The first taxi I ever took was with Margarine, Shrimp Jr and Wood Duck. It was in Calais, France. The four of us had taken the ferry from the White Cliffs of Dover to Calais for a Continental two weeks with Grizzly, who had skipped our British Isles adventure to keep working. This was way back before cell phones and internet connections and ATMs and when you still had to do math when crossing borders, in addition to bringing your passport, and find banks to exchange your American Express Travellers' Cheques for local francs, lira or deutschmarks, so the plan was to meet in the ferry terminal in Calais on that Wednesday morning.
What we didn't know, and what none of the friendly French told us, was that only ticketed passengers were allowed at the docks. Apparently, there was another passenger terminal a few miles away that a bus went back and forth from. That's what we found out afterwards when we were figuring out why Grizzly wasn't there to meet us and Grizzly was wondering why we didn't get off the bus.
When we finally got our luggage and found ourselves on an abandoned dock, some Frenchman pointed off in the distance to the ferry terminal. There was nothing to do except walk. Each of us shouldered our bags except for Shrimp Jr, still just Shrimp Jr and not yet Jumbo Shrimp, who took my small backpack and I took her bag. We were two weeks into a four week trip with bags full of things for soccer, beach and the Alps, so Margarine's bag weighed nearly as much as he did. About a half mile into our dockyard hike, Margarine started falling behind. Then further behind. And further still. He got louder, too, telling us we were all morons. There was about ten seconds of silence, and ten seconds of progress for the rest of us until we heard a shout, "Hey," and saw Margarine stepping into a taxi, saying he was coming to pick us up.
What we didn't know, and what none of the friendly French told us, was that only ticketed passengers were allowed at the docks. Apparently, there was another passenger terminal a few miles away that a bus went back and forth from. That's what we found out afterwards when we were figuring out why Grizzly wasn't there to meet us and Grizzly was wondering why we didn't get off the bus.
When we finally got our luggage and found ourselves on an abandoned dock, some Frenchman pointed off in the distance to the ferry terminal. There was nothing to do except walk. Each of us shouldered our bags except for Shrimp Jr, still just Shrimp Jr and not yet Jumbo Shrimp, who took my small backpack and I took her bag. We were two weeks into a four week trip with bags full of things for soccer, beach and the Alps, so Margarine's bag weighed nearly as much as he did. About a half mile into our dockyard hike, Margarine started falling behind. Then further behind. And further still. He got louder, too, telling us we were all morons. There was about ten seconds of silence, and ten seconds of progress for the rest of us until we heard a shout, "Hey," and saw Margarine stepping into a taxi, saying he was coming to pick us up.
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