Well we almost did it again – despite vowing never to put ourselves in the same situation as we found ourselves at the start of the trip, yesterday we made our ferry with only a couple of minutes to spare. Somehow we turned off the wrong exit into Bilbao and found ourselves in the depths of the city stuck in traffic with only 20 minutes to get there. We had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we would miss the ferry and that we would be driving back into France and spend the next 18 hours heading to Calais (losing the $800 we had to pay for the ferry in the process). By some miracle we fluked a turn and found ourselves with a clear run to the turn off. This meant we didn’t have time to go to the supermarket so have spent a fortune on food. A pretty shitty pie, chips and peas is $20 but we managed to discover a good salad scam – you can fill a bowl for GBP3.50 and there is chicken, fish, tomatoes, lettuce etc. so we have been taking the piss to new limits. The same guy at the cashier has made the same joke everytime we have rocked up with overflowing bowls.
Any romantic notions of cruises have been completely erased from my mind – we were quite excited when we got on the ferry as it has a couple of cinemas, casino, nightclub, restaurants, gym, swimming pool etc. but after 30 hours in here we have both gone slightly mad. If we didn’t have the laptop and a heap of DVD’s things would have been a lot worse – it didn’t help that I left my book in the car though!
What should have been my first good nights sleep in a semi-proper bed in a long time turned into a shocker. The predicted 4-5 metre swells turned out to be 8 metres and it hit when we went to bed at about 10pm. I must have been in a generous mood when we got into our cabin as I didn’t contest Tom’s chioce of the bottom bunk – silly move. After getting 1-2 hours sleep I awoke at about 1am about to get rolled out of the top bunk. For the next few hours I had to grab the side of the bed to ensure I didn’t fall to the ground with every swell we went over. Managed to get another hour or so sleep in the morning, but am so shattered now. Because of the huge storm the ferry is going to arrive almost 4 hours late which also means we probably won’t make it to Tessa’s going away party until 10:30pm tonight. Not sure how I am going to stay awake – pretty sure I have never been this sleep deprived. Then tomorrow night I fly out at about 10pm which means I will be a complete wreck by the time I get back to NZ as I can never get more than a couple of hours sleep on the flights. Have to be at work at 7am Wednesday morning (after getting home close to midnight) so will be relying on extreme quantities of coffee to get me through the day.
On a more positive note we had a couple of great days relaxing in San Sebastien before having to catch the ferry. No waves but some good weather and a couple of good nights out. Not sure when we will see Mark & Fraser again so was sad saying goodbye to them yesterday, no doubt we will start planting the seed for next years trip soon.
Only another couple of hours on the ferry then the 2 hour drive to London and straight to Tessa’s party. Will try and make one last post depending on how much of a zombie I am – if not though, it has been the best trip of my life. Some amazing memories I will have forever.
Thanks for reading!
Blair
