Sunday, October 3, 2010

first view. . . then lost






our journey into france was the first time i had ever drifted into a new country! thanks to the beautiful weather on the day we traveled, k and i got to see france from dover beach then set sail for it . . . simply put, it was exhilarating!

what made this experience even more wonderful was the moment we saw france it exceeded our expectations. we fully expected to marvel at dover's beautiful coast {which we did}, but who knew calais was that incredible? like dover, calais is also interesting thanks to its rich history.

once we officially landed in france, our ecstasy quickly wore off all thanks to my french. high school french is certainly different than real life/practical french! in short, k and i got stranded on a ferry, left behind on a dock with four british dudes {please note k's face in the above photo!}, hopped on a bus . . . then realized we had no clue where our hostel was located! as it turns out calais is much, much larger than it appears on googlemaps. we had no map with us, so k and i based all of our knowledge of the town on bus maps! we lugged around all of our belongings in the heat for a little over five hours!

once we made it to the hostel, we both fell face-first on the bed, ate a chocolate digestive cracker {the only food we had with us} , chugged all the water we could get our hands on and fell sound asleep.

through all this we learned hat k, {thanks to all of her suberb nols training}, can read just about any map and in any language. it worked to our advantage this summer and i certainly discovered a lot of secrets along the way. . . i learned that, even during that special time of month, i still can power through it! i kept reminding myself- i am in EUROPE, i just blew a a ton of my hard-earned money on this, and most of all, i LOVE travel. c'est vrai, and you know what? i do love it all {especially now}.

oh the joys of backpacking europe in the summer!

love.

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