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Published: March 23rd 2010
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Last weekend, Bucknell took us on an excursion to Normandy. As I’m sure you can tell, I’m getting very behind on my blogging due to me wanting to write down too many memories that I don’t want to forget and also due to the fact that generally when I leave I don’t bring my computer with me. So I’ll just say that Normandy was fabulous, but I’m going to try to not write such a length entry on it.
The 7 of us spring only BEFers (BEF=Bucknell en France) left from the university at the ungodly hour of 6am on Friday (March 12) to leave for northern France. So yes, that means start walking a little after 5:30 with all my stuff for the three day weekend. I decided that since it was the huge Bucknell bus for just us and I didn’t have a luggage restriction, I was going to take advantage of this and bring my big warm blanket (Snuggie 2.0 if you will) which came in handy because the second I got on the bus, I wrapped myself up and went back to sleep until we reached Saint Malo—a cute little beach town in Northern France that’s
walled in. We climbed up to the top of the wall and walked around the perimeter of the city, then took a little walk on the beach, ate lunch, and it was back on the bus.
The next place we went was Saint Michel—the cool Cathedral on top of an island/hill (it turns into an island at high tide). It’s really amazing how they got all the stones to the top way back in the 12th ish century. The pictures I have don’t give it justice, but it was absolutely beautiful.
We then went to Caen, where we stayed in hotel and Bucknell took us out to dinner at a crêpe specialty place which was delicious. We then had a “girls night plus Carl” where we all got in our PJs and ate tons of junk food we had bought at the Monoprix in the town (chocolate chip brioche, chips and salsa, cookies, all the good stuff.) Despite our PJ party, we were all in bed by midnight.
The next day we went to a museum about D-day at one of the sites where the Americans landed. It was interesting to look around, but they wouldn’t give
us a guided tour in English, so it was kind of pointless because it was all technical vocabulary about how it was possible for the allied troops to come in on their water/road plank things.
Afterwards we went to the American cemetery which was really amazing. It’s hard to explain, but I really did feel like I was back in the US (technically I was—we were on American ground). I have some pictures that don’t really do the place justice, but there were fields and fields of beautiful white crosses of all the boys/men who lost their lives in Normandy for freedom. We were kind of wondering why France has always hated us (as we’ve learned in IR) and then we remembered that after the war Roosevelt wanted to group France with the countries to be punished. But still, America did a lot for France.
Then we went to a beach (Point d’Hoc) where one of the bombings/evasions took place on D-day and there are still huge holes all over the ground from all the bombs—it was so weird to see such a pretty beach scene with the remnants of a terrible battle.
We went back to
the hotel, then the 7 of us all went out for dinner and had girls night plus Carl round 2.
The next day we went to the Musée de Paix (Museum of Peace) which focused especially on WWII but also had exhibits on the Cold War and other more minor recent wars, as well as a whole hall dedicated to all the Nobel Peace Prize winners. (And they had the lists of the Nobel Peace Prize winners for the sciences—I found a bunch of chemistry people who I knew because they named equations after themselves.)
We spent a good chunk of time there, and then it was a four hour or so bus ride back to Tours sleeping and chatting. It was a fabulous weekend and it made me so happy and thankful for the group of Bucknell people that I’m here with! We all get along so well and it’s just so fun! I can not picture a better group to do France with : )
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Alex
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I can't imagine what it would be like to be on the beaches of Normandy or go to the American Cemetery. I didn't realize that it's actually American soil. The first and I think last scenes of Saving Private Ryan take place (and I believe were filmed) there. If you have time, a curious political science major wants to know why Kennedy wanted to punish France. I don't remember learning that in APUSH.