Home......

Okay. I am home, I am well rested, I am not on a funky French keyboard, and I am not paying a Euro for every 30 minutes of internet use, so now I will finish out the trip. And actually I just realized my last post wasn't deleted and it saved somewhere on my blog so let me just copy and paste! YAAAAAY!

So I have rented a VW Golf and am driving around France. And its a stick shift. And Hertz didn't give us the cord to plug in our GPS and so the battery died and we don't have it any more. After an hour of crying thinking I was going to be lost in the wilderness, I decided to embrace the adventure. And I'm going to write a thank you note to the road sign planners of France because they have done a superb job of not getting me lost. Plus I pretty much rock at driving in foreign countries, apparently.

So yes, I am in a killer blue Golf. we left Paris and after the meltdown over the GPS in Rouen we drove to Giverney to see the gardens of Monet. I tell you what those gardens could turn anyone into a famous painter because they are amazing. The waterlily pond is incredible and I could have stayed there forever. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I thought of Grandma Jackson the whole time because it looked like someplace she would have just adored. It was truly fantastic. Then we drove to some beach resort town on the English channel and had a picnic on the beach, ran down and put our feet in the water. It was really really windy but the water wasn't too bad! We had a good picnic just sitting on the boardwalk and trying to anchor down our food from the wind. On our way back we were treated to quite the break dance show from a bunch of Asian kids dancing to Black Eyed Peas. Again, lots of pelvic thrusts!

After that we drove on to Honfleur to find a place to stay for the night. Honfleur is a gorgeous town filled with lots of water and lots of boats. We kept finding intensly expensive hotels so we drove a little bit out of town and found a chain hotel called Premiere Classe. Oh boy. we got a room for 3 people but they wouldn't let us look at it before we checked in so we took our chances. We opened the door and simultaneously all 3 of us burst out laughing. It was 9 by 13 and we had to turn sideways to walk around the bed between the wall. the bathroom strongly resembled a bathroom on a trailer and the shower and the toilet were all up in each others space. We had one queen bed and one bed like bunk bed style up top. We quickly got out of there and headed to Honfleur to cruise the shops and the main street. It was an incredible town.

The next morning we left the classy Premiere Classe and drove on to the town of Arromanches, which is a good starting point for the American D Day sights. This city is absolutely amazing. We got a room in a little chateau up the hill and walked down to the main street that parallels the English channel. It has been cold and foggy, but we managed to find a crepe shop and eat outside. We walked around and then got books and read on the pier. It really was quite the French experience. These little towns have memorials all over the place. Every where you look there are American and French flags, paintings, sculptures, etc. Arromanches had soldiers painted on the buildings of the visitors center!

The next morning we did a tour of the D day sights which naturally means that I cried for about 6 straight hours. We started in the theatre at Arromanches and watched a movie that paralleled what Normandy looks like now and images and videos from the war. Then we drove to Longues sur Mer to see the German gun battery that still sits up on the coast. You can see the cliffs that the soldiers climbed and you can see the huge holes in these massive gun shelters where the Germans were bombed. The whole thing sits in this beautiful field of wildflowers right on the coast. Then we drove to the American Cemetery and Omaha beach. Oh wow. They showed a great movie about the stories of the soldiers and interviewed their families and then walked us through a museum showing the supplies and replicas of the ships and stuff. Then they had pictures of soldiers and told about how they had sacrificed and saved other lives, then you walk out into the cemetery with rolling hills of white marble crosses for the soldiers. It was incredibly moving. After that we drove to the town of St. Mere Eglais which is the town where a lot of the paratroopers landed and is the place of the story of the paratrooper who got stuck on the cathedral and played dead. In the cathedral they have amazing stained glass windows with paratroopers in them and messages to the soldiers who helped free the city. They also had the paratroopers museum with personal stories and letters. It really was an incredible day.

