Normandy and Mont St-Michael

Mont St Michael


American Cemetary


Monument at the cemetary


such a pretty beach!!!


Sunrise in Paris!! (hope i never have to see it again)

Well we left saturday morning before the sun was up...I do not do well with mornings. It was a three hour bus ride to Normandy and I slept most of the way haha. But of course within minutes of waking up I'm irritated. I cannot stand stupid people. This girl in the program asked if it was warmer in Normandy...yes idiot, we just drove three hours north and to the OCEAN...its totally warmer, I hope you brought your bathing suit. As you can see I'm still irritated. Common sense should be a human requirement. Anyways...our first stop was a museum which actually had some interesting things in it. It outlined WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. It was interesting to see France's perspective on those wars considering I have only learned about the US involvement. I'd love to go to Germany and see how they sugarcoat WWII. (If they do). I took a ton of pictures for you Dad because I figured you would've loved to see this museum, so I'll email them all to you instead of posting a hundred pictures on my blog. I'd be home for summer by the time it uploaded (no joke). Then we were off to Normandy. I had no idea (or maybe forgot) that the French gave the US the land off of Omaha beach. It was cool to be on American soil in France and see the American Flag everywhere. IT WAS AMAZING!!! I got to put my feet in the other side of the atlantic ocean...and that water is WAY colder than plymouth water. Seeing the actual cemetary was a little weirder than I expected. Everything is lined up so perfectly and I had no idea that there were names on the crosses and I had no idea they had the star of david for the jewish soldiers. (It makes sense, I just never thought about it). Apres ca we went to Pointe du Hoc (where they gave the signal saying they had conquered the beach and disarmed the weapons) which was pretty cool to see the actual bunkers still intact. After that we had a "surprise" and went to an apple farm (Normandy is known for apples and cheese, it was cow country) and we got to try fresh apple and pear juice, apple cider (its alcoholic), some sort of apple champagne (GROSS), and calvados (EVEN more disgusting), it was like a whiskey? Something like that. It was cool to see the process. They use 28 different kinds of apples (most of which you wouldn't want to eat apparently) and they produce over 70,000 bottles of apple champagne a year. People are crazy to actually want to drink that but whatever. Apparently there was a time a long time ago where the water was so bad in France that northern france lived off of apple products and babies were even given the calvados. Must've been before child protection services was created because giving your baby whiskey doesn't seem kosher to me.

Anyways, after finally arriving in Caen where our hotel was we were able to actually eat. We went to this little restaurant and I got french onion soup and duck with roasted potatoes. Soooo good. We went out for one of the guy's 21st to a rum bar which was pretty cool. It had palm trees and the floor was even covered in sand. We had to brave the monsoon to do all of this, but we were in Normandy so I guess we had to experience the weather the soldiers experienced in 1944? I dunno, but we joked about that on the walk back. It was also nice to sleep in a bed with a real down comforter, I contemplated bringing it back with me but wasn't sure how that'd go over with ISA (who I am officially not a huge fan of, but thats another story).

Today we went to Mont St-Michael and braved yet another monsoon...I was NOT a fan, AT ALL...being basically on an island in the ocean walking up over 300 stairs to the very top of a mountain just was not what I wanted to do in crazy winds. But that's just me. The idiot who asked if it was warmer when we first got to Normandy asked why it was so wet out. If I had been near her, I would've pushed her into the water. Zero tolerance for idiots. "Why is it wet?" "Hmmmm idk, its not raining or anything, and we're not surrounded by the ocean in high speed winds" STUPID! The church was so beautiful though so luckily for her I forgot about her comment pretty quickly. Steph, Bay and I went off on our own when our tour guide started singing songs and taking forever to get through one room. We went exploring and took a bunch of stupid/funny pictures. Then we got lunch which consisted of a caramel toffee crepe and soft serve ice cream 20 minutes after the crepe. I shouldn't be allowed to live on my own, I eat like a 7 year old would if given the choice. Whatever though. After lunch on our way to the bus the sun came out...figures. Anddd now I'm finally back after a (surprise) 5 hour bus ride home. Not a fan. But its nice to be back in Paris.