Le Touquet & Calais, France and Dover, UK May 3rd-5th 2008

Erin entered her late 20s this year on April 16th. Now that I've published that, I'm not sure that's information a man is supposed to share about his wife to the general public, but there you have it. She also weighed herself this morning and the scale read ...... haha. I know my limits.

Anyway, we saved the money we had set aside for birthday cake, party hats, and the balloon-animal-blowing clown and put it toward a trip to France; partly because a 2-person birthday party is just sad and partly because clowns scare the crap out of both of us...damn you Steven King!!!

On Saturday morning, we picked up our rented, steering-wheel-on-the-right, stick-shift-on-the-left, red Renault Clio from the Avis on Old Brompton Road and made a B-line for the M-20 toward Folkstone. Except in London, a B-line is better described as an endless sequence of Ss (esses?), each linked by a series of roundabouts...and of course the streets aren't marked with signs. I immediately sympathized with Chuck Abbey, who had driven us all over Ireland battling similar circumstances last summer. Except I was navigating these narrow streets in a car the size of a golf cart while he did the same in a Ford Transit, which is shaped like, but only slightly smaller than, a mobile home. Props to Chuck.

Erin did not know the details of our trip before we left. In fact, one of the few hints I offered her was that we would be taking a train to our destination (not a lie, as you will see). Since we were lost within, oh, 10 minutes, plus or minus 570 seconds after departing the Avis parking lot, I decided to concede the surprise factor in favor of actually reaching our destination. I handed Erin some maps and told her the direction we would be heading.

We finally reached the M-20 after about 2 hours of touring shady parts of London. After another hour on the highway, we finally arrived at the EuroTunnel train station near Folkstone that would take us and Clio under the English Channel to France. Needless to say, we missed our train. No worries, the next one departed within an hour.

All the cars climb aboard the train

The train process was pretty remarkable I must say. They must fit about 250 cars, trucks, and tour buses on each train. 35 sweaty and claustrophobic minutes later, we arrived in Calais. Amazing. "Please stay on the right side of the road," the recorded voice reminded us as we pulled out of the train.

If London's sign-free streets proved challenging for us, the French side wasn't much easier. Whichever American civil engineer decided to do away with roundabouts, I salute you. I don't know that you needed to leave the metric system behind as well, but if I had to choose, I'll take the Imperial measurement system with NO roundabouts 8 days a week. But I digress...



Erin in the Cleo in the Chunnel Train



I think our guide-book said it best. "If for some reason, you actually decide to stay in Calais..." I suppose I should have known better. Staying in Calais when you arrive in France is like flying into JFK airport, but rather than heading into Manhattan you stay at the La Quinta Airport Express in Rockaway, Queens.

Oh well, lesson learned. We dropped our bags at the Holiday Inn Calais (better than the La Quinta? the jury is out) and headed for the beach. First we stopped at a touristy cafe for a glass of wine (for me) and a Coke Light (for Erin) and half of a Chevre panini each. Saturday was supposed to be our only sunny day of the weekend, so we made the most of it with a two hour beach stroll. It was a little too hazy to see England in the distance (21 miles), but it was still a beautiful day. There were a few old (what I can only assume to be) German-built cement bunkers perched hastily on the dunes over-looking the Channel. Each was the size of a bungalow. It is impossible to imagine what the scene must have looked like in June 1944 for the boys and men on both sides of the beach. Calais wasn't the exact location of the D-day invasion, but it's not far from where it actually took place. And zee Germanz obviously didn't know where the Allies would attack so they scattered their bunkers all along the French coast.

Calais

We could have been on a beach anywhere. We both felt it looked a little like Cannon Beach in Oregon. People in clam-diggers digging clams. Dads teaching their kids how to fly kites. Cold water. We shared a chocolate and coffee ice-cream on the way off the beach and made our way into town. After a short tour, we settled on Cafe de Paris for dinner. It had a hoakie Eiffel Tour logo on the front window so how could we go wrong? I can't remember exactly what we ordered, but whatever Erin had definitely had more chevre.

