It felt utterly weird leaving my house. The car was all packed up, in the boot was the warning triangle, first aid kit, fire extinguisher. The headlamps had glare protectors for right hand road driving, my insurance was covering me to drive in Europe, and Mum and Dad and Vicki were standing at the door waving goodbye.
There was no passport control, no excitement of getting the first glimpses of aircraft tails, no luggage trolleys, no Duty Free posters. I was getting in my car like i've done a thousand times. But the difference this time is I had no set plans on when I'd be coming back. In an airport, theres a familiar process and a definite time to say goodbye. This felt like neither, it felt normal. Though with a vague feeling that to drive 1200 miles to Spain isn't exactly normal!
I picked up Scott and we made our way to Folkestone to catch the Chunnel to Calais. Scott's mum managed to blag us a £25 fare for the car (rather than the usual £180) which was er, lucky :)
You don't see the water when you go on the chunnel. If you go by ferry you get a definite England/France crossover. On the Chunnel, you drive from the motorway, onto the smaller roads, then past big signs saying 'FRANCE', then onto a train, then it goes black outside for half an hour, then suddenly you're back on the motorway on the other side of the road! I think its because driving is so familar that it seemed so strange. How could I travel to new, far away places in something that doesn't have wings and at least two Rolls Royce jet engines?
After about 4 hours we got to the outskirts of Paris, I followed various people's advice and stayed on the outer ring road and took the Metro in. Even that felt like I could be getting on the Central Line in East London somewhere.
!BLAM!
Shit, I'm in Paris!
A motorway is a motorway, a ring road is a ring road. But suddenly, and without an airoplane, I'm in one of the world's classic megacities!
We wandered round a part of Paris near the Louvre. We could tell we were in an expensive area as nothing had price tags on and the jewellery shops had doormen. All the shops had what looked like golden door knobs. Though expensive and covered in classical builings, this part of Paris is infused with the contemporary architacture, such as this statue in honour of David Blaine.
The Louvre is an impressive sight, it makes Buckingham Palace look small.
In 1904 the French King erected this glass pyramid after the signing of the 'Entente Cordial' took him to the Dolphin in Romford while on a state visit to the dog tracks and pie and mash shops of East London.
We were knackered from the drive and getting up at 6am and driving for hours so we decided to get the bus rather than walk to the Eiffel Tower. Its a shame as I always like strutting around and getting lost in new cities. It did mean we met up with Mel though at the bus stop, she was an Aussie chick doing a European tour for a few weeks. I'd forgotton how easy it is to chat to a complete stranger and become best mates for a day before going your seperate ways.
I didn't know how impressive the Eiffel Tower was going to be. I knew the Blackpool Tower was based on it, and that was alright for a one third scale model I suppose, but the Eiffel Tower itself is HUGE! I was totally in awe!
This is me and Scott at the top, we spent ages up there.
Its one of those things in life that I'd like to see on SUPER-MEGA-STRUCTURES-OF-THE-PAST on Discovery about how many bolts etc it took to make it. Its an impressive artistic and engineering marvel.
Scott, Mel and I went for meal and then we wandered home. Crossing the curving river at the 'Place de la resistance' (great name) with the Eiffel Tower on one side, it actually reminded me of Waterloo Bridge and the South Bank. I felt at home. I have no idea why I always seem to feel at home anywhere but at my actual home town/city?!?
I liked Paris from this brief afternoon here, I think its like all the major cities in the world, you probably have to spend six months here to really appreciate the soul of it. Though saying that, I'm not sure if I could deal with all the Parisians every day. Though the frogs have a reputation for being miserable and unwelcoming to foreigners, I've found if you speak a little pigoen French to them, they lighten up and they're more than helpful. Not in Paris though. They must go to some kind of 'How to be le Miserable Fuck' class where they're taught about how never to break into a smile under any circumstances.
Which is a shame because they have a beautiful city to smile about.
Next day we drove and drove and drove until we hit Montauban, just north of Toulouse. I've never driven for so long in my life and the weather got progressively worse and worse which didn't really make for fun driving. I did all the driving but I think I'd recommend to anyone else thinking of going a long way to share the load. I was knackered by the time we got to the IBIS hotel, and felt really let down by the fact their book said all the swimming pools were indoors. The dream of a relaxing swim to get over the drive shattered when we saw the out door pool being hammered by the rain from the thick, low grey clouds. I was too knackered to do anything so we watched some news in French, had Dinner then went to bed.
Day 3. Scott woke up and told me how he'd had a dream about him driving on a motorway and a blue car pulling out and crashing, getting him killed in the resulting accident. He said it didn't have the feel of a premonition, it wasn't precise enough. Apparently I was in the car behind and survived, which is an upside to it all I suppose. Anyway, we aimed to do about the same drive again today and get to the other side of Barcelona. It was a nice theory and we were making good time as we approached the border. The rain was holding off and we decided to stop of in a little town called Le Boulou, which I think is the last town before the border. We came off the Toll roads and entered the town. It was nice to stop off in an actual town rather than a motorway service station. The food was cheap but good, and I think the owner saw us as as much of a novelty as we felt seeing this quiet border town. The irony of driving the quickest route (my prefered option as it was just me driving) is also the most boring as only the slightly changing vegetation lets you know you're in new places. We got lost coming out of Le Boulou as we desperately needed petrol. We tried the B road route to get across the border and it probably added another hour to the journey compared to the traffic-free toll roads.
I was pissed off we'd taken the wrong turning and we were destined to sit in traffic now. When we finally got back on the toll roads, I knew we had to get to the other side of Barcelona and then we'd be back on track. It was the worst bit of the whole drive. I was tetchy from the extra time on the B roads, and the red bull I'd had was making me jumpy rather than focused. The traffic, including the lorries seemed to be doing 100mph through the roadworks on the outskirts of the city and the usually quiet toll roads were rammed with cars, trucks and lorries all jousting to get to the front. I had to stop off a couple of times just to close my eyes and take a breather. If there'd been roadhouses there I would've stopped for the night.
I'd been driving for about 6 hours and knew I still had at least an hour to go in this hellishly fast traffic. I had Scott's 'premonition' and Michael Burke in my head giving a running commentry about how 'driving when tired is the number one killer on motorways and...' When we finally got to Tarragonna, our planned stop for the night, the hotel was closed due to renovations. I stopped in a big shopping mall place to get out of the car for a bit. I was totally wired. It takes a lot get me stressed but if anyone had done anything to annoy me in that mall I would've ripped their head off and torn them in half with my clenched screaming teeth. Long drives can be really hard.
When I'd mellowed a little, we drove out along the coast and found a Hotel that looked like it hadn't been decorated since 1975 but they'd chosen instead to keep the old stlyes and design in pristine condition. We'd eaten at the mall so we sat and watched The Sum of All Fears in Spanish and also BBC World with its coverage of the expanding EU midnight parties in Malta, Slovenia and Poland. I like the idea of the EU expanding. Anywhere that allows a whole bunch of people to change their lifestyles for the better can only be a good thing. Hey, if we weren't in it, I wouldn't be sitting in Spain writing this now.
I feel European.
Day 4 and thankfully it was only 4 or 5 hours to Alicante which seemed like an easy drive after the last two days. As the scenery got more and more familiar and we eventually reached the airport just outside Gran Alicant, it started to really sink in I'd actually just driven 1250 miles across Europe! I shouldn't see this from the Matmobile, I should see this from a 757 and a Spanish Taxi!