Today was travelling day – where we made our way to Dijon which was our stop off before our last group game to St Etienne.
I woke up at 7am, mainly due to the fact I came home first. I hit my wall on our night out and I went to bed around midnight. But after my shower I awaited to hear how my teammates spent their night after I left.
They made friends with some locals, drank with them for a while. Trigg came home but Coatesy and Nick went to a nightclub, to which they initially got refused entry (mainly because they were British). Coatesy thought it was naff so he came home, but Nick was out till at least 4am.
Gee, I am boring.
When Nick woke he was still under the influence and sang to me “Appleyard!!!!! Appleyard!!!!!” When I saw him. Trigg however, was worse for wear.
“I hate life, I hate football, I hate France” was his opening statement. I think it’s fair today, today will be a sober one for all. A detox in Dijon!
The plan today: get a train from Lille to Paris then switch stations in the capital to get another train to Dijon at around 5pm. There was no need to rush as the first train arrived in Paris at 2:20pm. This gave us a couple of hours in Paris to get some overpriced tea/coffee before our two journey to south east France.
Also, on our journeys we had many cheese and ham baguettes, or “Jambon et fromage bagettes” as the French call it. Isn’t “Jambon” a better word for ham then “ham”?
No! Just us then.
Thank god for trains. Turns out if we had drove, it would’ve taken us four hours 23 minutes to 505km by car. I don’t fancy that.
We arrived in Dijon around 7:15pm, and we had to examine our options as the hotel was on the other side of the city. So we went to a bus stop but realised that there was a cab service nearby. I heroically offered to call the taxi service…
(After 10 mins of waiting on the phone I heard) “Bonjour”
“Bonjour …. Err…. I want taxi”
Okay yes, I panicked. My French hasn’t improved in the week or so that I have been in this country. Coatesy, Trigg and Nick robbed me about that for a while after that.
Anyway after making arrangements for a taxi, we waited for 45 minutes or so, till eventually we caved and got a tram.
I like trams.
It is my favourite mode of transport. It’s what London and Essex fails to have is a good tram service. I know there is one in Croydon but nothing too central. So I was a bit excited. And… It was only one euro 70 cents. Bargain!
On this journey around France we haven’t always eaten ‘properly’. Our diets have been regularly filled by the likes of bagettes, pasta, pizza and burgers. But on this night we had what Delboy would describe da “slap up meal”
As we watched the football, where we saw Austria and Portugal battle out a 0-0 draw, we had a three-course meal which was reasonably priced at 25 euros. I had mozzarella for starters, chicken for mains and cheesecake for desserts.
It made a nice change. We went to bed and we gee’d ourselves up for our walk around Dijon tomorrow.
