Nothing.

After the Road Trip, it was glorious to just sit back and do fuck all. We'd been at this whole tourism thing for 3 weeks straight, and it was time to slow down. I spent an alarming amount of time on Ebay, buying cheap games and DVD's. These items were so much cheaper than at home, it seemed silly not to bid.

We did venture out to the Temple Church, which was built by the Templar Knights in 1185, and is still in amazing condition. Whilst not very big, it's a humbling experience to stand where once knights in full armour had pledged their allegiance to the Order and taken their vows.
We then dined at a nice pub around the corner where I finally had some English fish & chips. For a country that used to be gastronomically defined by it's amount of fish & chips shops, there are now very few. In fact, since Britain became more health conscious 15 years ago, they've slowly phased out the majority of junk food places until all that's left is shitty Souvlaki places, McDonalds and Burger King.
So I had fish and chips. And it was passable. The fish was covered with so much batter that I tore the majority of it off just to taste fish. The chips were so-so, but the mushy peas that came with it were an interesting addition to the whole deal.

We do it much better in Australia.

After a week of this laziness, we rose early on a Friday morning to catch a train to Edinburgh. Not everything went as planned, of course. We had to be there at 10:00 AM, so of course I thought if I got up at 8:45, I'd have ample time to shower and have a shit, because that's what you do. Julie would of course done all this at least 4 hours earlier, as she is female and therefore organised.
So one of our housemates, Weijer The Guy From Holland, got up just before me and had a shower. For 2 hours. Well maybe not that long, but it felt like it. And he could, you know, because it's his house and he pays a third of the rent and I'm a fucking annoying tourist taking up his loungeroom.

So we headed off. Late. This was not good, especially not for Julie. She is organised. This was bad. I think she was wishing that I'd get hit by a car or something. Then, halfway to the station, I asked the worst possible question.

'Darling, do you have the camera?'

Whoops. Julie burst into tears, I felt like a dick, and things were going downhill. I sent her onwards, saying 'I'll meet you there'.
I ran back to the apartment, up the stairs, and looked for the camera. Not seeing it, I took off the massive backpack and of course it was in the fucking front pocket. Jesus.
So I ran all the way to the other station which is one stop ahead of the one Julie went to, and boarded the train. I then got off at the next stop as I realised that while I had told Julie I'd 'meet her there', I didn't specify where 'there' was. It could have been the normal station, Hammersmith, or King's Cross.
At this point, I had about 25 minutes to make it back to Hammersmith to look for Julie, and then get to Kings Cross to catch the train. This would take at least 35 minutes. I was at a loss.
Fuck it, I thought. I'll pay another four hundred dollars for tickets if we miss the train. Back to Hammersmith I went. Of course, Julie wasn't there. I caught a train to Kings Cross. There she was. We missed the train. She smacked me in the balls with a tyre iron.

'Ha ha!' said British Rail. 'Fooled you! You thought your tickets were for the one trip only! You can actually use them for any train to Scotland, it's just that your seats aren't reserved!'
I removed my testicles from my throat, and Julie and I had a laugh. Well, she laughed, and I massaged my balls. We boarded the train.

Scotland!

Edinburgh appeared, and I was smitten. The town centre was built around a large valley, which I found out was actually a loch until they drained it and built parklands at the bottom of it. Apparently they also found hundreds of female skeletons at the bottom, from the Witch Hunter periods. Throw the suspected witch into the loch, and if she floats, she's a witch, because Satan helps witches float or some fucking stupid idea. If she drowns, then she wasn't a witch, but at least her soul was saved by God. These people were exceptional, no?

Anyway, the whole town is dominated by the Castle. It juts majestically from the rock and soars skyward, and when you are looking anywhere else, your view is slowly but inexorably drawn back to it's grand stature.
We would wait another day to explore it, and instead boarded a bus to get to our Hotel. The Dakota, as it was called, was fucking miles out, very close to the Forth Rail Bridge, a railway bridge that spans the Firth Of Forth. It was situated in a horrible Retail park that included a Burger King, a massive Tesco supermarket, and a Tesco Petrol Station.
Thank Jesus, then, that it was absolutely lush inside, staffed by 18-21 year old hot Scottish ladies. The room was stunning, decorated in shades of brown and red, with lots of mirrors to make us feel self-conscious.
We had dinner at the only restaurant in the retail park, a chain called Frankie & Bennies, which served 'traditional, home-cooked Italian food!' I could tell it was traditional, because they had stock photos of Italian-American people from New York in the 50's gracing the walls.
The food was okay, in that chain-restaurant style of eating. I had a Calzone, which I promptly forgot the taste of because the beer tasted better.

The next day we rose early and headed back into Edinburgh to board our Tour Bus. This was the 'Highland' tour, and we started off by heading out into the country, passing by Stirling Castle, and the William Wallace monument. The first proper stop was the reason I'd come to Scotland.
Doune Castle was the main castle used in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, the one where John Cleese insults the rest of the crew from the parapet. The tour didn't cover the entry price, and Julie wasn't keen on going in, but I had to.
It was worth every second. Everytime I see that move now, I can say 'I've been there!' It was so totally fucking awesome, I think I weed myself.

From there we headed to a small village called 'The Only Reason This Village Is Famous Is Because Of A Hairy Cow'. The hairy cow was called Hamish, and he rocked. He's like a dog, but he's a cow. And he has a fringe. Which a dog doesn't have. He also had horns. Most cows don't have them. Neither do most dogs, actually. Unless they're dog-cows.

Anyway, I fed Hamish, and the tour moved on. We saw a 5,000 year old tree, which was strangley humbling, and the tour culminated in a mini-tour of a whiskey distillery. It was very interesting, but ultimately pointless, as they didn't ply us with endless Whiskey until I forgot my name and stumbled into the nearby river. Which would have been awesome.

We returned to the Hotel, and as restaurants were pretty thin, I abandoned my high ideals and ate fucking Burger King. This food is such a tribute to excess and grease, I seriously asked Julie how to eat it and breathe at the same time. Every bite of burger I took, I had to pause mid-chew to actually draw breath. The fries weren't particularly impressive either, and I retired that night with some severe misgivings about the people who eat this shit on a regular basis and claim they enjoy it.

Heading back into Edinburgh the next day, we approached the Castle from a roundabout way, and paid the frankly exorbitant fee for entry. I understand that historic sites need to pay for their upkeep, but if Edinburgh Castle charges 12 pound per adult, then they're making fucking THOUSANDS of pounds a day. I mean thousands and thousands. It's extortion if you ask me.

But! I'm glad we paid, as it is truly a spectacular place. The views from the top of the castle are awe-inducing. I actually had a boner, but I managed to hide it pretty well, using a complex method involving a Castle Map and some spare gum I found at the bottom of my backpack.

I'd try and explain the whole experience, but I just don't have the words. One of those things you have to do for yourself.

We spent that night in the Hotel restaurant, treating ourselves to an expensive dinner as it was our 7 year Anniversary. Julie had the Grilled Chicken, which was accompanied by a gravy that Julie claimed gave her 'orgasms of the mouth', and I had to agree.
I had the Steak Tartare, which for those of you that don't know is basically raw steak, minced and formed into a pattie, with a raw egg on top of it.
Knock it all you want, but it was grade A fucking awesome. The boner that I'd been sporting since the Castle intensified until I'd nearly knocked the table over, and it was with some relief that we retired to our room so that we could do the things that most long term couples do on their anniversaries, that being argue and complain that sex just isn't what it used to be.

We got up early the next morning, and actually organised ourselves properly to arrive in time for the correct train back to London. Which goes forever. I love the English countryside, but fuck me, 5 hours of it is enough to bore the Christ out of anyone.

Anyway. We're back in London now. One more week, and we fly home. It's funny the things you take for granted. I mean, I miss my family, and I miss my friends, and I miss the vaguely repellent guy who's looking after our house, but you know what I miss the most?

My dog.

Road Trip.

My brother calls it 'Boringstoke', but as we alighted in Basingstoke after the hour-long train ride from London, I would have opted for 'Same Shitty Suburb That Seems To Exist All Over The World, Just Under Different Names'. It looked like Croydon. It also looked like Carrum.
My brother escorted us by bus to his house, which he shared with two pleasant ladies named Jenny and Rachel. They were very accommodating, and for the first time in my life, I ate a meal cooked by my brother. It was passable, certainly, but I really look forward to when he isn't bound by the confines of vegetarianism.
In the morning, we piled into the car my brother had hired and set off on our road trip. Our first destination was Winchester, and after parking the car and climbing a steep hill, we had a view of an idyllic little country town. The abbey stood in the centre of town, and I was really pleased to see that no building was taller than it. It made it all seem somewhat timeless. We visited the cathedral itself, and I read with some interest that the whole thing was sinking into the ground around 1902, and it took one guy in an ancient diving suit to go underneath the abbey itself and prop it up with sacks of cement.
This guy did this everyday, all day, for 4 years or so, and only took a few days off for the death of his son. People worked differently back then.

