Journey to Morocco- Day 1

Travel Journal

Day 1 (17/03/08)

11:40 am- We finally got picked up at the Esso service station after about 2 hours of waiting. Yippee! It was a Mercedes car we sat on. Later, we found out his name was Tony Mercer and a director of a company in Coventry. At first, it felt really awkward and Jimmy was the one making most of the conversation. Things became better once he started playing songs from his CD! Apparently, his son has a band and so we listened to their songs. I think I fell asleep at some point. I can't help it! It was just too comfortable~ hehe

1:40pm- We arrived at Cross Channel Ferries in Portsmouth and bought a ticket from LDLines (apparently the only ferry company that goes from Portsmouth to Le Havre). After buying the tickets, we went to town. We visited the Spinnaker. 

Jimmy's friend, Abhinav brought us around town. He was a good host. We visited the high street, the University of Portsmouth (whose official colour is purple).

5:00pm- We had dinner at Hong Kong Tea Bar. Yum yum, I had the roast pork chow mien. Their portion is huge! After dinner, we went to the beach. It was quite a walk~ very refreshing after dinner. We even passed by a mini carnival and it looked fun!

7:27pm- We took a bus back to the ferry terminal. The ferry is only going to leave at 11pm. How should we pass time? 

Jimmy, "Aiya, just chill lah~"

Sze Nee, "I also dunno. But please stop taking pic of me"

(Disclaimer: She did not really say that, I made it up...hehe)

Ferry terminal packed with people, especially hitchhikers!

10:20pm- We finally boarded the ferry! We met hitchhikers from Manchester and one of them said he saw our justgiving page, "You're the group who raised a lot of money!" We were pleased to hear that.

11:30pm- Set sail!! Jimmy found out he lost his sleeping bag (and we  were still in UK.. haha, how is he going to survive the next 2 weeks? Goodluck Jimmy!)

Jimmy, who was looking at Sze Nee with envy.. hehe..

So the question is, how did Jimmy get through the rest of the night?

Answer: He took my sleeping bag.

I didn't want to sleep on the floor and so I generously offered him mine and settled myself comfortably on the reclining seats. But little did I know that it would get so cold and uncomfortable later in the night.

Throughout the night, a crazy man (I think a fellow hitchhiker) was making so much noise. I think he was a preacher. He just kept going on and on about religion. I was so annoyed I felt like throwing my shoe at him at one point. Luckily, some other passengers told him to shut up and he left in the middle of the night. Peace at last!!

The ferry was huge and I could not feel the motion at all. I didn't need my motion sickness pills after all. Early morning~ when I finally saw Jimmy waking up, I immediately said, "Jimmy, I feel cold.." and he gave me my sleeping bag back. (hehe)

I had about an hour of sleep after that..

Me looking very tired..

We made signs!