As a red-blooded English woman the lure of the continent is strong. The food, fashion and people all speak of a mystery that the English seem to have lost. So, when I was approached to go on a trip to France and Belgium I was more than excited. I had visions of gorgeous scenery whizzing past the windows of the coach, ah yes, the coach. This was not an ordinary trip you see, but a coach trip through the countryside, or so I thought. Needless to say my naiveté and romantic view didn’t just stretch to the coach trip (“you can look out the windows the whole way!”) but to France itself, believing we would walk into tiny antique shops with bargains on every shelf, instead of the mega mart that awaited me.
So, on the morning of the departure my companions and I got up at the crack of dawn to catch the coach. I’m sure many people wouldn’t have needed to get up that early but I am the farthest thing from a “wash and go” girl and turn makeup application and hair styling into a military operation. So, we arrive at the service station and get a cup of the worst coffee known to man. The coach finally arrives and I realize that those strange tattooed and pierced people (one of whom has pink, purple and red hair) are of course going on our coach. Fair enough, I thought, lets not judge. So upon sitting on the coach, crammed into the back row window we set off on our journey, me still bubbling with excitement. After ten minutes on the road the crackling speaker overhead sounds and the driver informs us that the air conditioning has failed. No problem though he assures us, he’ll fix it when we next stop. I wasn’t worried; after all it wasn’t going to be that hot today anyway, right?
So we get to Dover and have to wait to board the ferry. The coach empties as the smokers get off for a quick fag and the driver disappears for a few minutes. On his return he reports that he’s looked at all the fuses pertaining to the air-conditioning and everything looks fine. He does, however, say that the fuses and instructions are in Spanish and so he was guessing. At this point I’m still not worried; after all it’s a beautiful but cool day with a lovely breeze, nothing to worry about. We board the ferry, get a coffee and take the routine pictures of the White Cliffs of Dover and Dover castle.
So we get to Dover and have to wait to board the ferry. The coach empties as the smokers get off for a quick fag and the driver disappears for a few minutes. On his return he reports that he’s looked at all the fuses pertaining to the air-conditioning and everything looks fine. He does, however, say that the fuses and instructions are in Spanish and so he was guessing. At this point I’m still not worried; after all it’s a beautiful but cool day with a lovely breeze, nothing to worry about. We board the ferry, get a coffee and take the routine pictures of the White Cliffs of Dover and Dover castle.
In fact, everything’s fine until we reach out destination of Dunkirk, the armpit of France. We pull into a car park and I look around for any redeeming quality. It’s just a mass of pavement, but then I see the shops, OK that should be fine. We get an hour and ten minutes to look around before needing to be on the coach. My companions and I walk across the enormous car park, get two trolleys (why two? I think at the time) and make our way to the entrance. My expectations of small antique jewelry shops and book shops (ha ha wouldn’t it be funny to see Harry Potter in French) are dashed when we walk through the sliding doors and into the most bog standard shopping center in the world. It could have been located anywhere, Cornwall, California, Kazakhstan! Everything was so nondescript down to the formerly white (now an odd yellow/beige color) linoleum floor tiles. We walk through the little path leading to the rest of the shops and I see what looks like a cross between a Tescos and a Wal-Mart. It’s just a bloody grocery store! French people are tooing and frowing looking for food for their dinner.
We go through the cheese, fish and meat department, getting shoved out the way by tight t-shirt wearing men looking beadily for a bargain. One of my companion spots the wine and with a gleaming eye heads strait towards it, pulling boxes off the shelf as though Christmas had come early. Companion number 2 suggests we look around. OK, I think, there might be something uniquely French ever here. Oh how wrong one can be. The clothes looked like they had just come off the boat from some sweat shop in Asia, the t-shirts and shoes looked like they would fall apart if you touched them…no clothes then.
We move on the “bargain bins” which companion number 2 says have some cute things, and she’s right. If I ever wanted a scrubbing brush in the shape of a dolphin, now I know where to get it. I could also have had an eggcup with a perturbed face on it, a thermometer in the shape of as cow or various shapes and sized wooded bowls, which were, though admittedly pretty, utterly useless. Once my companions had gotten what they wanted which included 11 boxes of various wines, two enormous jars of jam, men’s socks (apparently we English don’t make socks like they do in France), two bars of dark chocolate and some pretty paper napkins, we head to the checkout where the girl only speaks French and my companions (bless them) only have a limited grasp of the language and often resort to pleading “je suis Anglais” when they don’t understand the barrage of French that is coming at them.
Once paid for we decide food would be a good idea. My companion’s dream of showing me a “nice meal” in France hangs on a knife-edge and as we approach the fast food restaurant and look at the baguettes (which really did look quite good) I decide to take my companions advice and wait until Belgium. We go and wait in the hot sun for ten minutes until making our way back to the coach. The air conditioning still hasn’t been fixed and the sun starts to get hot, but not uncomfortable.
After another half an hour on the coach we arrive in the pretty little village of Verne and are told we have one whole hour to look around (should be enough time, right?). Lovely little building line the streets with medieval architecture, enormous churches and a café lined square. At this point my stomach in rumbling so much that we head strait for a restaurant. There are many to choose from but half seem to be closed. We reach a place that has outdoor seating and seems busy, so we go inside.
