Friday comes around and early in the morning my mate Darren and I are ready to hitch-hike over to Europe. First we need to get through London and then across to Dover to catch the ferry to Calais. It's all going sweet and we arrive at Dover not long after lunch. Buy our tickets, get our passports stamped and jump on the ferry ... yeee haaaaa here we come France!
I'm on my way to work in Greece again
after finishing my job in Oxford as a cocktail barmen and Darren's on his way to France to meet some guys he met back in Somerset that said they could give him some work in Dinan south of Paris. When we meet the guys we'll say our byes and I'll continue hitch-hiking to Greece.
We make it to Calais and it's early evening by now and the thought of trekking through town to find the right road out of there was a bit of a hassle, plus it would be dark soon. As we hung around the dock area after getting off the ferry, drinking a beer and having a smoke, we were approached by a couple walking by. They asked us where we were from and what plans we had for the night. We replied that we were thinking of putting up our hammocks in a park close by then hitch-hiking to Paris in the morning. They invited us to stay on their yacht for the night, we both looked at each other and instantly agreed that would be a wicked idea!! And off we walked for a night sleeping on a yacht .... what a great way to start a trip through France!
In the morning we thanked them immensely and said ours goodbyes. Time to get some coffee and some food for breakfast. We find a local market and set about getting food and supplies for our journey down to Dinan Via Paris. The start of this day's hitch-hike went very slowly indeed! An hour goes by, another hour and then another hour AND then another couple of hours!! By this time it was late afternoon and we were going no where fast!!! We switched hitch-hiking points .... we tried the one person hiding out of the way routine and even had time for some Aussie graffiti on the side barriers. Nothing was working! Then as if in a dream a car stopped. We ran over to the guy in the car and asked him where he was going, ... "cool" we say and jump in. About 5 kilometers or even less down the road his car breaks down and we have to say good bye because he ain't goin' nowhere! Finally another car pulls up and we jump in and head down along the coast and end up at some town large enough to have a road going to Paris. That day had been a total nightmare as far as going any distance was concerned, but a good laugh overall !!
Darren had a friend in Paris and he wanted to say hello, well why not there's no point in being rude! In central Paris we splurged and bought a McDonald's why we waited for his friend to finish her photo shoot. Had a chat for a while then we headed out to a road where we would start the other leg. We caught the train out to Chartres, stopped at a nice cafe for an afternoon beer and then hitch-hiked out of there. At the end of the day putting up our hammocks in a farmers field and having a good night of sleep.
The following day saw us hitch-hiking all the way down to the meeting place which was a large supermarket on the outskirts of Rennes. As we waited in the car park a weird looking 4wd rocks up with music blaring and a bunch of guys looking totally cool, one hangs out the window and says " Hey you're Darren yeah!?". They all get out of the 4wd and I've got my head cocked to one side looking at 2 of these guys. I've seen them somewhere before ... I know I have!! " Where are you guys from?" I ask. .... ( need to cut out the bad language at this point ) ..... these guys are from the same school as me in Somerset England!!! .... unreal!! "Hey dudes I was heading down to Greece but if there's more work going then I reckon I'll hang around in France for a while!?"
"Dinan here we come!!! .... man it's good summer has just started!!!"
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