We left Winchester, and headed towards Bath. I was informed that to build a house in Bath, you must apply to the council, and then wait until they can source enough of the yellow sandstone that every other house is built from until your house can be built. You have to pay for this sandstone as well. It does make for a very picturesque city, especially at night. We stayed at a very pleasant guesthouse, where I had the immeasurable pleasure of farting on my brothers head, something I hadn't done for years.
We had a nice dinner in town, and retired for the night.
Bath wasn't quiet as pretty in the harsh glare of the bright sun, but I didn't mind, as the Roman Baths were our obvious destination. As we entered, they gave us handy Audio guides, which you listen to by punching numbers relative to the guide numbers distributed about the place.
To my utter delight, aside from the standard tour information, there were separate guides by one of my favourite authors, Bill Bryson. I listened to his guide only as we walked through this wonderful slice of history. Did you know that someone found the Baths underneath their house? I find that hilarious. 'I wonder what's under here, then?'

After that, we visited Bath Abbey, which wasn't patch on Westminster or Winchester, but still awesome in it's own right. Packing up our things we drove for an hour or so until we were gliding through the New Forest, a stunning 40 mile stretch of thickly wooded density with towns strewn through it. The highlight, though, was the fact that wild horses are allowed to wander through these towns. There they were, just standing by the road, their foals included.
We headed further out, into the grasslands, where even more horses roamed, and drove on through endless green fields until Stonehenge hove into view. This ancient monument is no doubt slightly more impressive when not swamped by a metric fuckton of tourists, as when we saw it, but I appreciated it's quiet majesty as much as I could.
Sadly, even though this tour had an audio guide, it wasn't presented by Bill Bryson, so we moved on after our short view of the rocks, and made our way towards Oxford.

We arrived after an hour of driving around like dickheads as we were completely lost because my brother forgot to write down directions, but soon enough the Nanford Guest House was in view, and we were warmly greeted by the single fucking scariest hotelier on Earth. His eyes never opened once, even when he was walking up some stairs to show us our room, and he had a head of hair that I swear had woodland creatures living in it.
Even scarier, the 'reception' area was a bomb site, dominated by a fat guy in a recliner who, get this, NEVER blinked. He just sat watching TV, and even when we accidentally got in his line of sight, he just stared right through us.
The room was frankly terrifying, and it was with some relief we departed to take in the sights of Oxford. Sadly, this consisted of majestic Universities closed to the public, 476 million fucking students and 476 homeless people. Seriously, Britain has an alarmingly large amount of homeless people. They are everywhere. We had dinner at a shamelessly tacky Louisiana themed restaurants, where the food was actually quite nice, and then retired to a pub to imbibe enough alcohol so that the hotel room would seem less threatening.

It was with some relief, then, when we left Oxford and headed to Avebury Circle, which is sort of like Stonehenge with a few different variations. Number 1, it's shittier, and Number 2, you can actually touch it. It still has a majestic and ancient presence, it's just diluted by the fact that there's a fucking TOWN in the middle of it. What a money-grubbing cunt you'd have to be to soil a historic landmark just to make a few bucks, not that us Aussies would stoop to that. cough.

We took some amusing photos, which you can see on the Flickr account, and then headed onward to Windsor. The accommodation highlight of the tour, we stayed in the converted loft of a barn, which was self-catered. We cooked our own dinner after shopping at Sainsbury's, and then my brother and I played some soccer with Trigger.
Trigger was a dog that played soccer. No shit. Kick that ball and he'll chase it and dribble it back to you. I have video as proof.
We marveled over that, and then took a walk into the wheat fields. In the last minutes of twilight, it took on an ethereal, otherworldly aura, and I strode out into the middle of a wheat field, safe in the knowledge that Britain has no poisonous creatures, and just stood in the silence, broken occasionally by a large 747 flying overhead. I fell asleep contentedly next to Julie, only to awake in complete blackness, wondering where the fuck I was, stumbling into furniture until figuring out where the door was.

The next day was taken up with Windsor Castle, obviously the home of British royalty and 49 Gift Shops. There were many beautiful rooms with immeasurable history, and the tour was at least interesting and fact-filled. Trying to describe these rooms in words is a little silly, as they are so grand, but whatever you're imagining is probably correct.

