Day 1 & 2 - Surprise!

So' the flight over was a breeze - security in the airports, at least from what I encountered has become much more relaxed since the last time I flew. The landing into Heathrow was no less than smooth and it took no time at all to get my luggage, although there was already a casualty - the rain fly was gone off my pack - I forsee a problem with this in England later on. At least the pack was there and not just the rainfly - that would have sucked!
So after making my way onto the tube system and changing at the Hammersmith station, I started seeing a lot of poppies on people's lapels. Nevermind the vetrans. Something was definitely going on. Since I'm nosey, I started to enquire and as it turned out, London was having their big Remembrance Day ceremony that day. The queen lays a wreath at the cenotaph near Trafalgar Square and thousands of veterans take part in a parade complete with royal salute from Prince Edward along with a large gun brought in by horse cart to mark the beginning of two minutes of silence. It was a sight to behold. And the security! Good lord. Ironic, since it's a day to mark the exchange of lives for freedom.
By this time, a good few hours had passed and I figured I'd best be heading for Boulogne-Sur-Mer, so hopped on the train at Charing Cross station and started heading for Dover. Once at Dover, I was informed that the ferry to Boulogne had been shut down because the guy had been neglecting to pay his port fees, so I'd have to go to Calais and then take the train to Boulogne. I figured time would be tight, but had no clue how tight it would turn out to be.
Once at the ferry port, a group of us got a short bus ride to the Police de Frontier where we all got off, had our passports stamped, then got on the bus, only to drive another few hundred meters, be let off the bus again so our stuff could go through x-ray and us through metal detectors, then on the bus again to be let off at a waiting room near the dock. The whole experience was kind of unsettling for some reason.
By this time it was good and dark and by the time we got to Calais, it was nearly 8PM. A bus took us to the main railway station and I got off thinking this should be relatively easy. It would have been (sort of) if a) I spoke French well enough to pass as a native b) the train came every hour or so, c) the station wasn't littered with a bunch of drunks and d) I had change on me.
The ticket office was closed, so with the help of a guy who said he was from Finland and was living in Belgium, figured out what the ticket machine said. Then the trick was to get change, since the machine refused my Visa card (not chip and pin I suspect). The guy was nice enough to sit and chat with me until my train got there, as he didn't seem prepared to let this little waif of a thing sit in the station alone surrounded by drunks. It turned out that another passenger on the ferry was also headed to Boulogne, so I boarded with him, and once in Boulogne, he helped me get my directions sorted out as to how to get to the hostel.
So I got there - about 3 minutes after they had closed. It was a punch code system to get in, so I stood there randomly punching numbers in 'cause, well, what else was I going to do? Luckily, the person running the joint came to the door and let me in. Whew!!

In the morning, I made my way downstairs for breakfast and joined my roommate. Between my horrific French and her decent English, we somehow managed a conversation. I left Boulogne in the morning going back to Calais to get my rental car. Thanks to Google maps, I thought this should be easy to get to the place.

After wandering around trying to figure out which way north was, I found tourist info, manned by a woman who seemed to have no want to actually help tourists. So, I finally squeezed directions out of her to get to where google told me I'd find the rental and I started hoofing it. Well, google screwed me over. I don't know where I ended up, but I managed to get propositioned by some jackass. Get me out of this city! I booked it back to the tourist place and stood on the street, maps blowing in the 50+ km/h winds. And then a voice out of nowhere. "Do you speak English?" Thank God, the Aussies had come to rescue me!

Now, normally I'd be the last person to accept a ride from a total stranger, but they had this rental van with children's drawings all over the exterior. Not exactly subtle. It was a wild goose chase to find the rental place. Once again, more service people who had no want to talk to English-speaking foreigners would be less than helpful. I was starting to get the feeling that a person could be attacked here and if they were screaming for help in English, people would just walk past them. Well, we finally found the rental place and I booked it out of there as fast as I could go to Arras which is a beautiful city with helpful people. The hostel was booked solid, but the nice guy pointed me to a budget hotel on the edge of the city. It was clean, warm, and out of the elements - hooray!

Driving in Europe, if you've never done it before is something else. I've yet to figure out if there are, in fact, any rules. But the motorways are gorgeous and they move!