In the traditions of all invasions, today began early at 4:00am. Not bad, except that the girls had a going-away party for us last night, and by the time we finally got packed it was 1:00am. So it was a tired and grumpy Jan and Dennis that rose at 4, got dressed and last-minuted, and got down to meet the cab, with Leanne's help, at 5:00am.
The cab ride to St. Pancras' Station was quick and easy and uneventful at that time of morning. Also, unenlightening as it was black as a pit and we were surprised by Big Ben and the London Eye as they loomed up in the dark and rainy pre-dawn. Impressive, regardless. Dropped off easily by the cabbie at the door of St. Pancras, the train-station brother to the King's Cross tube station. And, in the eerily-deserted gloom inside, we were greeted by a very helpful gentleman who showed us where to go and how to get there, and how to put our self-printed ticket onto the reader at the turnstiles and enter the inner sanctum sanctorum of the terminal to show our passports. Then a coffee and a muffin, and a short wait for the train.
Then the green light to board and up a moving ramp and there is the Eurostar. On we go to coach number two, seats 80 and 81, we stow our heavy bags by the door and take our lighter bags and go to find our seats. We find them, and realize that our 6:20am departure is only about 1/4 full, remaining that way until we leave. Later in the day, at more civilized times, the train is fully booked. Suddenly, on time and after announcements in English, then French, then Dutch, we are off. This train's first stop is Calais, then other places, ending in Brussels (Bruxelles, en Francais). Most of the time, at least half, we are in tunnels before we get to the Chunnel, including two pick-up stops where a few more passengers embark. Then down, down, our ears noting the depth with the change in pressure. We sit, green lights flashing by on either side at well spaced intervals, the passage so very smooth with no sense of the tremendous speed of our travel.
Suddenly, an announcement of our soon arrival in Calais and we are up out of our seats and moving toward the door where our luggage is. Barely time to get it from the rack to the floor of the car before the door opens and Jan exits and I hand the heavy bags down. Jan and I and another couple are the only ones that exit from our car in Calais. I take some final pictures as the train leaves and we are hustled out the platform door by a French train guard that has no sense of humour at this early hour. We walk down the stairs to the main floor, wrestling the bags as we go. No elevator? Apparently not, from the unfriendly stare of the train guard who is clearly modelling his behavior after some Nazi ideal.
Entering the station main floor, Jan spots a fellow at the top of the stairs with a cell phone to his ear and a concerned look on his face, we can imagine his 'where are they, did they make it onto the train?' concern at this point. Jan recognizes him as Mark Kosmas, our contact here. He is to give us the keys to a car here, and he will jump on the next northbound Eurostar bound for a morning meeting he is to attend in London. The car has come from Czechoslovakia, arranged by Jonathan O'Dea for us.
We meet, exchange greetings, and we find him to be totally charming and a very interesting man to speak with. He knows where the elevators are and like the true gentleman he is, Jan's bags are whisked away from her as we move to the elevator and off to Calais' Eurostar parking lot. There he gives us a very quick overview of the car, hands us the keys, slaps us on the back (figuratively) and he is off to the station with his bags to catch the train.
Now Jan and I are really here, in it for real. Why did we do this? What was the plan? Where are we going? Is this really our idea of fun? Europe, in a car we aren't familiar with and an agenda we don't have, going to places we don't know to have experiences that we're not sure of? Whose idea was this? Mine? Mine? - you're kidding me, right? I wanted to do this because I resented being herded off and on the tour busses and having to be back on the ship by 5:30pm in time for dinner? I didn't like that? So now we're here, in the gray dawn, slightly hung over, in a Mercedes SUV that's as big as our Ford Explorer, with Czeck licence plates, and no itinerary? Jan looks over at me with a mildly tolerant look on her face saying, yes, be careful what you ask for because you may just get it. Right, I got it now. With no better idea in mind than since Mark is gone now, (as we've sat in the parking lot long enough for his train to have come and be gone, Mark with it) the only thing left for us to do is try to find our way out of here and start heading west.
So we suction-cup the GPS to the window as a start. Also called a SatNav in Europe, or HAL after our other GPS we used in North America. The name was coined in the movie 2001 - A Space Odyssey. I don't know what the acronym originally meant, but to me it means Half Alien Lifeform because of its androgynous robotic voice that it uses to speak directions to us. We only got it running last night, thanks to Jonathan's help with the download from Garmin. It was shipped to us from Canada, loaded with a North America map set. Why did we do it that way?? Because it was free, we got it on Visa points, you get a lot of them when you book a world cruise with your Visa card. So now we got the thing, but very late now as it should have been here before Christmas. So now I am downloading the Europe map set from the Garmin website, directly onto a 2GB camera card which I have stuck into the Garmin Nuvi unit on the strength of a recomendation from a tech support character that I wouldn't trust to pump my gas, about 8 hours before we leave on the Eurostar. Yes, we live on the edge, but not intentionally. It happens because I don't know any better.
We turn it on (it works!!!) and I try to plug it into the cigarette lighter, as power is an important part of our plan. Mark has warned us that the lighter may not work, and, yikes, he's right, it doesn't work. But we're flexible, and we're out of other choices anyway, so we'll see how far we can get on the internal battery power. After that runs out we're blind, as the maps we have are not in English anyway and besides they are at the continent-detail level. But what the hell, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow, and any plan is a good plan right now.
Guided by Hal's annoying voice, we exit the parking lot. We have decided, in the interest of prudence, to take the back roads until we feel comfortable with the car. So down the back roads we go, through some of the prettiest countryside we have ever seen on our travels. Like rural Canada, except that the villages are so old, the roads so narrow and winding, absolutely nothing straight, ever. We press on, eventually tiring of the backroads, ready to confront the main motorways. Everything good and uneventful, working well, we have decided our eventual target for the night is Rouen of Joan-of-Arc fame. We get there almost, the cathedral is in sight in the gloom ahead, when Hal loses his mind and starts gibbering directions at us that are clearly meaningless and putting our little car icon off to the left in the middle of a field. In this confusion the exit to Rouen city center comes and goes, while Jan and I miss it. Screw it, we say philosophically, we don't want to see another cathedral anyway, and ahead we see a hotel sign. We heed the message and pull in. We are the only car in the parking lot (and remain so until the next morning) which is faintly reminiscent of The Bates Hotel fame, but we're tired so we stay.
We had a quiet dinner in the hotel restaurant, accompanied by a fast-talking Brit and a fellow along the back wall, the unfortunate victim of a stroke, who would break out in unintelligible yapping sounds from time to time, then grunt and snuffle to himself, then go back to drinking his beer. Really, England and London were lovely places, and the girls were so nice to visit, and Jonathan and David were a lot of fun ..... What are we doing here???
Going to bed, that's what. Goodnight, at last.
