Posts Tagged "ferry"

Meant to Be

Posted by cafebebemama on Jul 30, 2010 in Blogger Love, Writing Workshop | 6 comments

Ouistreham, Normandy, France

There are some things in life that are meant to be. I believe that I was meant to be with my husband. We found each other across an ocean thanks to lovely, yet bizarre circumstances. We had chatted on the phone for a few months before we met for the first time at Luton Airport. We had an amazing weekend in Paris a couple of weeks later and then the following week I made my first crossing on Brittany Ferries from Ouistreham to Portsmouth to spend another weekend with Mark. In total I ended up making 6 return crossings from Ouistreham to Portsmouth from February to May…all worth it, most definitely.

For those of you who don’t know, I was studying French at the University of Caen in Normandy in the winter & spring of 2005. Thursday February 24, 2005 was the night I was to make my first crossing of the English Channel. I was quite excited as I had never been on a ferry before. I made my travel arrangements online and booked my ticket for an overnight crossing leaving at 11:30pm on Thursday night. I would spend the weekend in England and then return back to France on the Sunday night for another overnight crossing to arrive back in Caen on Monday morning before my first class of the day.

The week leading up to that Thursday had been unseasonably cold and wintery in Caen. Well, in all of France for that matter. And as with most countries that aren’t used to cold and SNOW, the change in the weather virtually paralysed the country. I laugh at this as I’m from the state of Wisconsin where temperatures of 40 degrees below zero (Farenheit) and snow drifts of 5-6 feet aren’t uncommon in the winter months. But France was struggling.

Sometime in the late morning/early afternoon of that Thursday in February it started to snow. It was a wet, heavy snow with flakes as big as a 50p piece. On normal occasions I would have been thrilled to see such snow. I love snow. I was not so excited to see it falling heavily and accumulating on the ground at a rapid pace. My ferry was scheduled for 11:30pm. I was taking a shuttle bus from the centre of Caen at 8:00pm. I began to fear for my safe arrival.

Just to be safe, I decided to head down to the centre of time with plenty of time to spare so that I could, perhaps, take an earlier bus to Ouistreham, the port town. I enlisted my good friend Sarah to help me and keep me company. We headed down in the late afternoon to take the tram downtown. We were trudging through the wet, sloppy snow, dragging my hot pink suitcase through the slush and getting wetter and wetter ourselves as the snow continued to fall. We waited at the tram stop on the University campus. And we waited. Finally, an electronic message appeared on the board above our heads…NO SERVICE. Damn.

We decided to walk downtown. Through piles of slushy, wet snow. Through muddy brown puddles. We were soaked through. I didn’t have boots or an umbrella nor did Sarah. We were laughing though. How ridiculous we looked! We arrived in the downtown area looking like drowned rats. There were a few cars around and some lights on in the shops and restaurants around but downtown Caen was looking fairly deserted. My heart started to flutter…was I going to make it to Ouistreham? Surely the bus would still run?

We found a restaurant that dared to open. “La Crepuscule”…a crepe restaurant. They opened their plastic raincover doors for us and we were enveloped by warmth and light. The amount of water that came off of us and my luggage was massive. We tried to wipe it up with little success. We ordered glorious crepes and sat at a table with a view on the square to watch for any signs of transportation. The outlook was decidedly grim. I enquired with the waitress and chef about the possibility of bus service to Ouistreham. They said it was unlikely. I started to falter. I HAD to make it to Ouistreham! I had to make it to the ferry!

As Sarah and I were lamenting and wondering, the waitress, Annabelle, came over to us. It turned out that she lived in Ouistreham and her boyfriend was coming to pick her up to take her back to Ouistreham that evening. She said that they could take me to the ferry! Sacre bleu! An angel in the form of a French waitress called Annabelle. The chef, hearing my plight and romantic story told the waitress to go early and soon the night in shinning armour known as her boyfriend turned up to drive us to Ouistreham. Sarah hugged me goodbye and trudged back through the snow to campus. I set off with two French people that I didn’t know to hopefully arrive at the ferry terminal in time to board my ferry.

The journey from Caen to Ouistreham normally takes about 30 minutes. On this night it took about 45 minutes but thankfully we arrived at the port terminal around 10:30pm with time to spare. I tried to give my saviours money for their troubles but they wouldn’t take it. They were just happy to help. I sloshed into the Ouistreham Port terminal and checked in for my first ferry crossing. As the ferry pulled away from the terminal with me on it, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I used my mobile phone to ring Mark and tell him that I had made it. He would collect me early the next morning in Portsmouth. We were both ecstatic.

Thanks to the kindness of total strangers, a weekend that would have ended up a miserable disappointment ended up being the first weekend that Mark and I said “I Love You”! All’s well that end’s well. Think about it…what were the chances that I would end up in a restaurant with a waitress who lived in the very town I needed to get to? I’m guessing slim, to none! So, you see…our life was meant to be…no matter what the weather.

This post has been belatedly written in support of Josie’s Writing Workshop at Sleep is for the Weak.

Embarquement to a new life!

