The weekend I broke out of jail

Thought it might be time to get out the ol' blog again and write some stuff!

This weekend just gone I took part in a charity event called "Jailbreak", in which me, Ben and Jack tried to get as far away from Bristol as possible in 36 hours without spending money on transport. This was my main motivation for writing this post - I want to write down the details of this little adventure before I forget... Our journey took us from Bristol to Portsmouth, where we tried to get on a ferry to France and failed, then to Folkestone via Brighton, Hastings and Ashford. This was all on the train - we discovered that train conductors are in general really nice people, and were more than willing to let us ride for free. In Folkestone we walked to the channel tunnel, which turned out to be about an hours walk away from the town down a small, poorly lit road. We then stood for about an hour at the side of the road, in the cold, at about 9.30pm, trying to hitch a lift on to the tunnel. By 10.30 we'd had enough of that though, and decided to walk back into town to try and find a place to stay. Luckily there was a Holiday Inn about 45 mins walk from where we had been hitching, so we stayed the night there, after the nice woman at the desk let us off paying the 3rd person supplement.

The next day we got breakfast in the hotel, then got a free ride on a bus to Folkestone town centre, and from there a bus to Dover (which we had to pay for as the bus driver was a bit mean). Once in Dover we walked down to the main road heading to the docks and tried to hitch again. We spent about 2-3 hours in Dover trying to hitch before eventually heading to the docks themselves to ask at the desk, just in case they might let us on without paying. But no, so at about 4pm we decided that our chances of getting out of England by 9pm that evening (when the Jailbreak ended) were slim to none, and would only leave us with the problem of getting back again, and so began our journey home. We then spent about 7 hours on various different trains, trying to get back to Bristol: we went from Dover to Ashford, to Redhill, to Tonbridge, to Brighton, to Portsmouth and finally to Westbury, where our lovely friend Dave drove to pick us up at midnight.

I now feel pretty ill, and exhausted, but also like I have successfully challenged myself. We might not have managed to fulfil our aim of getting to Europe, but at least we now know that we are able to sweet-talk people, get across the country, navigate trains and buses, stand in the cold for ages, feel absolutely exhausted and still walk for an hour in the cold and dark, etc etc. One of the most memorable things about the experience as well were the people that we met: after the first day we decided that people could essentially be divided into three categories - Nice, Nasty and Moderate. The Nice people (who were overwhelmingly in the majority) were the ones who helped us out, let us on trains, and generally supported what we were doing. The Moderate people were the ones who either wanted to help but couldn't for a valid reason, such as the train conductor who had been told off for letting other Jailbreakers on recently, or the Eurostar worker who thought it was a good cause but just wasnt able to print us off £179 tickets. We did, however, run into about 4 Nasty people (3 of whom worked at ferry companies) who just didnt care at all, and showed no inclination that they even wanted to help. The epitome of these people was the woman at Portsmouth working for Brittany Ferries, who said that they couldn't let us on "because it just didnt make commercial sense". We pointed out that if the ferry isnt full then the company isnt actually losing anything, but she said that "they're not really gaining anything either", apparently not caring that the charity we were trying to help might gain something... There was also the conductor on the train to Hastings, who was going to throw us off a stop before our destination if we didnt pay; luckily we were saved from this by a Nice Man who was sat in front of us, and paid for our ticket for the extra stop and took down the conductors name to complain.

Essentially it was a weekend of highs and lows, both in terms of the people who helped us, and also just our mood in general. In Portsmouth, having been turned away at the port and at a train station, we almost crumbled, our irritation and disappointment starting to affect our group spirit. We cheered up again once we managed to get on a train to Brighton, on which we heard a conversation about a teenage girl taking style advice from a 6 year old boy. Trying to hitch on to the channel tunnel at Folkestone at 9.30 at night was probably the worst point - it was cold, dark, we were really tired and hungry, and just didnt seem to be getting anywhere. Once we got to the Holiday Inn though we cheered up again, partly due to a film on TV involving midgets playing american football (a new American Pie maybe?) and a duvet that smelled of coleslaw. There were lots of other funny moments on the trip, like getting hyper on red bull, laughing at Jack, writing on the whiteboard and arguing about the ending to 1984 (Does he die?), as well as a magazine that featured a picture of a woman with a really big block of cheese.

In conclusion: Jack and Ben are fun guys to be with, most people are nice, ferry companies are wankers, and travelling is a lot easier when you can spend money.