Random is Good, Random is Life

26th July 2005
Hi all actually day on day 20, in Corfu at the moment and still having an awesome time. I am trying to play catch up a little with my posts, so here goes!

Flew from Barcelona to London, flight was delayed by about 45 minutes, then were stuck in a holding pattern for about another 20 minutes in Gatwick. Not happy, flight finally got in about 1am. Took the Gatwick express to Victoria station, then a cab to the Royal International. So here I am at the hotel and it’s 2:30am, have to be up about 5:30am to checkin and be ready for the coach. Paid $79 for the bed for about 3 hours and go MAYBE 1 hour’s sleep!! yikes.

So here I am Contiki Day 1.
Met the tour staff:
Pete, Tour Manager
Hans, Driver
Sean, Cook.

Drove to Dover and saw the White Cliffs and onto the Ferry to France.

We have a few mascots on our trip.

Constable Kenny Koala sits right on the dashboard to scare away the nasty power tripping coppers all over the world.
A moose who is simply called “General”
and a Pikachu hat, which I eventually discovered is to be worn by the “dickhead of the day”.

Passed through the beautiful French country side to our campsite in Joinville Le Pont. After we setup camp we were introduced to snails! The guides asked for a volunteer to be the first snail eater, so I happily obliged. They gave me a beree, a monobrow and a curly moustache just to make me a little a more French. You stab the snail with a toothpick three times, first to kill it, the 2nd to make sure and a third to pick it up. The snail was surprisingly tasty, lots of garlic and the texture is quite rubbery.

That night we went on a driving tour through Paris, I missed climbing the Eiffel tower as the queues were massive and it was bloody raining too!

We drove past the Champs Elysees, very nice and pretty. That’s were you get your Versace this and Armani that…

Paris is stunning, everwhere in the main city is beautifully detailed and artsy fartsy.

We headed to the “Snack bar” in the campsite afterwards and consumed a few pints of snacks… nice.