That was the last day of the proper Road Trip, as we headed back to my brother's house after that. We stayed the night again and had British Pizza (snigger. It's so shit!) and rose reasonably early the next morning, all so I could take my sunglasses off to apply sunscreen and leave them on the roof of the car.
We then departed, my sunglasses still on the roof of the car, and did a small tour through country Basingstoke. My glasses were forever lost at some point during this trip, but to think that in England these rolling fields and green pastures are just in the backyard is a wondrous thing.
After a few hours we arrived back at my brothers place, and packed our bags for the train trip back to London. This was when we noticed my glasses were missing. So we had a brief look around, as we knew they were on the roof of the car, but no luck.
Then, as we headed towards the train station, we arrived at a massive roundabout, a very prominent feature of British road travel, and I managed to spot my sunglasses lying at the side of the roundabout on the bitumen, just inches shy of busses and trucks thundering by.
My brother did a loop and pulled over, and I leapt through 14 lanes of traffic and a few flaming hoops to rescue what I now call my lucky glasses.

The trip back to London was uneventful, and I headed out that night to drink a rather silly amount of beer with my friend Rowan and my new friend Weijer. I can safely say that I have a great propensity for alcohol, but it failed me this night, as the next morning saw me wake with one serious MOTHERFUCKER of a hangover. I puked in the shower at around midday and felt better, but I tell you, those pints are bastards.

And please, have a few more photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27097851@N02/

LOVE YOUSE ALL.

'Bonjour' is an anagram of 'Nob Rouj'.

If you asked me what my favourite part of France was, I'd look you straight in the eye and tell you that it was when the ferry pulled out of Calais and I saw the fucking country fade into the distance.

If that sounds a little overboard and dramatic, that's because I'm a dramatic person prone to going overboard.

I'll start from the beginning.

We boarded the train at St. Pancras station and pulled out of London on a clear, sunny morning. The views leading out were unspectacular, the kind of vistas that I've become accustomed to in inner Britain; tenement housing, large pockets of brown soil littered with junk and concrete pillars. We then hit full speed on the fastest train I've ever had the pleasure of being on. They could safely advertise it as 'The Fucking Fast Train' and no one would bat an eyelid.
'Well, it's true, isn't it?' is what people would say.

Then my travel curse kicked in, which is my unfailing ability to be seated next to, or adjacent to, some form of child. It happened on both flights over here, and was occuring again in the form of a spoilt, fat little British turd. She was dressed all in pink, and looked uncannily like Miss Piggy. Her mother was an aggravatingly unnatractive slapper, and they spent most of the trip arguing over the same fucking thing:

'But MUMMY, I'm really, REALLY hungry!'
'Shutup, Jessica. Mummy's drinking her rose wine'.
'NnnnnghhhhGGHHHH! I'M HUNGRY! STARRRRRVING!'

Of course, the moment they'd boarded the train they'd headed off to the snack counter to buy Miss Piggy biscuits and Coke, which she ate noisily in front of us. Mentally, I pictured her choking on a biscuit and then getting sucked out of a window, but that particular dream didn't come true.

After the train passed under the Channel, we were speeding through France, and the scenery changed for the better. Rolling fields of wheat and other greenery for miles and miles unfolded to the horizon, and I was absolutely captivated. Unlike Melbourne, where suburbia starts about 20 kilometres out, Paris sort of materialised out of those green fields, and within 10 minutes of suburban buildings appearing, we had pulled into Gare Du Nord.

Then it was time for my culture shock to begin. I didn't expect everything to be written in English, obviously, but it seemed that NOTHING at the station was written in English. I thought maybe a sign for stupid, ignorant travellers like ourselves would have been in order, something like "THIS WAY TO PARIS CENTRAL, YOU TOURIST SCUM", but alas, we were left to our own devices, which were limited.
Trial and error guided us to the ticket booth, where we purchased our Metro passes, and then headed off to the hotel. I wasn't terribly chuffed about being on the fifth floor of said hotel, as I hate heights (but not enclosed ones. The fact that this had a huge glass door that opened onto nothing was what got to me), but I gradually got used to it. After dumping our bags, we returned to the street via the tiniest elevator I've ever witnessed (it fit two people, and preferably skinny ones) and headed out to look around.

To our surprise, we were literally across the road from The Louvre. We didn't go there straight away, it being too late, so we found a shitty restaurant, ate some passable fare, and returned to the hotel and went to sleep.

