Dora the Explorer Strikes Again...

I went through a period in my life, as many will know, where I was obsessed with Dora the Explorer. I thought she was amazing. An actual wicked-cool role model for little girl that broke the stereotypical female toy consensus.
She lived in me again today.
Calais was glorious today. It was beautiful weather...warm with a slight breeze perfect for exploring. So that's what I did. After waking Katie up this morning for an eventful Skype sesh in which my dongle gave up, I decided to go out and do something with my life. And I knew exactly what it was that I was going to do.
There is an old WW2 fort near the Coquelles store, so I jumped into the car and headed over there. Unfortunately, like the rest of France, the fort was shut on a Sunday (the only way I could console myself for my massive error was that it looks like it has been closed over winter - hopefully it will open soon cause I think it might be nice to look round). So instead, and stubbonly refusing to give up I walked round the fort, which took me a grand total of twenty minutes.
After this, I got back in the car and was about to head home but on the basis of not wanting to miss out on a beautiful day and avoiding working for my WSET at all costs instead of turning right to come home, i turned left, put my foot down (within the speed limits, obvs Alex) and drove. I had no idea what came over me, and I did do the occasional manical laugh as I drove thing what the fuck am I doing...
I drove for a good fifteen minutes (daring) before the sensible me started screaming WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!! YOU ARE IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY, YOU CAN'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE, WHAT IF YOU GET STUCK, OR BREAK DOWN, OR RUN OUT OF PETROL!!!! At this point, I started looking for somewhere to turn around and drive back when I stumbled across this...

The Dover Crossing monument.

I wish I could upload pictures - stupid dongle.

It is one half of a monument to remember those that lost their life crossing th Channel during the war. It was absolutely beautiful and I would be keen to see the other half of the monument which is in Dover. But it was surrounded by beautiful scenary, and it was that clear that you could see the White Cliffs. I remember coming on my interview for the job and Al, the managing director of Majestic in France, was like "on a clear day you can see Dover" and I remember thinking, "yeah right, that's just your spiel..." I take it all back Al. You could see the cliffs and I got a bit teary thinking "thats home". Yes i am aware iit is not really home, I don't live in or near the White Cliffs of Dover but you know what I mean!

So after standing and staring for what must have been a good couple of hours I decided to head back and made a concious note that while I am here I need to get more into history - I need to actually understand what happened in WWII and get to grips with it because there is so much history all around where I am living it would be stupid not to - a trip to Dunkirk is also in order.

My god.

France is turning me into a dweeb.

Help!