermaid was right. The last one for us was at 9.00pm, but it would cost us 20 Euro each. That was too expensive and took the risk of trying to hitchhike a ride on the ferry (the last ferry’s for cars are around midnight I think).

Drivers buy a ticket for the car (around 130 Euro), and not for the amount of passengers. So the only thing you have to do, is wait at the ticket office and convince people to take us on the ferry in their car. But most people have already bought a ticket in advance, so there isn’t much traffic at the shop.

We got a ride from a Romanian guy in a van around 9.45pm. He even brought us to Heathrow, London, where we spent the night in a hotel because it was already too late to find something else.

Thursday, 2nd of April

Bought an all-day ticket for the subway and bus in the airport, and went to the centre of London. The weather was nice, so had a picnic in Hyde Park, where we sat on our ass for most of the day. We made it to London!

By the end of the afternoon, we where still in the park but decided to do some touristic stuff. But what do tourists do? We thought they would visit Big Ben, so we wanted to do the same. On our way as a tourist, we came across some street artists. And if you wear a green sweater, you stand out from the crowd… That’s when I did my first show in London.

We saw Big Ben in the evening, nice building (but preferred to watch the guy playing guitar in the subway), and sat a bit more along the river Thames.

Around 8.00pm, we went on Couchsurfing because we didn’t had a place to sleep yet. Very soon afterwards, we got some positive messages. Sylvia, a girl from Slovakia, replied to us first and we where happy we could spent the night at her place in Streatham, south of Brixton.

Friday, 3th of April

The next day, we went to Camden Town with the subway (also known as “Tube”).
I you are into Metal, Punk or Gothic, Camden is your place! Great atmosphere with lots of specific shops and bars. Although we only saw 50 meters of Camden Town, because we sat on our ass in the sun again for most of the time. Ah, this is life! :D

In the evening, we went to Bart and Ilona their place in South Woodford. A young couple, both Polish, who has been living in London for some time now. We chatted about Asia, sailing, diving, food, beer… Was interesting to hear.

Saturday, 4th of April

Guess what we did for most part of the afternoon? Had a picnic in the park in South Woodfort of course! Weather was nice and we were still on lazy-Sunday-mode. Later, we joined Bart, Ilona, their baby daughter Maria and a friend of them, Marcin, for a real traditional English dish: Indian Tikka Masala! We washed it away with a nice Guinness in the pub where we saw the last 3 minutes of some football game (not really my cup of tea but Ivelina likes it :p ).

We bought some beers and went back home where we drank and chatted a bit more. Was a nice, and also our last, evening in England.

Sunday, 5th of April

We needed to be back home the same day, but I was wondering why Ivelina wasn’t really in a hurry. That’s when she told me she still had the whole week off from school, so it didn’t matter for her if she wasn’t back on Monday.

Bart knew a good spot for us to hitchhike our way back to Dover, where we could take the ferry. He drove us all the way up there (thanks a lot man) and made our signs.

We got a ride to Dover after 2 hours (hitching out of a big city is always the most difficult part). The waiting time at Dover took a bit longer because most of the people bought their ticket in advance.

We got a ride from the first person we talked to, a guy from Slovakia who has been working in England for the last four years, but got fed up with it and was on his way home again. He changed his ticket for two more passengers at the desk and 5 hours later we where dropped off by the same guy in front of my door in Belgium!

And that is pretty much it, 6 great days that went by too quickly! Thanks to everyone who helped us out and especially to Ivelina for spending her free time with me :p

Cheers!
Jelle