Upon sitting down we realize that the entire menu is in Flemish, a language none of us speak or understand. The waitress finally comes and asks us what we would like. My companions spout off “je Suis Anglais” even though the woman clearly isn’t speaking French or encouraging us to do so. Companion number 2 tells me that they can speak it, they just don’t like to. Because of this it seems, she continues to speak French for the rest of the meal. We have arrived too late for lunch and too early for dinner (we are informed) and so have a very limited choice on the menu. We can have sandwiches, omelets, or lasagna.
Now it seemed absurd for me to order an Italian dish in Belgium and so I had a croque monsieur. I had no idea what this was but was told it was a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. Now, in my head, I was thinking along the Pannini line of Italian sandwiches and expected odd bits and pieces in it. But what I got was literally a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, no fancy bread, sauces or sides accompanied it, but hey, it looked good. I dived on the sandwich, it being the only food I had seen since leaving the house eight hours ago. Needless to say as I inhaled the sandwich that I got indigestion and couldn’t finish it. Oh well, we paid, left, and walked around the square just outside the café. The buildings were lovely, with carvings on them and lovely barrels of flowers outside. We walked the square in about five minutes, walked down a side street that consisted of three hair salons, no antique shops and a library. We got to where we had to meet the coach with ten minutes to wait and no where else we could go and still hope to get back on time. So we spent a total of 45 minutes in Verne.
We got on the coach when it arrived and had been turned in our absence into a sauna. Cigarette boxes were spilling into the isles as those who didn’t go to Verne went to a tobacco outlet instead. We started our way home again, through the lovely continental countryside until we got to the dock, went through all the passport stuff and finally got on the boat. My companions and I had decided earlier to get dinner on the boat. We waited a while before going to the cafeteria and upon walking in a soon realized that the food would leave much to be desired.
Companion number one dove for a steak and kidney pie (something he’s never allowed to eat at home) with potato and beans, companion number two decided to go to the salad bar and returned with a plate that had about three pieces of lettuce, two little tomatoes, two strips of overcooked chicken and some coleslaw. I wandered around aimlessly for a while, trying to figure out which food was less likely to poison me. I decided to choose fishcakes, which looked the most inoffensive of the food.
I waited for a server while my companions paced and dithered and the lowly server was spooning out chips to loud teenagers. Companion number one goes to poor, overworked nineteen year old and gruffly barks at him to serve me. He gazes at me with narrow eyes and I instantly wish the floor to swallow me. It doesn’t. I eventually loose my rag with companions, order them to sort themselves out while I follow. When harassed kid shows up with a spoon to give me my veggies I try to apologize as much as possible but don’t really get a response. Upon paying we sit down and I look at my supposedly good meal. My plate is covered with a pile of dried, manky carrots and potatoes. I look down at my fishcakes and notice a hair…yum! So companion number 2 takes fishcakes back and gets new ones. In the mean time I try a carrot…cold and a potato…manky. Fish cakes finally arrive and I dive on them again, drowning out all possible bad taste with gallons of barbecue sauce. By the time I get to my strawberry mini milk ice cream it had all but melted. I eat it anyway.
We get back on the coach soon after and make out way back home. The sun in constantly in my eye no matter what direction we seem to be heading. Sweat begins to bead on my upper lip as my all black ensemble absorbs as much heat as the Sahara in July and I no longer had any water to drink. Trip seems to be taking hours and not even the beauty of the British countryside can make me enjoy the time more or wish to get off the bloody coach any less. Road signs point to danger ahead as there is a hold up on the M2, driver makes executive decision and changes routes, we head towards Gravesend.
We try and make our way through Gravesend, crawling with all the other traffic that thought it was a good idea to get off the motorway and looking at some of the most beautiful Georgian and Victorian houses that have been left to rot. Graffiti all over the place and houses, shops, buildings up for sale in every direction. Start to feel really rather depressed and maybe understand why they brought the bubonic plague bodies here.
By this point we’re still stuck in traffic in Gravesend. We’ve been stationary for about an hour with no air conditioning, the sun shining in my eyes and melting my clothes to me, we also had forfeited our breeze (made through the open windows at the front and a propped up fire escape on the roof. Finally get on M25, through Dartford tunnel and back to coach place only to realize that companions and I need to get all 11 boxes of wine out of the coach and into the car. They start going too and from the coach, carrying on box at a time while leaving me to “guard the bags”. Ten minutes later they are still doing it and tell me to go sit in the car. I head to the car, put some bags in the boot and realize only the boot has been unlocked. After twenty minutes we’re still there, now moving the wine from the side of the coach to the car with a trolley that carries (get ready for this) two cases. I eventually start to loose my rag as am tired, sweaty and now that the suns going down, cold. Go and grab a few boxes, shove them in the car and crawl into the back seat.
Have to now try and convince companions that I had a wonderful time but don’t get chance as they both have the sense of direction of a flea and I need to show them where to go. My pointing from the back can’t be seen by the driver and is misinterpreted by companion’s number 2, causing me to yell loudly that they need to turn here. Can’t understand how they can’t manage to find their way back when were only just here. By now feeling guilty about outbursts and the fact that I had such a crap time and try to save face, thanking them excessively for my “fun day” and that I can’t wait to see it again. Once home and safe collapse and tell grandparents of awful day, eat a giant bowel of cereal and laugh. A lot.
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