Sunday, December 13th. (Driving to Dover, Ferry to Belgium, Frites & Fancy Ladies)
It was Sunday, December 13, 1981, and it was a miserable day. We were driving, rather recklessly, through a very bad winter storm along the south-eastern coast of England, desperately trying to reach the Ferry Terminal at the Port of Dover. Rain was pouring down on us, except when it was snowing so hard we could barely see the road. We pretty much had the road to ourselves because you would have to be bat-shit crazy to be out in this weather. Well, if crazy is what you need, we were the boys for the job.
‘We’ means Dave GoWell, 27 years old, and Kent Davis, 25 at the time of this adventure. To be honest, we weren’t actually trying to risk our lives on this night; but we weren’t trying to be safe, either. Not by a long shot. It just wasn’t our style. If you want to know more about us and how we ended up in this situation you can read more about us HERE.
It will shed some light on why we were making this crazy journey, through a horrible storm, desperately trying to get to Dover in time.
“Look out!” Dave shouted. Kent swerved hard to try to avoid the worst of the latest deluge that had just exploded over the breakfront and poured down onto our car, reducing visibility to zero for a few terrifying seconds. Well, it wasn’t actually ‘our’ car, it was a rental. We rented it at Heathrow Airport a week earlier and drove it to Brighton to work at a Trade Show. ‘The Plan’ was to drive it back to Heathrow Airport today and turn it in. Thern we would take a flight to Cairo to explore the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and any other awesome old shit we could find.
But plans have a way of changing, and ‘The Plan’ took a righteous beating that day. England was experiencing an historic blizzard (one of the worst in 50 years!) and this day was the worst day of it.
All airports were closed and we were stuck on an island, 3500 miles from the Pyramids. This wouldn’t do! We had pre-paid reservations for hotels and local flights in Egypt, and they started TODAY so we had to do everything we could to get there as soon as possible.
So what does ‘everything we could’ mean? In this case, it meant commandeering this rental car, driving through a historic blizzard to the Ferry Terminal at Dover, taking a Ferry to Belgium, and hopefully finding a different flight to Cairo that would get us there sooner.
Do you remember 1981? If not, ask your folks.
No Internet. No cell phones. International phone calls were expensive and often difficult to make. You couldn’t Google a place to find the best hotels, restaurants, attractions, and travel tips. The best you could do was to buy a recently published book about your destination and hope that not much had changed. (If you ever did that, then you know: things change a LOT!)
We might have called the Ferry Terminal to find out when Ferries to Belgium were leaving, but we might not. As you’ll see many times in this story, we often just blazed ahead in the general direction of where we wanted to go and made the best of whatever Fate put in our path. ‘Look before you leap” is great advice for children learning to cross the street.
‘Forging blindly ahead’ is a better way to have adventures – if you survive.
Ours wasn’t the only drama unfolding on this day:
On 13 December 1981, Polish General Wojciech Jaruzelski announced the imposition of martial law in a televised speech. Over the next 24 hours, the Council of State formally authorized an extraconstitutional military junta, the Military Council of National Salvation to rule Poland. The Polish People’s Army, Citizens’ Militia, special paramilitary units, and tanks were deployed on the streets to demoralize demonstrators, begin regular patrols, control strategic enterprises, and maintain curfew.
As this historic takeover was taking place in Poland, we followed it on the radio, courtesy of the BBC, as wave after wave of angry ocean water swept over our car, threatening to sweep us off the road.
Somehow, we made it to the Ferry. We have spent lots of time talking about this trip and trying to piece together the chain of events. And this is one of the mysteries we can not figure out: How did we turn in the rental car? Neither of us have any memory at all of finding the correct rental car company and turning over the keys. Since we were NOT turning it in at Heathrow (where it was supposed to be returned) you would expect there would have been a discussion about that. Maybe a loud discussion. Almost certainly some additional money would be demanded (Kent saved nearly every receipt from that trip and while we have the rental car agreement, we do not have a receipt for the return). Kent is certain that we would NEVER have just left the rental car at the Ferry Terminal. Dave thinks we might have done just that. He assumes there was a car rental agency at the Ferry Terminal (closed, of course) so we parked the car where we knew they would find it. Maybe they did. Or maybe we are still fugitives, wanted for grand theft auto.
But somehow we made it onto the Ferry and were happy to see it had a restaurant where we tucked into a tasty steak dinner and some ice cold Becks.
We arrived in Oostend and it was still snowing like crazy. We bought train tickets to the Gare Centrale in Brussels, under what was then known as the Martini Building at Place Rogier. Coincidentally, that’s the building where Kent’s dad had worked a decade before so Kent had some familiarity with the area and could act as tour guide.
All Dave knew about Belgium was three things:
- Kent had lived there for a few years before high school.
- An 8th grade student can go to a bar with his friends after school and drink beer! (If you ordered a Carlsberg ($$) you got a free dish of goldfish crackers with it.
- They made the best French Fries in the World, they probably invented them, and they enjoy them dipped in Mayonnaise. Originally, Dave thought this sounded disgusting. Then he tried it. Now he ALWAYS eats them this way. If you haven’t tried it, start with a 50/50 mix of Mayo and Ketchup. You’re welcome!
We checked into the Galaxy Hotel, dropped our bags, and hit the streets. First stop was a Friterie, which is a small shop that mostly sells Fries. Dave’s mind was blown! They put American Fries to shame! They are so popular that almost every other shop on the street was a Friterie. They are packed together tighter than Starbucks in Seattle. In between each Friterie was a place that sold a different hot treat. Behind a large, picture window facing the street, was a woman sitting on a rocking chair in her lingerie. (They have been doing this since before WWI.) A gentleman walking by, and liking what he saw, could go in and get to know her better. But we were just browsing, today. Kent remembers walking past these same windows when he was in school. It must have been a real thrill for a 12 year old school boy!
We headed back to the Galaxy and turned in. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. Would we finally get to see the Pyramids? We hoped so, but a lot could go wrong. Like all of this stuff: