Coming back from California
Because of a volcano exploding and cutting off flight paths the end of our trip became very interesting.
We got to San Diego airport on the 17th of April to be told our flight back to Gatwick had been cancelled until the 26th of April. This meant we had to fly to Atlanta where we had to wait for our flight to leave. This meant paying about $50 a night for a terrible hotel which was money neither of us had.
Once in Atlanta we stayed there for two nights when on Sunday the 18th we went to the airport asking for any flights to Europe (having heard there where extra trains and coaches all over Europe we thought it would be cheaper and quicker to get a ferry back once in Europe). Luckily they had a flight the next night to Madrid.
We Arrived in Madrid Tuesday morning and asked at the train ticket office for tickets to St Malo (where we had booked a ferry), we where then told that the French rail service was on strike, and there were no extra bus services. We proceeded to panic, thinking we had flown to Madrid for no reason.
To cut a long story short we spent all day asking around if anyone was hiring a car to St Malo and if we could get a lift and chip in for petrol and the cost, however everyone was driving to Calais. I was settling down for a night in the airport just when my mate tells me a man is driving to Cherbourg and he said he’d give us a lift. This man then asked us where we were going, and if he could get the same ferry as us as ours left earlier. He booked the same ferry as us then drove us 1100km on one hour’s sleep, everything paid for by his business.
When we got to St Malo we spent a night in a b&b style hotel and met up with the man that night for a drink, in a crazy bar when the bar stools where swings hanging from the roof and the beer pumps where dolls arm and legs. We went to back to our b&b to an actual bed for the first time in 2 nights. Since Sunday night I had, had 6 hours sleep. It was now Wednesday night.
In the morning we got the ferry back to England and arrived in Portsmouth at 6:30ish.
It’s quite strange coming back from a holiday in America on a ferry across the Channel.
