Part 2

April 10th, 2010 – England Adventure

Tell you what,....waking my Dad up should be a right of passage or something. Ya know, like how Indians consider a young man a hunter or something when he makes his first kill. Not that I had to kill or anything, but waking up a grumpy man like my Dad takes talent because I managed to survive without being injured for life.

We were out the door by 6:30a for the ferry dock, got checked in and all that good jazz. I was expecting our Ferry to be a smaller boat, but then again, I’ve never used a ferry. This thing was like a small cruise liner! It was awesome! Not to mention, it only cost $150 for a round trip ticket to take my truck AND 2 adults. That’s a steal of a deal if you ask me! After getting my truck within the ship and all settled in, Dad and I grabbed an “English Breakfast” and just enjoyed the scenery as the ship was pulling out of port and making it’s way over to England. Pretty cool experience for my first time doing this….barely any passengers on board (MAYBE 50 people at most) and we got to roam around. Better yet, we were able to acquire some sleeper seats and passed out for a good amount of time considering we were both still pretty worn out from our lack of sleep due to the hotels bed arrangement. The travel time from port to port took about 4 hours, but the time seemed to pass pretty fast between catching cat naps and walking around.

I was first in line to get off the Ferry! Yay me!

My "English" breakfast

View from our table

Here's some perfect examples as to how empty the ship really was:

Our luxurious sleeper seats

Dad was misbehaving, so I locked him out.

When we arrived in England, I was the first truck off the ship and made our way over to the Immigration Office…rather intimidating! The UK border patrol was blunt and to the point about why you’re in the country, they want EXACT information and if they don’t like what they hear, they’ll just deny you and stick you back on the boat. Luckily, we said the right stuff (ha) and got our official handy dandy England stamps in our passports to allow us entry into the country (yay!).

Why is it that the UK HAS to be different than anyone else when it comes to their driving?!? It’s VERY nerve wracking driving on the “wrong” side of the road. Sure, to them it’s the correct way..but to Americans, it’s ass backwards and frightening! I’m used to “the right has the right of way” in Belgium, but over here, you’re always having to check to the left. WEIRD! Plus it’s hard to get used to the vehicle operators being on the right hand side of the car rather than the left…weird weird double weird!

I managed to get the hang of the driving even though it was quite stressful..almost hit a motorcyclist (my bad), but since my plates say “B” for Belgium..they can just think I’m a Belgian tourist that doesn’t know any better despite the fact that I’m an American that’s completely clueless about their motor laws. Oh, and thank gawd for GPS!!! My lil Tom Tom was a lifesaver! It helped me avoid driving through London (our ferry docked in Ramstead).... I REFUSED to drive my truck anywhere near that city. I garuntee I would’ve wiped out several cars or pedestrians! The drive took about 3ish hours to get from the ferry to my Grandpa’s house due to Holiday traffic and all that good stuff. Once we arrived, we got to hang out, catch up, get some dinner and retire to our hotel that they managed to book for us. This place is AWESOME! It’s a studio type of apartment with a kitchen, washing machine, a REAL bed, a REAL shower / bathroom and we’re barely a block away from the ocean! I LOVE the smell of the water..it really makes me miss Monterey.

Me...LOVING my room!

Dad was using the sleeper couch... he was a lil frustrated that it had a lock on one of the joints, lol

After spending four hours on a Ferry, roughly four hours on the motorway and trying to drive a completely different way, I was very spent and passed out for the night.. I barely remember actually getting INTO the bed, lol.