Saturday, 5.9.2015, 8:43, on the bus to Callais. CANTERBURY, here we go! Since someone overslept and the bus had been a little late anyway, we left around half past eight. Although Stephen and I sit in the very front (jippie! I hope that will keep the travel sickness away from me), the view could be better. Typical weather in the Sauerland. It’s raining. Meh. I think I will snuggle down in my seat again.
16:29 (17:29), on the bus again. Just arrived in England. We had a very nice view of the White Cliffs on the ferry. There was an arcade or something like that on board – maybe I’ll give it a try on our retourn trip! Well, in about an hour we should arrive at Canterbury. It’s still a bit odd to drive on the left lane. That’s probably what the pidgeon just thought when the front window of the bus knocked it over. It did not fly very high at all and even lowered its flying height, I guess. I just thought, “Oh, that will be a thight…“ – SMACK – “well…“. There was a badly loud noise, and I was really frightened. Now there is a white silhouette of the pidgeon on the windscreen. And spots of blood. Mh.. jummy. I still don’t know whether I should perceive this as kind of sad or just laugh at it.
Monday, 7.9.2015, 20:05 (21:05), in the kitchen. Our WLAN doesn’t work ergo I have some time to write down the rest of our journey. We made a mixed flat share and explored our new home (for the next few days). While I was busy placing my stuff into the wardrobe and playing around with the sanitizer in my room (and especially in the bathroom), the rest of our group noticed that not all toilet flushings worked properly… Well. Some time later even I realized we had a kitchen. A very well-resourced kitchen… not. We only had one frying pan. That’s it. No pot. No toaster. But one frying pan. And – of course – two fridges. A little later we decided to walk to the small supermarket we had passed earlier with the whole group. When we arrived there, the guy inside said that the supermarket was already closed and that we should go to the bigger one at the main campus.
“Okay“, I thought, “but where the heck is the main campus?“. We met another group of our
excursion at the small supermarket and searched for the main campus together. Eventually we found it and bought some food for dinner and breakfast. When we got back home, we decided to make some herb bread in the oven. But the oven did not want that. We figured out that the hot plates could be used by lighting them with a lighter. Thus, we thought the oven would do as well (just like the one my grandmother has). So we lend a lighter from our ‘neighbours’ and carefully tried to light up the oven. But since I did not want to put my whole arm in the oven and light the lighter while the gas was flowing, we simply decided to cook the herb bread in the one kitchen devide we had: the
frying pan. Consequently, our dinner was very fatty. But it tasted well. After that thrilling dinner, Dominique, Stephen and I played at cards: Mau-Mau and ‘Gift und Galle’ – what a wicked game! I like it.
Friday, 11.9.2015, 10:34 (11:34), in my room. I have a headache so that I won’t go to Leeds Castle today (even though it’s the loveliest castle in the world…). In this way I have some time to write down what we did during the last few days. On wednesday we drove to Dover. Some of us went on a hiking trip with Tom, and the rest of our group followed Keith to Dover Castle. I don’t know what he told the girl at the entrance, but she gave us a nice discount on the tickets. Dominique and I wandered around the area and took some photos here and there. Arriving at the ‘tunnels’, we noticed a uniformed guy at one of the entries and asked him whether one could take a step inside. He told us about the guided tours, and a few minutes later we stood in the first tunnel system. This one had
been used as a ‘hospital’, or better: a ‘medical hallway’. It was really, really interesting walking through those hallways and rooms, listening to sounds and conversations that could have been heard there many years ago. After that first guided tour, we wanted to join the tour in the ‘Operation Dynamo’ tunnels. When we arrived there, the group had already left. So we took the bus/train-thing to the castle and spent about half an hour in the gift shop. I bought some spicy hot pepper jam (very fancy!), big, heavy, metal keys (don’t ask me why.. I think they’re awesome), some more things and… a big bag to carry all that stuff around. Afterwards we went into the castle, walked round, enjoyed the view (on top of it) and decided to go to the tunnels again. This time the group was still
waiting outside. Though, it was full, and we had to wait another twenty minutes for the next one to leave. Therefore we had plenty of time for some breakfast. Other guys of our excursion joined our group; and after twenty sunny minutes outside, we were allowed to get in. (Thank you, Mike, for guiding us through those tunnel systems again!) This tour was based on a historical event, and we watched a few films about it in there. All in all it was also good, but I liked the hospital tour better. When we left the tunnels, we had to hurry up a little since we had to meet up with everyone again. So we hurried back to the bus and came back in time… almost. We left for the White Cliffs of Dover and spent about half an hour there (not enough time if you ask me). Dominique and I plundered the
shop there and I bought some more jam: strawberry with Marc de Champagne.. don’t know how to spell it. Afterwards, we hurried along a small path and had a lovely view on the White Cliffs. What a beautiful finish for such an exciting and nice trip that day!