Blogs from Caen, Lower Normandy, France, Europe - page 4

This morning we had our usual breakfast of breads, cereal, what we have fondly called egg soup, yogurt, cheeses and meats. I will say the breads with the dark chocolate sticks baked in them have become my favorite. Larry and mom took their stash for lunch. Thank goodness I still have some snacks from home to tide me over. The prices are ridiculous here. A tiny cup of coffee costs 3,00 euros (about 3.99). Lunch for one couple was 28.00 and they just had hamburgers. Today another couple ordered 2 ham & cheese sandwiches, 2 tiny bags of chips, and two coke lights and it was over 18,00 euros. You add 1/3 on to the euro and you get about the amount. We have found if you go to a bakery you can get pastries and ... read more

With our bags packed we load everything into the Ford C-max, our rental car for the next five days. The next challenge - to figure out how to use the Sat Nav. We get the hang of it eventually and head away from Rotterdam and towards Lieden where we make a short pit stop to pick up costumes for a New Years fancy dress party later in our trip. Safely avoiding the canals (which are freaky to try and parallel park next to) we leave Leiden heading first west, then south-west along the Dutch border with Germany. As we travel through rural Netherlands we chuckle that instead of using stone walls, hedges or steel wire to fence their sheep, the Dutch make use of their abundant supply of water to surround the paddocks with mini moats. ... read more

Day 14: Sunday, July 5, 2009 CAEN, FRANCE Awoke 7:00 am. Paid the 6 euro (8.40 USD) to have breakfast at my hotel. The breakfast was ok. I thought it pricey for what I got. They offer the following: Cereals (3 kinds), Yogart (fruit or plain), orange juice, coffee / tea / hot chocolate, and 3 kinds of bread (croisant, roll, sliced bread). Maybe I'm just cheap. Today's plan is to tour Normandy. As many will know, Normandy has become synonymous with the WWII Allied D-Day landings that occurred there on June 6, 1944. The allies entered fortress europe by bombing the coast, dropping paratroopers, and assaulting the beaches code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. Many lives were lost, but it gave the allies a foothold in France that ultimately led to victory. Today, ... read more

Hello everyone! I hope all is well and that your semester is not too hectic. I’m doing amazingly. This coming week is our last week of classes before our two weeks off, so my professors decided it’d be a good idea to give me a test in every class but one next week. Not cool. But I’m nonetheless loving every moment here :) Every Saturday afternoon in March, I’ve had an Intercultural Workshop that I chose to participate in. It was lots of fun, and the differences between certain cultures were really interesting… things I had never really thought twice about were problems for students from other countries. Vice versa. Anyway, each Saturday we worked on a couple of skits that showed these differences, and this past Wednesday we acted them out…for the public. Oh joy. ... read more

Je disais à la fin de mon entrée précédente que je suis partie tôt le mardi matin pour une nouvelle destination. En effet, j’ai pris le train vers 8h30 pour me rendre en Basse-Normandie, plus précisément dans la ville de Caen. Bon, ne faites pas comme moi et prononcer Caïn (la madame au comptoir m’a fait de l’attitude), il faut plutôt dire « Can ». Je suis arrivée un peu avant 11h et j’ai ensuite dû prendre un « Bus Vert » vers le petit village de Courseulle-sur-Mer où se trouve une des fameuses plages du Débarquement de Normandie. En montant dans le bus, je me suis renseigné auprès du chauffeur à savoir quand je devais descendre et il a dû comprendre par mon accent que j’étais une touriste qui allait à la plage. Le trajet ... read more