Our next Parisian day dawned bright and clear, so we hit the streets for breakfast. I enjoyed an omlette with a croissant, and we both had surprisingly terrible coffee. I mean, it would seem to be a reasonably easy process to make a coffee that doesn't taste like burnt ass hair. I say this because even I can make coffee that doesn't taste like burnt ass hair. We assured each other that the next one would be better.
Then, touring the streets, we made our way to The Louvre. One thing to be said about the streets of Paris is that, while I can literally feel hundreds of years of dense history as an almost oppresive weight, they've somehow managed to make almost every single building look like the one next to it, resulting in a city that conveys a palpable sense of what Paris is and what makes it unique, while looking like a Caroline Springs model community where they only had one type of building.

This did not apply to the Louvre, however. My God, it's huge. While it was used by Charles V as a residence, I can only assume he really, really liked walking, because to get from one end to the other takes at least 10 minutes. Then you go to the other side and do it all again. It has for storeys as well, which makes it rather taxing, as to see everything you need to go back and forth, up and down all day.
We started off in Egyptian History, passed through the Religious Paintings section, saw that fucking Mona whatsername thing, perved on the Venus De Milo, and then went traipsing through endless halls of paintings. It was around this point when we got separated. I can probably think of worse places to get separated from a loved one, like, say, a graveyard filled with zombies, or a scat lovers convention, but The Louvre ranks pretty close to that. I did the manly thing and walked around the upper storeys mumbling angrily to myself while trying to locate Julie, and Julie did the female thing by going straight to the pre-arranged meeting spot and standing there looking worried.
I eventually came to my senses and went to the right place, and we continued the tour, finishing with the awesome Statue area. Actually, that wasn't the finish, as I had to stand around the gift shop like a moron while Julied looked at shitty knick-knacks. We then had a late lunch on the bank of the Seine, where we paid AUD$13.00 for a fucking glass of Coke.

While I'm ranting, here's a question: There are approximately 64 million people in France. Even if every single one of those people had a hard-on for history and visited the Louvre, that still leaves around three BILLION FUCKING PEOPLE around the world who don't speak French who may want to visit one of the world's largest museums, so why is every description in fucking French? For example:

Mona Lisa. Peint par Leonardo Da Vinci en XVIème siècle, utilisant l'huile.
Une des peintures les plus étudiées dans l'histoire.

Translated that's a very brief rundown of the Mona Lisa, but you wouldn't know it apart from the words 'Mona' and 'Lisa' and the artist. When I read it, I translated it as:

'Hello, tourist pig. We make so much money from this painting that it funds the French economy. If you'd care to look at any Parisian on the street once you've exited The Louvre, they'll be laughing at you because you are a silly tourist tit-end, and you can't read French. If you'd care to venture further down the hallway, you can read the placard underneath the sculpture of some Roman twat that will inform you that I've parked my shoes underneath your Mother's bed. Merci, and go fuck yourself.'

The next day we rose early and walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower, where we both looked at the ridiculous queues and said 'Fuck that!'
I took some obilgatory photo's, but felt no loss at not having climbed what is essentially a French vanity project, and headed off to climb something that had real history, the Arc De Triomphe. Easily my first of two highlights of Paris, we climbed the 284 steps to the top (another small highlight being the woman who climbed behind Julie, who, upon reaching the top uttered the litany 'Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus') and took in the view. While I wasn't comfortable getting too close to the edge, I took some great footage, and then headed back down the 284 steps to walk down the Champs Elysees.
While I tried to imagine thousands of Nazi's parading down here after they captured Paris, I could only see high priced boutiques and expensive patisseries. Julie spotted the Louis Vitton store, so of course we had to browse through there. Once that quick trip through hell finished, we ambled down to the Place De Le Concorde, where, though I tried to be amazed at a three and a half thousand year obelisk, I mainly thought about how much I needed to take a shit.

We ate that night at an overpriced shitty chain of steak restaurants (in my defense, I had no idea it was a chain until the next day), where I had the most uninspiring steak I think I've ever had. It was so thin that it was impossible to have had it cooked rare like I asked, so I just closed my eyes and swallowed, because I've got a great knack for that?

The next day we went underneath Paris into the catacombs, my second highlight. Julie was naturally alarmed at being four storeys down in narrow confines, but after the kilometre walk to the actual ossuary she was calmer. Then the bones began. There are fucking thousands and thousands of people down there. Endless hallways of ancient death, and they just kept on coming. After a while, the atmosphere became strangley calming, and I just wandered through the dimly lit caves wondering who these people were and what they did in their lifetimes.

Emerging into the sun was rather life-affirming, and we retired to the hotel again to drink wine and watch overpriced movies on the tiny TV. I also drank beer. Then I drank some scotch. Then I drank wine again. Then I woke up with my head on my chest, dribbling onto my stomach.

