And I'm on my way...

Aaron went with me to the train to say goodbye. Me and my backpack are ready to go to Nürnberg to catch the bus.

The bus depot was both better and worse than the ol'  dirty dog. It was outside and completely free of crackhead-- Germany seems pretty free of crackheads in general -- so that was better. Also, it was all perfectly clean and respectable kids and immigrants, not the nuthouse escapees and regular poor folks we have riding greyhound. I think really poor Germans just stay home. The part that was worse was that there are no signs or arrival boards, and no one to ask when your bus is 30 minutes late and you have no idea where it is supposed to pick you up.

While I was waiting, I'm pretty sure I saw the Nürnberg Critical Mass ride by. What else could more than 50 cyclists taking up the road and accompanied by a large sound system be, riding by on a Friday night? And I am lately discovering that some groups of people, geologists, fire-dancers, and apparently critical-massers, look the same no matter where you are.

So, after much milling around, worriedly asking every bus that came in if it was going to London, my bus finally arrived. It was incredibly clean. And when I finally discovered where the bathroom was, it was also clean.
And the drivers,  they come as a team of 2, were friendly and always in a great mood.

We drove through the night, passing through Brussels at dawn. What a beautiful city. We crossed the English Channel in a tunnel, Eurotunnel. You don't actually drive through, you drive onto a giant train, and the giant train drives through. And on the other side, we came up in Dover. And there they were: the white cliffs of Dover. Which are, in fact, white.