Battles and Bayeux

Today, we got up, ate a lovely, lovely breakfast at the hotel, and parti-ed at 9am to go the the American cemetary and Omaha Beach. On the way there, we passed the Canadian memorial at Juno Beach; despite being the history buff that I am, I had forgotten about the Canadian regiment that came in there and I wish we could have stopped or a bit. Well, we got to the memorial and cemetary and it was especially powerful going there right after seeing the movies and being at the museum yesteray. Having those images fresh in my mind made it quite emotional to see all those white crosses in their perfectly straight rows (with an occasional Star of David in the midst). There were some soldiers that I saw who had died on the 6th or 7th of June in 1944, so I knew they had most likely died on the beach just down the hill from me. Most, however, died sometime later during 1944 or '45. I was even able to walk down to the beach because it was low tide. There is nothing besides the memorial to even indicate such a fierce battle having happened there.

Then, after a super-windy morning at Omaha Beach, we set of to visit Pointe du Hoc, which was the main German communications base. Out of 225 American Rangers that went in right before Operation Overlord, only 90 survived this assault, but they were able to take over the German base and because of them, the German communication lines were down when the beach landings happened early the morning of June 6th. It was absolutely pouring by the time we got there, but about halfway through our hour it was just spitting but incredibly windy. It was not emotional in the same way the cemetary was, but it was just as powerful, with huge craters everywhere left from bombs and the remnents of bunkers and storage rooms.

Then we left Point du Hoc to got to Bayeux to see the tapestry there that depicts the Norman invasion of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror. It was made in 1070 to in order to commemorate his victory and share with the illterate population how great he was. Amazingly it survived the French Revolution and both world wars only missing one panel at the very end.

Then, we were finally able to get back in the bus (I was finally able to change into dry socks) and we made the three-hour drive (Gilligan's Island, anyone?) back to Nantes and I had a nice, warm dinner with my host mom.

Cannily in Caen

This morning, I set off to Place Jean V to hop on a tour bus to Caen in Normandy. Once we got there (it was an IES trip), we walked around the town, grabbed a sandwich (or two) and had a picnic on the castle. After our free time, we went to the Caen Memorial Museum, which is the main museum in Normandy on WWII, what lead up to it, and the Cold War. We spent about 4 hours there and it still wasn't enough. There was so much information to soak in, so many personal stories to read or listen to, and so many 'artifacts' to see. (It feels weird saying artifacts when they're only 60 years old... maybe I should start calling my parents artifacts too? Haa, just kidding!)

After the museum, we went to our hotel for the night. It was very chic, right in the centre ville, and was so much nicer than the hotel we were at for orientation in Tours. I took the shampoo sample, hee. I felt very mischevious doing that. We had a delicious buffet dinner where we all at way too much, especially when the desserts came out. Who says no to French pastry though?