Dear Me

Posted by cafebebemama on Nov 30, 2009 in Motherhood, Writing Workshop | 16 comments

A 1970's Me

A Writing Workshop Prompt for this week:  Write a letter to your 16 year old self!  Well, I’m going to take poetic license and just write it to myself and not limit it to 16…there’s too much to warn myself about!

Dear Karin,

I’m hoping to save you a bit of strife and stress by writing this letter.  Read it, digest it and decide how you wish to proceed.

When you’re nearly six and a half years old a major devastation will happen…you will have a BROTHER!!!  Try not to be so sad…he may be a bit mental and hyperactive but he actually turns out to be a pretty wonderful person.  Give him a break, don’t sit on him and make him scream “I Can’t BREATHE, I Can’t BREATH!!!” and maybe try to be his friend.  I know there’s a big age difference between you two but you’re all you’ve got when it comes right down to it.

Jump forward a few years…you really need to not be SUCH a perfect daughter.  You see, if you keep following the rules and never doing what some of the other kids do (drinking, smoking, staying out late, having boyfriends, kissing, etc…) you’re going to go to University when you’re 17 and go off the rails a bit.  Because you never break the rules, when you get to University and have NO ONE to answer to, you’ll go to parties, drink too much, puke, miss classes, sleep through classes when you do go and end up with 3 REALLY bad grades in your first semester that your Grade Point Average will NEVER recover from.  So maybe consider letting your hair down a bit in High School…it might save you a bit of insanity in your first year at University.

Be prepared and know that when you are living in Chicago and are working in your first job, you will get FIRED from it because you go behind your company’s back.  Don’t do it…it’s not worth it!  And when you’re moving from your 5th apartment in 18 months in your Mom’s van, WATCH OUT when you pull out of the alley…you’re going to get smashed into!  Oh, and a word about your fitness and weight when you’re 22 years old…REMEMBER what it feels like to be a normal weight and very fit…YOU WILL NEVER SEE THIS WEIGHT AGAIN if you don’t heed this advice.  Yeah, sure, you worked in a Health Club so you HAD to work out…it was your job.  But keep it up…you’ll be happy you did 18 years on.

When you move to a rather horrible town called DECATUR (put a nice Southern American accent on it…urrrrr), DON’T allow that family to set you up with a man who’s name rhymes with FARTY.  He’s a horrible, horrible man who you will waste your time on for 2 years and who will make your life miserable.  He will make you think you don’t deserve better.  He will treat you badly.  He will leave you in the house you’re sharing every weekend to go home and party with his friends.  He will mistreat animals…don’t you think that might make him evil?  He is not a nice man, he has an evil family and he is an alcoholic.  Run, run, run…never take that number…don’t look back.

When you meet your friend Julie in Peoria, ask her a lot more about her brother and tell her that she should convince her brother to leave his wife before she gets a chance to do it to him and break his heart.  Tell her to tell him that there’s someone better for him who will make his life complete and she just happens to live in the US.  In fact, maybe you should go with her on a visit home to England and meet him first.  You might save yourself some time!

If you don’t take advantage of the tip above, consider going back to school to pursue that French Teaching degree a little sooner than the age of 33.  You will have more quality time with the Love of Your Life when you go to France to study for a term.  Before you go to France, try to sell everything you own in ADVANCE so you won’t have so much to sort out when you don’t come back.  And you’ll have more money up front to spend on the repeated Ferry crossings and travel to see the love of your life.  Also, beware that there will be a ridiculous snow storm during the day of your first ferry crossing which will make it VERY difficult for you to make that Ferry.  You will arrive but you’ll have a lot less stress if you manage to catch a bus to Ouistreham earlier in the day.  Seriously…do this.

You will survive the incessant paperwork and stress of applying for Visa upon Visa to live in England with the love of your life.  Don’t despair…it’s all worth it.  Consider selling your kidney in order to afford it, however.  You only need one after all.

When you return from a fab holiday in Spain, PAY ATTENTION when you are driving home from work and you won’t crash into an oncoming car and total your 1991 red Mini that you love so much.  If you don’t crash your Mini, you won’t have to take the bus into work for months on end…this is valuable advice.

Finally, know that Little Miss is not going to come out the conventional way, NO MATTER WHAT.  Arrange for an elective caesarian in advance and if you haven’t sold your kidney, do so now to afford a stay at a private hospital.  Also, know that your boobs are not going to work, NO MATTER WHAT and save yourself tears and stress and formula feed from the get go.  You’ll thank me for this later.  And even though you’ll have difficult nights in the long run, cherish the hours that you hold Little Miss while she sleeps…you’ll miss it 18 months down the line.

And one last word to you…consider NOT taking any of this advice!  I really believe that everything that happens to you from being fired in 1993 to 2009 is BECAUSE you were fired in 1993.  I believe in fate and if you don’t go through some of the crap you go through, you’ll never be rewarded with the love of your life in England and a gorgeous daughter.  You may as well listen to and follow the advice before 1993 though…that’s bang on target!  Good luck with your life Karin!  Remember…all good things come to those who wait!

What would you advise YOU to do, if you could go back?

A 1970's Christmas