Living a Nightmare

THE JOURNEY - MARKUS

At four o'clock the next morning, I left the train station in Cologne with a luggage bag and a rucksack slung over my left shoulder, on my way to Boulogne-sur-Mer in France. As it was still early in the morning and the sky was still pitch black, I decided to lie down for a while.

What seemed like five minutes later, the train rolled into Boulogne-sur-Mer station and I was awakened by a conductor checking that everyone had left the train and that no belongings had been left behind.

"Monsieur, c'est la destination finale du train. Je dois vous demander de descendre du train." The conductor spoke with a very strong accent, so I only understood something about final destination of the train. Knowing that I would not be able to understand him any better, and suspecting that this must be the train's terminus, which meant that I had arrived in Boulogne, I just gave him a quick nod, grabbed my things and walked out onto the platform.

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Once on the platform, I quickly realised that everything was written in French and I did not know a word of French, but I had to hurry to catch the ferry. So, I quickly made my way to an information desk and tried to explain to the person sitting behind it that I was looking for the ferry. Thankfully, the receptionist quickly understood what I was looking for and pointed me in the right direction.

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After successfully passing through border control, I caught the ferry, just in time and sat down at a window, to catch my breath. Also, I had never been on a ferry before, so I had no idea what it would be like. I had heard that a lot of people get seasick on ferries and I hoped that this would not be the case for me.

Once I got my breath back, I was able to appreciate the beauty of the ocean that surrounded the ferry, as we had left the docks, although they were still slightly visible.

About an hour later, the white cliffs of Dover slowly began to appear in the far distance. The ferry still took half an hour to reach the port of Dover though.

I had never seen anything like the White Cliffs of Dover before. They were huge and – as the name suggested – they were white, white as snow. They looked impressive, as if some artist had sculpted them, as they seemed to have a very smooth surface. And whether you looked to the left or to the right, the white cliffs seemed endless, as if they were disappearing somewhere in the great blue ocean.

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Once back on land and through boarder control, I was pleased to find that everything was written in English, a language I could read and understand perfectly, having learnt it extensively at school.

I hurried to Dover Priory station, passing a many people speaking all sorts of languages on the way. They were all clearly heading back to where they came from and were making their way to the port of Dover to catch a ferry to get back to their home countries.

Arriving at the station, I rushed down the steps to the platform, where the train to London St Pancras International was already waiting, the steam from the engine rising into the air as if it ready to leave at any moment.

I hopped on and found an empty seat somewhere in the middle of the train. Moments later, the doors closed and the train pulled out of the station.

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An hour later, the train then rolled into London St Pancras International station, where I quickly got off. This station was much more crowded than the last one in Dover.

I squeezed my way through the crowds and made my way to the tube, which was fortunately right inside the station. As I had fifteen minutes before the tube rolled into the station, I decided to make a little detour to a small shop inside the station to grab a bite to eat. Luckily, I had remembered to change my Deutschmarks into British sterling on the ferry, so I had enough money for a sandwich. I got a salmon sandwich, which also seemed to be the only sandwich that the British had to offer. But I did not really care what was in the sandwich anyway as I had not eaten since I left home and was absolutely starving.