A whole new world

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In the beginning the trip was without form, and void; darkness was on the face of our bus. And the whole bus was hovering under water. Then our bus driver said, “There is a light!”; and there was light. And the whole bus thought that it was good. The odyssey had begun, a new dawn arose, we were finally a step nearer to heaven, the land of our dreams. For me personally the fourth time to England and the third possible way to get there: the Chunnel. In my opinion the most boring way to get across the water into this Anglo-Saxon island we all set our minds to for at least one and a half year. Maybe it the fact that I always get a headache for a few days after flying or my background as a maritime officer that I rather go by boat. Despite the beautiful overview you get when flying I still prefer the ferry over all.



The bus in the train in the Chunnel is just a wait, nothing special except for the extreme warmth when you reach the end as the bus isn’t allowed to start it’s engine therefore not using the air conditioner. In the train we were situated fairly close to the toilets, which is helpful on a long journey, although close to them they were out of order. We had to walk all the way to the other end of the train, pushing ourselves through heavy duty doors finding out the toilets next to our bus weren’t actually ALL out of order, it was just one. But at least we made most out of that train ride.



When you go by ferry you usually get greeted by the white cliffs of dover, when flying you see the outlines of the island.. when you go by coach on a train you end in the middle of the typical English rolling hills,. a sight for sore eyes. Whenever I travel I try to make most of it but this time it was all about the destination, the road trip wasn’t that special except for the ‘shortcut’ our bus driver took (He missed three turns which gave us some sort of extra touristic route. We crossed the Thames on a one-way bridge which cost us about 6p of toll! What a joke. But it was this exact river and some other small side branch who are the name givers of Oxford, or should I say Oxenafiorda? Which simply means that it is a place where you can wade through the river with your cattle, or more specific; your oxen.

When we finally arrived we went to the hat of our beloved own Sinterklaas, The Mitre, a fine traditional pub in which the staff takes care of real English food and makes sure they serve their food with all three B's. Our Fish and Chips definitely had them all, Boiled peas, Bland fish and Boring potato chips. After this traditional dinner I went to another pub with some classmates to try a real English ale and eventually flush it away with a good old European-mainland lager.

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