On Thursday evening after classes, Michael, Eric, and I began our adventure to Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day. We were taking the train from Besancon to Le Mans to meet our friend Ben who graciously opened his apartment to us for the weekend! We all made it to the train station just fine but thats when Michael's luck turned around and not for the best. Us American kids are not used to train stations so we didn't know we had to go down to the basement to get from train track to train track. We saw a crosswalk with no warning signs what so ever so we took advantage of those….Bad idea! We never would have crossed if there were warning signs but this was not marked in any way and looked just like a ramp for crossing! Then 2 maintenance men came to us and said its dangerous and you can't do that, we said okay and thought we were in the clear….NOT! 2 mall cop like dudes for the train station and 2 managers came and wanted to fine us! we eventually got out of that but learned that lesson! Then we made it to where we were catching the big train to Paris, not knowing there were 2 of them and couldn't find our seats! we got away with sitting in first class until the last 15 minutes of our trip when a mean lady came and yelled at us. She checked our tickets and Michael did not have his youth card with him so he had to pay a fine! We eventually made it to Paris and managed to change stations via metro just fine! Then we finally made it to Ben in Le Mans!
Friday morning bright and early before any rooster was crowing we caught our train to Caen, Normandy! We got to be on the outskirts of the speech being given by the president of France Francois Hollande. It was great to be able to witness such a great event! I even shook a hand of a local mayor but i have no clue who it was!oops! While walking the streets of Caen, we met a 93 year old veteran named Tom Blakely of the 82nd Airbore. He was a Paratrooper who was one of the first to land in Normandy at the age of 20! He still to this day volunteers at the World War II Museum in New Orleans! Hopefully I get to go see him there. Its hard to think about the fact that there are very few vets still around who took part in D-Day. Meeting Tom was the best part of the trip! After that, we went to a restaurant to watch the international ceremony with all the world leaders….what an experience! We called it an early night and the next morning took a train to Bayeux to see the famous tapestry then a bus to Omaha Beach where we went to the American Museum and Cemetery on the beach. Reading the stories of all the men who served and watching videos was very eye opening. However, standing in the cemetery looking out to the English Channel was the most surreal part. We were able to hike down to the beach and collect rocks from the shingle that was used as protection. We got to look back up the hill and see the old bunkers that were still standing. We also got to go touch the water of the English Channel. After a long muddy hike back up the hill, we were waiting for our Bus back to Bayeux when we realized it was late because of the traffic and we would miss our train! We found a nice man from Virginia who graciously gave us a ride to the train station in Bayeux! But in the hurry to get in his car, bad luck struck Michael once again and he lost his phone! We got back to Le Mans just fine and that was the last hick-up Michael had but we gave him a lot of grief for his experience over the weekend!
When we got back to Besancon, my host mother was there to pick me up and take me to their Mountain house because it had gotten too hot in Besancon. We spent the night and the family and I went over to Switzerland to see where they make Gruyere Cheese in believe it or not Gruyere, Switzerland! Then we went to a chocolate factory for the Nestle brand partner Cailler! My host dad works there so we took a tour and got to try all the different chocolates! I was in Heaven!
It has been a long weekend and I am ready to get back into the routine of classes tomorrow morning!
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