Euro_Adventure_Continued

Let’s start by saying that judging a place when you arrive after dark is not fair. So when we arrived in Folkestone at around 6:15pm and weaved our way from the bus stop to our host’s home we were less than kind about our new location. Turns out we arrived on what we later found out was one of the “dodgiest” parts of Folkestone, but dodgy as it might be it really wasn’t bad with the sunlight shinning on it. Our host was on his way back from London and running a bit late but not more than 10 minutes. Igor and I walked a bit further on and then decided to turn around and head back, hoping that our host would have arrived by then, and he had.

Johnny’s home, which didn’t look much from the outside, was small and cozy, as most British town homes are. He invited us in, had us drop our bag and then brought us down stair where he made us an amazing rice and curry dinner. Then it was off to a local pub where Johnny was going that evening to have a “jam session” (music improve night) which he tries to attend every other Thursday.

When we arrived we were immediately treated like family. Yes, my British accent was in fairly fine form by this point, though apparently there were tinges of Irish as one of the musician’s decided to speak to me the rest of the evening in an Irish accent. The music was excellent as was the entire atmosphere of the place. A couple of guitars, a fiddle, cello, Johnny on the piano and a guy going back and forth between the drums and a small guitar. They played jazz, some pop and even a little instrumental Celtic music.

Igor, having never been to a pub before, really enjoyed the experience, though after having spent the evening there, both Johnny and I tried to explain that this pub wasn’t what you would call a “proper English” pub but rather a very nice one. “Proper Pub” being the one where there is at least one old guy there with three teeth that hasn’t moved in 30 something years. If you visited Bristol I probably took you to one of these types of pubs.

We went back to Johnny’s place and after some more discussion finally hit the sack. 

In the morning Johnny made us a wonderful “Ukrainian” breakfast. Thick potato pancake with herbs and spices, topped with eggs. Yummy!

Johnny, is very into organic things, he has used his backyard area to plant and grow all sorts of herbs and vegetables. There is a local farmer that Johnny buys a wooden box filled with fresh veggies every week as well. I will say that I have never had such yummy tea as we had at Johnny’s either since he adds a lot of spice to the simple tea bags that are usually used.

After breakfast we headed out to the white cliffs of Dover. Johnny, Igor and I took the couple mile walk to the far end of the Dover walk where there is a light house in hopes of popping in to get a quick cup of tea before heading back, unfortunately the shop was closed for the season so we simply turned around and headed back.

Igor and Johnny

More great food and conversation was had on our last night with Johnny before Igor and I were off to the next part of our adventure in mainland Europe!

I unfortunately woke up at the designated time the next morning to quickly turn off the alarm and subsequently fall back asleep. I thought I had told Igor it went off and that neither of us got up but he doesn’t remember that so, it is very possible that I dreamed it.

Anyhow, we got ready in 5 minutes, and ran out the door, sadly not enough time to wake Johnny up and say good bye, but hopefully he will come to the bay area and we can host him ourselves. We got a bit lucky and just made the bus to Dover. Jumped off the bus and walked down to the Ferry boat to go across to Calais, we just made the last bus that takes pedestrian passengers to the ferry. So we were fairly last minute most of the morning but the important part was that we made it.

The Ferry ride was lovely and Igor found a nice English couple who helped us get to the local train station so that we could get a train to Oostende, Belgium where we were to Couch surf again that evening. 

This will also come up in the lessons learned portion of the blog but the French don’t like to speak English, they can, at least somewhat but they are not as likely to try. With use of my not so great French and the, although a bit forced, willingness of the lady at the train station to speak English we got our tickets.

Our first stop was Lille, where we were originally supposed to meet Igor’s friend Yvgeny, who couldn’t make it up from Nantes. Raining pretty much the whole 3 hour stop we had there, with a little prodding from Igor, we walked the city for about 2 hours to “see what’s what.” It seems to be a lovely little city and perhaps we will go back to see more of it someday. As it was we jumped on our second train and then on to Oostend.