The next day we packed up and headed off to the French version of Frankston; a fucking shithole called Amiens. Perhaps someone may disagree with me if they had been to Amiens and had a nice experince, but I hated every fucking minute of this shitty suburb, filled as it was with the most staggering amount of homeless people, shifty looking youths, general cunts and ugly shitfucks.
The hotel was a decent size, but that's about all I can say about it. However, it didn't have a fridge for me to store the vast amount of alcohol I needed to blot out this trip through Dante's Inferno, so I now freely admit now to drinking lukewarm beer to make myself go to sleep so as to avoid this fucking town.
The next day's walk through Amiens made me question why the Anzacs bothered defending it, and I can only assume that it was no doubt much more attractive in 1916. Today it is a confused town that seems to be reciving constant facelifts by adding obscene amounts of cream coloured paving and frosted glass, but seeing as though you can't polish a turd, it just has a patina of falseness. The coffee was fucking terrible, too.

So I was glad when we hopped on a train and headed down to Villers-Brettoneux. This was what I had come out this far to see. The Anzacs played an explicit role in the defense of this town, giving the Germans a right fucking thrashing. We caught a cab out to the Australian War Memorial, which is so majestic but sad that I was almost moved to tears. Hundreds of graves lie in lines amongst immaculate gardens, and the actual memorial lists the known fallen. Like I've noticed before, trying to absorb so many names becomes a fruitless exercise as it's impossible to fathom what the Great War was like and what they endured.
From what I can tell, this massive monument is paid for by Australian taxpayer dollars, and I for one am glad that we do so.

After that we waited for the fucking train on the fucking station for a fucking hour so we could go back to that fucking town to have some fucking food and go back to the fucking hotel so we could get up the next fucking morning and get the fuck out of fucking Amiens.

Before making our exit, though, we dined at an Irish themed pub for dinner. In a great cultural nod to Ireland they served food and alcohol, two things that are apparently novel enough in Ireland to warrant opening an Irish themed pub in fucking sinkhole of a town in Northern France.
It was here that I had the special MYSTERY ingredient! The special MYSTERY ingredient may have been in the pepper sauce that tasted like water with a peppercorn it it, or it could have been the red stuff that might have been Cayenne Pepper or Paprika or crushed Panadol tablets with red food colouring. Whatever the MYSTERY ingredient was, I had an allergic reaction to it when we got back to the hotel. My face went as red as a lobster and became all puffy, and I freaked the fuck out because of course this kind of thing happens when you're in the middle of ShitTown in FuckoLand where no one speaks any English.

I managed to calm down once my face became less puffy, then spent an anxious night tossing and turning, counting the minutes until this nightmare ended. Reassuringly, the coffee was still fucking terrible the next day, and it was with total glee that we made it to the station to endure another facet of travelling by rail in France, that of WAITING FOR HOURS. How we laughed.

We had to change trains at Boulougne, which is where I wish we had stayed, as it looked beautiful, and then we puttered onwards to Calais. Only a few days before I had finished reading Bill Bryson's tour of England, and he had started at Calais as well. In his book he relates seeing the ferry terminal, but having no idea of how to reach it as it is surrounded by car parks, oil refineries, building sites, roundabouts and... I don't know... fucking dinosaurs or something. I had foolishly intended to walk there, because like the rest of France there was not one one single fucking sign telling you how far it was to anywhere or how to get there, but Julie intervened and we caught a cab.

The ferry was quite nice, and the sight of France fading into the distance made me orgasm with unadulterated joy. The white cliffs of Dover were a welcoming sight, and to celebrate I delivered an uppercut to a French guy and spat in his beret. (Actually, no one in France wore a beret. At all.)

Then we boarded yet another fucking train, and soon after the guy I christened 'Cider Goon' got on. He was about 20, I guess. He had eighteen cans of cider with him, and one open and on the go. He informed us that he'd already drunk 8 litres and had real trouble generating a single thought. The discussion was exhilarating, especially after we'd been talking in Australian accents and he asked if we were born in Chiswick.

Then after what seemed an eternity, sort of like this blog entry, we entered Victoria Station, and our French journey was at an end.

The coffee was shit, the hospitality was shit, everything was overpriced, Amiens was a cesspool, the majority of food sucked and I had an allergic reaction for the first time in my life. I may not have had the most awesome time, and it may not sound like it, but I'm really glad I went.

Still annoyed by that Little Miss Piggy fat shit, though.