Normandy et le Tour de France!!!

Wow !!! What a weekend !!! Friday afternoon, after what seemed like quite a long week of classes, one of the other kids from Georgetown (Randall) and I took a train headed for Normandy for what has probably been my favorite trip of my whole experience here in France! En route to Bayeux, our base in Normandy, we had to stop in Alencon and Caen. We had about a 2 hour layover in Alencon, so we decided to walk around the city a bit and actually discovered some neat stuff, including a pretty cathedral and our first WWII historical site of the trip, a chateau that was converted by the Germans to be used to hold French prisoners. Our stop in Caen was much shorter, only about 20 minutes, so we were barely able to step outside the train station. Finally, we arrived in Bayeux, got to our pleasant three-star hotel, and found quite literally the last restaurant open in the town at 10:30 pm; we found that to be a bit odd, since we expected there to be a lot of tourists, but there really weren’t that many. Those that we did run into at the hotel were all English speaking, and Randall and I had fun playing off that we were French and having them not be able to understand us-haha!

Saturday morning, Randy and I got up early and caught the first bus out to the American Cemetery at Normandy. This may sound trite, but it was very moving and was definitely one of the best things I’ve done since I’ve been here. Figures it’s gotta be something American to qualify as such. We started off by heading to the museum, which had lots of great historical info and artifacts. We then proceeded outside to the cemetery. It really reminded me of Arlington with all the rows of identical headstones (except for the Jewish soldiers who had a Star of David), just much smaller. Next, we made our way down the hill to Omaha Beach, which was incredible to finally see. We wandered around for quite a while, exploring all the time, especially the remaining German pillboxes. Once, we’d gotten back up to the cemetery, we caught a bus out to Pointe-du-Hoc, which was also very impressive, especially seeing how some 250 Army Rangers, of whom 90 survived, were able to scale the cliffs and take out this strong German defensive peninsula. We walked among the bomb craters (which were found every 10-15 feet) and checked out the AA positions as well. Sadly, we didn’t have much time here, as we had to catch one of the last buses back to Bayeux to be able to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry before we caught our train for Paris. This artwork dating to the 11th century A.D. depicting the conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror (formerly William the Bastard) was also very impressive, all 70 meters long of it! Our day was not over though, as we caught a train to Paris that night, took our stuff to a hotel, and then met up with some other friends from the Insitute (one from NY and the other from Vancouver) at the Eiffel Tower. We only made it up to the second level, since it was kinda late (about 11 pm), but we still had a blast!

Sunday, I headed down to early Mass again at Notre Dame, and then went with Randall down to les Champs-Elysées at about 11 am to get a great spot to see the finish of the Tour de France. We waited around for a long, long time, probably until about 4:30-5:00 until the riders actually came through (and to be quite honest, I think waiting around for the Inauguration in January was great practice for this, cause that was way worse, but we were definitely prepped and soooo ready to keep everyone else from trying to squeeze in and take our spots 100 yards from the finish, second row!). In the meantime, we watched them on the jumbotron take their good sweet old time until they were about 25 km from Paris, and about 75 km overall from the finish. It was actually cool to see how many different nationalities were there-lots of French, but also lots of Spanish, since the leader and eventual winner, Contador, is Spanish; we actually ended up right next to the only American flag I saw all day-quite ironic, and great to have some support! Before the cyclists arrived, however, we got to view the Caravan, a sort of parade of all the sponsors of the Tour de France. Not long after, Lance and the peloton (or pack) came thru and made 8 laps down the Champs-Elysées and back down a tunnel under the Louvre. In the end, as I’m sure people may have heard, Lance placed third, and definitely looked very unhappy up on the podium-the mark of a true competitor! Tired as can be (but no where near as tired as all the cyclists must have been!), Randy and I caught our train back to Tours, and I promptly hit the sack once I got home. Overall, A++ weekend!!

Classes have still been great too. This week, we’ve been going over idiomatic expressions, something I was really hoping to be able to learn. Family life has been fun as always as well, but sad too, as I had to say goodbye to the kids last night, as they left today with their dad for the coast at la Rochelle for three weeks of vacation (while my host mom still has to work this week). We had a lot of fun during our last night together, namely playing dress up. Each one of the kids dressed up as a different Matt in my clothes: Matt de yo (cool Matt), Matt de sortir (going-out Matt), and Matt sportif (sporty Matt). I, on the otherhand, took on the persona of Jeanthiblys (a mix of Jean-Baptiste, Thibault, and Maïlys), wearing, as best as I could, something from each of their own wardrobe. We then had a fashion show for my host mom, who had a ball laughing with (not at) us. Finally, it was time for bed, and goodbyes. A bit of crying ensued, especially from Jean-Baptiste, who I heard after we’d all gone to bed go back down to his mom for a while. I was very very sad as well, cause I’ll absolutely miss these kids. They’ve been great and tons of fun and have definitely helped me learn all lot, but I’m also definitely looking forward to going home to see all my little cuzs, or should I say chipmunks, too!

So, only two more days here in France. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun, as we’ve entered into a talent show with a bunch of friends from Michigan State to do a hip-hop battle, West Side Story style. We’ve been practicing a ton, and yes, video will be made available-haha!

A bientôt!

Peace