We dried our tears, hopped in the Golf and started driving until we could see the looming presence of Mt. St. Michel in the distance. Mt. St. Michel, which is about the biggest, creepiest old church Ever. It used to be an island but now there's just a big road out to it surrounded by quick sand. Yes, quick sand. According to our Rick Steves travel book. We got out there (luckily at low tide so our car didn't get swept away) and walked up the streets lined with gift shops staffed by Asian people until we finally reached the Abbey. Creepy McCreepster. We went for the night tour so they had on all of these dim lights and had live musicians playing in rooms throughout. They also had added in sound effects, like the sound of hearts beating in the room with the altars. Sketchy. we walked up all these winding staircases and were faced with signs about the dungeons and the prisons. That is not just the peaceful church its cracked up to be! There was also a giant room with the sounds of a clock ticking that had a giant hour glass in the middle so who knows what happens when that thing runs out. But dont go running to your Bishop just yet because it looked like we still have a while.

We drove on to Dinan and checked in to the Ibis hotel which was the best yet. Rick Steves just raved about Dinan but I was unimpressed for sure!! The best part was that i ordered a crepe with ice cream, yes ice cream, for breakfast. We left for this huge drive through straight fields of hay to find some valley of castles and after realizing how much driving made us want to take to the Golf with a set of golf clubs we changed our course and are now in Chartres which is a little bit outside of Paris. We slept in a cute little hotel and walked around the town. We must be getting more into city life and out of country life because that whole town just feels sketchy. There are weird people here! We ate some pancakes for dinner (French food is kind of the bomb) and walked around but decided to head inside the safety of our hotel after a while. The next morning we toured the cathedral (awesome. Love me some cathedrals) and then climbed up the 300+ stairs up the north bell tower. That is not a place for someone who doesn't like tiny winding staircases with no way out but climbing 300+ steep stairs. The view from the top was amazing and well worth it. Until we realized the only way down was back down the tiny stairway. Yea, people going up AND down definitely didn't fit and we had to get up close and personal a few times with some other tourists. They liked it.

We drove on to Versaille to go to the castle there. Wow. That is some big useless house. The hall of mirrors was awesome but it was just gold. Everywhere. The gardens were also pretty cool, but were a tad pathetic compared to Monet's garden. I was fairly unimpressed with the whole thing. It was impressive, but it wasn't my favorite stop. I did, however, love renting the golf cart and jetting around the gardens. And when I say "jetting" I mean "driving at almost the same speed as walking." They take no chances with those things. I also loved Marie Antoinettes house on the property. It was probably my favorite. I need to find myself a husband who will let me build my own house on the property and do whatever I want with it. It was beautiful and I loved those gardens a lot. We sadly returned the golf cart after almost losing the map, taking the wrong road and having the golf cart turn off, AND dropping my camera off the back (its just a little airborn! Its still good! Its still good!). We headed back to the REAL golf and started the most terrifying part of the trip:

Driving the Golf through Paris to return it to the airport.

I think I didn't exhale for about an hour and a half. Paris drivers are CRAZY. Luckily it was bumper to bumper traffic which was good for not getting lost because you can stare at road signs for about 20 minutes, but bad for driving a stick. Now I remember why I don't like those. We made it after getting lost in the terminal and having to reverse down an entire street. The nice Hertz man refunded my GPS after I kindly explained to him that his company was almost responsible for my untimely death if I would have gotten lost in the wilderness and eaten by French bears and that I was absolutely NOT about to pay the 65 Euro for a worthless NeverLost system that sat in the trunk. He was nice about it.

We caught a shuttle and checked into HEAVEN. Or the Marriott. Everyone spoke English, the room was monsterous, the sheets were clean, and I didn't feel like I needed to blockade the door with my suitcases in case the sketchy front desk people had a spare key. We rode into Paris to yet another rainstorm and ran for shelter in the nearest restaurant and dined on Pizza while watching people run through the rain. We walked down to the Latin quarter, window shopped, watch all of the drunk people table dance, and ended at the Notre Dame. Seriously, this city is absolutely amazing. I should live there. We got our last scoops of pistachio ice cream and headed back to HEAVEN for the best night's sleep in a very long time.

We flew out the next morning and I am home! It was an incredible experience and I am so thankful I got to see so much. It was incredible but it feels so good to be home! I'll put up pictures soon!