Nice food + some shopping in France

Friday 30 Sep 05: The admin staff (or the plebs) will have lunch in Boulogne, France. *YAY* no work all day *Double YAY*

The Sales staff (the real employees) will be in a 4 day conference in Spain. That will be a quiet time when they are away *yay* plus they have to not only listen to the management bullshit, they have visible like it too.

Email: Have to be at the office at 7.45 sharply… What??? (Normally we start at 9)

Ah well, got there in time and jumped on to the coach. I had my Diet cokes and some nice pastry what on offer. Snoozed a bit on the way down, especially on the Eurotrain (not to be confused with the Eurostar). There was some weird movement on the Eurotrain and I could feel that I was close to feel sick. Might as well just sleep to ignore the whole thing.

The view from my coach window on the Eurotrain:

We had a nice lunch at The Welsh Pub – good quality of food. One doesn’t always get spoiled with the food quality here in the UK, even if you paid for it.

Starters: melon and Parma ham *mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm*

Main: Fillet steak with potatoes gratin and béarnaise sauce. One my all time favourites. Something had gone wrong in the planning cos 8 staff had chosen this but only 7 had been passed on to the restaurant. Would anyone volunteer to have the chicken instead? Answer was no. At the offer of 4 fillet steaks and some booze as compensation when we went shopping afterwards, one member of staff held up her hand. But somehow the kitchen found an extra steak.

Sorry I forgot to take a photot before I started to eat

Cheese plate: I ignored this because my tummy was full and I had the following left to eat:

Desert: Chocolate cake with ice crème. This was wonderful. Creamy chocolate in the middle * yum yum yum* Completely forgot to take a photo of this :(

This lunch was suppose to be 2 hours according to the schedule but it ended up being three and half hours before we left the restaurant. The plan had been to go shopping at Citi Europe after lunch but now there could only be 30 min of shopping.

Citi Europe is a huge shopping centre just outside Calais. My boyfriend had explained to me that this for all the Brits who wants to go aboard to buy cheap booze and cigarettes without have to deal with the French people.

I didn’t really feel the shopping buzz but then again I am going on holiday soon and want to spend my money then. But I tagged along to the supermarket. I had a quick look at the sweets section but there was basically the same stuff that could be bought in the UK. I couldn’t be bother.

When everybody was back, the coach drove through a security control before the Eurotunnel. On the bus, everybody was buzzing of what they had bought. After this control, where another stop for 15 minutes and another shopping place where cigarette could be bought (apparently no ciggiz could be purchase in the previous place).

I bought some stuff from Lancôme and Clinique and I thought I had made a bargain. Thanks to the internet I found out that my bargain was not really THAT good.

Product	High Street Boots	France €	France £	Savings
Clinique Clarifying lotion 2	£23.00	€ 23.20	£15.83	£7.17
Clinique Pore minimizer	£15.50	€ 23.20	£15.83	-£0.33
Lancôme Aqua Fusion	£26.00	€ 37.00	£25.28	£0.72
Lancôme Renergie Yeux	£40.00	€ 36.60	£25.01	£14.99
				£22.55

After all the rushing about, we made it on the scheduled 18.33 train back to the UK. But oh boy was the journey home taking forever. One member of the board was on this trip, we after all needed to be properly supervised. She lost her temper a few times and that sucked.

The coach was back the office at 21.00. So this day out of the office lasted much longer then a normal working day. I was tired when I came home and definitely thought it was a bit much time spent on the coach. But it was nice to chat with other member of staff that I normally don’t see.