Don't let the devil pull you down! Quicksand!!

D-Day Beaches and le Mont Saint Michel
Monday we went to the World War II memorial museum in Caen, Normandy and then went to the American Cemetery where all of the American soldiers who died in Normandy, mainly from the D-day invasion. It was enlightening to watch the video in the museum showing the invasion and the progress the Allies made, then to go to the Cemetery. It’s hard to believe all of the horror that happened in this beautiful country, only 60 years ago, and how times have changed. It made me thankful to be living now in a time of (semi) peace, where I’m not terrified of my country’s enemies taking over and destroying everything I’ve ever known, and hurting my family and friends, and how unfortunate it was that 5,000 young men had to fight and risk their lives so that we could all live freely.

Our next stop was Mont St. Michel. This was my 3rd time visiting le Mont Saint Michel, but it’s just as beautiful and awe-inspiring as the first time, plus we got to walk across!! There was a spring tide and was still covering the parking lot, so we parked down the street a little bit, and we walked down. As we were walking, we realized that the tide was receding, so we called Tony and Caroline, and hitched a ride back with them, and splashed around a bit in the water. After our tour of Mont St. Michel (same tour guide as last time, btw), we raced back to the vans and headed to the other side of Mont saint michel’s bank (it’s essentially on an island, well it was back in the day at least), and met our guide to walk across through the tides to Mont St Michel. It was sooo nice! Our guide pointed out a skate egg sac (mermaid’s purse), a cuttlefish bone, a bryozoans colony, and some sponges. (btw, B. Wysor would be proud. I spent some time looking at algae (and definitely looked like the marine ornamental dork that I am) and tried to identify it... gotta love that phycology class ;) ) It was really cool to walk through the silt and get stuck in the quick sand! Apparently, back in the day the pilgrims thought that quick sand was like the devil was pulling you down to him... something to avoid! We, however, made our guide find it for us, taught us how to get stuck in it, and had a blast fighting to get out of it. It was a lot of fun, definitely worth the 8 km walk through silt.

Joyeux fête de bastille!!
Yesterday was Bastille Day—French Independence Day. A group of us went into Paris to check it out. Upon arriving in Gare Saint Lazare in Paris, a thunderstorm hit. I guess it was due—it was the first time it rained since I’ve been here…. 3 weeks. After the rain subsided, we walked around Notre Dame, did some touristy shopping and headed toward la Place de la Concorde and walked down the Champs Elysees. The Champs Elysees was insane! Soo many people everywhere! I was a bit surprised though. I was sort of expecting to see a bunch of red, white and blue (French colors too, not just American) everyone and a lot of celebrations, but it seemed like the rain washed away some of the cheer. Despite this, it was a beautiful afternoon. We caught the train back to Rouen at a perfect time. As we were waiting in line for a taxi, we could hear the fireworks going off. We raced down to the waterfront and got to see some really beautiful fireworks, and more people than I’ve ever seen in Rouen, combined ;) .

It's time for bed! Big day ahead tomorrow! Class and a trip to Bruxelles in Belgium for the weekend.
Bisous!
<3 Lisa