Normandie, a little belated..

Greetings, all

I have to admit that ever since the beginning of last week, I've been dreading posting a new entry. Why? Because there was already so much to tell about just after the weekend, and then with my continuous busy week..oh man.

It's been about two weeks since my last post but here goes:

1. Normandy Weekend (Weekend of the 1st and 2nd): Woke up at the crack of dawn and met giant ISA group at Porte d'Orleans. Because Normandy is said to normally be about half of Paris' weather, dressed in jeans, boots, and my wool pull over thing. Took 4 hour bus ride up to Caen (pronounced like the English word cone). Slept for some of the way, but upon our arrival at the memorial there, realized that we'd been jipped and it was bloody hot out. But time for some pictures:

Also, right above the entrace to the building, there was a giant mirror, so I decided to grab a shot. Can you seeee me? ;)

We watched a rather depressing short film, with no sound but that of plane engines and machine guns going off. The screen was split in two and the two point of views was very confusing until about halfway through when I realize that one had been filmed by the Germans and the other had been filmed by the French. On one side you saw a man being congratulated and being sent into a plane, and on the other side you saw men laughing during a meal, and then dying as they came out of the water on Omaha Beach.

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After that cheery movie, we had lunch there and then continued onto Omaha beach and the American cemetery. They presented a lot of lost lives, but the rows upon rows of white crosses and Stars of David were beautiful. Walked along the shore of the beach barefoot, which was heavenly in the hot weather, and it was hard to imagine that such a peaceful beach where at that very moment families were swimming, hundred had lost their lives.

I was feeling a little inspired, so I took this one in b&w:

One of the Jewish graves. I don't know who you were, but RIP Efraim Loew

Does this look like the final resting place of hundreds?

The water felt sooo good on my feet:

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After the beach, we dusted as much of the sand as we could from our feet, got back on the bus, and drove about 15 minutes to Pointe du Hoc. I'm not going to go too much into it's history, but it was a cliff that the Americans rappeled up in order to 'attack and capture' the German troops they'd heard were there. But once they got to the top, they found that the Germans had abandoned it already, which turned out to be a good thing because supposedly, after the exhaustion from the climb, only about 90 men were in any condition to hold a gun out of the hundreds. Eventually, it was bombed, though most of the bunkers survived. Still, you'll see the size of those craters...

But man, the VIEW. Absolutely breathtaking. And it was such a perfect day, too. Behold:

Thanks to Monique for taking the picture :)

I'm kinda small in this picture, but look at how huge the craters from the bombs were!

A few ISAers and I got into a bunker ;)

Getting out...ho hut!

Later headed another hour or so to an apple press factory where after a tour, got to sample the best tasting apple juice of my life. And this is coming from a Washingtonian. We also tried the cider, pommeau, calvados, and creme de calvados. Basically each one was more concentrated in alcohol than the one before it. After the apple juice, pommeau (pronounced po-mo)was my favorite, though creme de calvados was pretty tasty as well. (Think Bailey's but with a slight apple-y taste. Delicious.) Calvados was fun to try, but it's a lot like port, and ehh, not really my thing. They also passed around galettes (like a cross between a cracker and a butter cookie) and some super tasty jams. One of them tasted like Christmas, and I was sold.

Almost everyone bought something, and I got a package of two bottles of the juice, and a bottle of the pommeau, plus the galettes and 2 jars of yummy jam. But fear not, I did not keep the bottle of pommeau, or even the butter galettes all to myself. A few days later I had dinner at Theo and his roommate's place and we split it there. And I had a couple of the galettes but left them there afterwards. It's still slightly infuriating how the French eat all these fattening things and still manage to be twigs..

Here's a pic of where they ferment all the apple juice:

The barrels that make the calvados, pommeau, and cider:

Almost time for the tasting! Here's Gabriel, our director/server ;)

Pouring some cider for Pauline..us next! :)

But back to my trip. After the apple press factory, we drove to our hotel back in Caen, and went out in search of dinner. We were all on the budget side, so unfortunately my meal, while not horrible, was a little less than satisfying. A bunch of us hit an Irish pub afterwards, mingled for a while, then headed back and crashed. Caen at night is pretty though, so here are some pics:

Caen City Hall:

Next morning, breakfast. Most de-lish croissants of my life. They brought them out in a large basket, still warm from the oven. I kid you not when I say each batch would disappear within the minute. Definitely made up for the saddest excuse of scrambled eggs I'd ever seen in my life. How do you mess something as simple as scrambled eggs up that bad??

After breakfast we packed back onto our bus but left an hour late because ISA had to locate a student who had apparently taken a nap when he'd finished breakfast. (Really, dude?) But also, a pic of Caen's little harbor just outside our hotel in the morning:

Another 2 hours later and we were at Mont Saint Michel..oh it was lovely! Here's a few pics from outside:

So a little about St. Michel. Though very tourist-y, only about 40 people actually live in the old fortress/abby now, a lot of them nuns and monks. Also, St. Michel is an island at high tide. Cool, huh? Well, here are some more pics from in and around. I took many, many more, but in the interest of time I'm gonna keep them to a minimum.

Shortly after entering...for those of you that've seen the Harry Potter movies, I'm sure you can see the resemblance to Diagon Alley!

Picture of the chapel from the outside:

One the way up:

Another side of the chapel:

I think this was once the dining hall, but I loved the arches:

There was a quaint courtyard in the shadow of the chapel with amazing architecture as well, I LOVED it. Here's a pic:

And finally! Got to the top, where they had a couple, large and beaitful terraces looking out over the land. There wasn't a whole lot to see, but seeing the land stretch out like that..it was stunning anyways:

That's all for this post just because it's gotten far too long...but at least I finally got the Normandy recap out of the way! Loire Valley update soon...ish...