The Past Two Weeks (Part 2: Bayeux and D-Day Beaches)

Ok, so I guess when I said tomorrow I really meant a couple of weeks. Sorry, guys.

Bayeux

A lot has happened since Toussaint break, all of which I will write about, I swear. But, going back a few weeks. . .

My second half of Toussaint break was spent in the company of two wonderful Americans, Mary from Michigan and Bridget from Kansas. Mary lives in Bayeux, which is farther north, about an hour and 15 minutes from Flers. It is a gorgeous town, a bit bigger than Flers, and much more quaint and adorable. I think it made Olivier a little depressed to see how nice it was, the jealousy bug can be rough.  Bayeux is famous for its tapestry, (which we unfortunately didn't have time to see, but it gave us a good excuse to go back!) and its cathedral. We did visit the cathedral because it was free and absolutely gorgeous. It even had a crypt! It was my first crypt! (Nerd alert!) I felt like Buffy could have been around any corner!

Anyways. We got to Bayeux around 5pm and walked around town with Mary. It is a much more tourist friendly place, and a lot of tourists use it as a starting point before seeing the D-Day beaches because it is only about 10 min from the Channel. We had a lovely dinner of spaghetti with Mary's Norwegian  housemate and then went out for a beer at a local Irish pub. It was a great night, and it was fun to speak in rapid girly English. We talked boys and all other things we were starved for while the boys bonded over who-knows-what. It was wonderful.

View from afar, the cathedral.

Better view. B-E-A-utiful! 

The next morning we picked Bridget up from the train station and packed up a picnic lunch and were on our way to the beach!

  We kind of started randomly, directly north of Bayeux and saw a bunch of D-Day sights just following the coast. We started in Arromanches and went along all the way to Point du Hoc in the West.

We visited Gold and Omaha beaches and the American cemetery and museum which  were really amazing. I had been there before but we didn't have a ton of time and I remember running out of the museum to catch a peak of the cemetery before I had to get back on a bus. This time we had until the place closed and time flew by. We stayed there for almost 3 hours and we didn't even notice. The American cemetery was really interesting because it has pictures and stories of people who fought and pieces of their lives like good luck charms or letters or playing cards that the kept with them. Every new picture or story brought a new bit of reality to the past. It was crazy to think about the fact that every soldier had a story and about how many soldiers died on the beaches there, but ultimately were able to push through and push back the Germans. Crazy. The beaches we visited were very peaceful and had scattered memorial sites with markers or information. Mostly though it was just beautiful. The day was perfect and it was hard to imagine everything that had happened on the beaches before.

Mary and I took a picture of each other at our first stop. 

We drove home exhausted but satisfied by the amount of beach that we had seen. It was only after that I realized that the 11th was Veterans day and that we went right before. That probably explains why it was so crowded in some places. Luckily there is lots of space on the beach, and it was beautiful.

American Cemetery

Next up is the story of my visit to Caen for my Social Security card!

Teaser: I am now the proud  owner of an x-ray of my chest.

Thanks for reading!

Shoshana

The Past Two Weeks (Part 1: Angers)

Hello again,

After a very long absence I am finally back in Flers with the motivation to tell you all the juicy details of my Toussaint break. As I wrote in my last post, my first week of break I spent in Paris (suburbs) and Angers with Olivier's family. It was so much fun and I ate way way too much good food. We celebrated four birthdays in total and I ate a peice of about six different birthday cakes. It was wonderful.