On Sunday morning we woke up about 10 (now that's vacation), picked up a few croissants from the patisserie and started driving south toward Le Touquet. The town was recommended by a friend from work as the place where Parisians go for their beach holidays. If there's one thing the French do well, it's vacationing. I figured I should trust the experts, and they did not disappoint. Le Touquet ("The Toucan") is made up of a ton of tree-lined streets with small "country homes" leading into four or five blocks of cafes and shops, and then a long sandy beach. After checking into Mercure Grand Hotel, we grabbed a quick bite at the Belgian "Cafe Leffe" on the main Rue Saint Jean, then made our way to the beach for a wine-induced nap. I think we laid there for 3 hours just reading and sleeping. We would make good French people.

We walked around town for a while, then found some tennis courts. Two gruelling hours of bush-league tennis later, we were both dragging. At one point I tried a Raphael Nadal-style slide on the clay court: bad move - strained my hamstring. I'm an idiot. Luckily, I had learned a good cure for hamstring strains...more wine. Dinner was at Le Taverne Royale. I had talked a big game about staying out to take in the local nightlife, but alas, we were in bed by 12.

We awoke for another round of tennis on Monday. (Side note: Monday was a "Bank Holiday" in the UK. On "The Continent," they had celebrated May Day on the 1st of May, but I'm not sure why we had Monday off work. They don't feel the need to assign meaning to all national holidays like in the US, I guess.) We spent some more time on the beach, bought a baguette, some strawberries, and yes, more Chevre. I wonder how many goats were needed to provide all the milk required to make the cheese we ate during our 3-day visit. 2? 3? 10?

Thank you goats.

On our way back to the EuroTunnel, we stopped at the Carrafour in Calais to make the most of our trip across the Channel. This particular Carrafour is a Mecca of supermarkets. It's Costco, Super Wal Mart, and Total Wine & More all in one. It was quite a treat for us, as we are car-less in London, resigned to shopping in our local, narrow-aisled Tesco Expresses for our groceries. We (I) loaded up on enough French wine and Belgian beer to get us through the next few months, hopefully the French customs agents wouldn't search our trunk on account of the rear half of the Clio sagging 14 inches below the front. "Lower than a frog's ass," as Urbs would say. Ha - Frogs...get it?

We missed our train on the way back to England too. Not because we arrived to late, mind you. We arrived the recommended 30 minutes early. It was the endless lines of cars heading through customs. It was like Disneyland or Empire State Building lines, but with cars. We identified the culprits when it was finally our turn to drive through the French immigration station...we had arrived right in the middle of cigarette break time. They would take your passports, walk slowly away, smoke a cigarette, walk slowly back to your car, hand you your passports, then waive you through. Not very efficient. Though they were well-dressed.

White Cliffs of Dover

Pointing out my relay team's plaque.

When we arrived back in England, we took a detour to Dover, the departure beach town for Channel crossing swimmers. We went back to visit Dave and Evelyn, who hosted Werner, Hops, Jordan, Steve, Denis, and me at their trailer park when we completed our Channel swim in 2004. They remembered us vividly...not for crossing successfully, but because we were the most disorganized group they had ever hosted; we arrived in drips and drabs, Steve lost his passport, we only did one short practice swim because the water was so cold, we tried to fatten up at the local pubs to combat the cold water. I can't blame them for doubting us. I've attached some pictures from that trips as well.

Now THAT'S fish 'n chips

The weather was still great so Erin and I were able to make out the French coast from Dover. We did a quick drive through the city, then sat down for a dinner of fish and chips (soooo good in Dover) before making the final drive back to London.

I think it turned out to be a pretty good birthday present, but you'll have to ask Erin.

Pictures from the trip:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.9pp3b6uj&x=0&y=-xkwv4e&localeid=en_US

Pictures from our 2004 Channel crossing swim: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=hj0zhyv.39wp04fz&x=0&y=63277o&localeid=en_US