My first weekend was spent in Saclay, which is a suburb of Paris where the aunt, uncle and cousins of Olivier live. For the uncle's 50th and the cousin's 25 there was a combined birthday party. It was a really fun mix because there were people of all ages there, and let me tell you, it was not the 20 somethings who went to bed last. I was a wimp and snuck off to bed around 2:30ish but there were about 40 people still there when I left and apparently (Olivier told me after) there were about a dozen people still going strong until about 5am. Those crazy party people. There was a ton to eat and they played a good mix of music all night. It was funny because they played old 90s music and there were a bunch of American songs that brought me back to 5th grade. Another great thing about French parties (I don't know if I have mentioned this before) is the dancing. It is traditional to do what they call "The Rock" (you have to imagine it in a French accent, doing that crazy throat "r" thing) it is basically swing dancing, and the 50 something set was on fire with that stuff. Olivier's aunt got tossed through the air like nobodies business, and everyone was spinning around like crazy. It was a little intimidating but luckily Olivier's dancing is a lot like mine so we did our own version out of range of getting kicked or smashed into by the "rockers." Another thing that I love about French dance parties is the style of solo dancing. I don't know why it is like this, but French people dance like me. I know most of you reading this probably don't really know how I dance, but it is not good. I flail my arms, do some jumpy things back and forth and sway. It is not super cool, let's just say that. I don't know how to club dance or move my butt in ways that are cool or attractive, but luckily in France, neither does anyone else! I am with my people. I can not feel ashamed of my lack of moves because everyone dances like me, and they just don't care! It is awesome!

Anyways. The next day they put out even more food for a lunch with mostly the uncle's friends and some of the younger set who had stayed the night. We ate these delicious thing called nems. They are the French version of an egg roll I think, and people love them. I love them too, they are delicious, but they are a very exciting thing that all French people know and love, apparently.

After the yummy lunch of nems, Olivier and I drove back to Angers. Of course the lunch went until 3ish and then we had coffee and cake and more wine, so we left when the sun was starting to go down and by the time we got to Anger it was around 9:30ish, such is the French Sunday lunch.

When we got to Angers we were alone in the house except for Olivier's dad and nephew who was staying for a few days over the break, and we did some outdoor work in the garden until Olivier's mom got home. She got home on her birthday, and Olivier and I prepared a cake and set the table nicely, and helped get dinner ready. We slipped out to get a quick birthday gift and that night had a quiet little birthday dinner for her.

The next day Olivier and I went over to his sister's house to help put in a staircase and to do other work that needed doing. I ended up mostly just playing with the one year old twin boys for most of the time, but we did manage to get some pruning done and cleared some of the back garden. I even sawed off tree limbs myself. It was fun to do a little physical labor after sitting around like I have been for the past few weeks. With us were Olivier's oldest sister and her boyfriend, so it was a little like a mini party there too. We drank a lot of wine, and made a fire in the fire place in the dining room.  It was a cozy little stay.

The next day we drove back to Angers where most of the rest of the family had arrived. They had all brought their respective other (boyfriends and girlfriends) and we ate a quick dinner and everyone caught up a little bit.

The next night was planned a double birthday party for Olivier's sister, Gabrielle, and mom, Marie, and we made three more cakes and planned our costumes. They wanted a Halloween theme, and in France they stick to the more traditional scary costumes with the occasional princess or two. We all found things to put together from the costume box at the house and one of the other sisters, Sybille, bought a little costume make-up kit and we went from there. I was a disco vampire (just a vampire with a gold cloth skirt and cape) and there were other vampires and dead soldiers. We planned and made a big dinner and everyone wore a costume and we stayed up late talking and of course drinking wine. One of Olivier's brothers and his girlfriend even juggled fire outside after dinner. It was pretty crazy.

I took a bunch of pictures of the night. It was too hilarious to miss. Also, I just want to give some photo credit to Olivier who I call "my tourist"  because he likes to take pictures more than me.

Ok, here goes. No making fun, please? Ok, you can if you want. 

Me, Baptiste (Gabrielle's bf), and Victor (a bat, and Olivier's nephew)

Actually, scary.

Beautiful sisters and vampires (Gabrielle and Mayeule)

A knight, (aka Clément) serving dinner (the blurry princess next to him is his daughter)

Ladybug Ferréol with girlfriend Nadège

Littlest sister Noémie with niece, princess Capucine (sister to bat Victor)

Palex (Pierre-Alexandre boyfriend to ->) Sybille (sister)

Marie, Mathias (nephew, son of Mayeule) and Capucine again.

PS. Sorry again for the photo quality of some of these, I think the camera lens was humid or something.

Well, that's all for now. I will write about my second half of break tomorrow! Get excited. It was super!

Thanks for reading!

Shoshana