Blogs from Lower Normandy, France, Europe - page 13

Sad to say today is our last sea day. Tomorrow we begin exploring NE France. We are 127 nautical miles from St. Malo and arrive there early tomorrow morning. Today there will be the last Hold'em Tournaments, the final Trivia game the $100,000 bingo and a formal night. Yesterday, I came in second in one Hold'em game and was first out in the next. My cold is breaking up but ML is now feeling a tinge of one. She is actively refusing delivery. Last night we retired to the Crow's Nest after dinner to plot and plan our London activities. Jan and Bev will try to get tickets to A Chorus Line and we plan to go to Hampton Court on Sunday, weather permitting. If not, we'll find something else to do. There is so much ... read more

The alarm woke us up at 6am. We lost another hour. We are in Le Havre, France. I jumped in the shower as Ken went to get our lattes and croissants. 3,000,000 American troops passed through the Le Havre sea port. We are going to Normandy, the landing beaches for D-day. There are 60 miles of landing beaches and we will only have time to visit some of them. Omaha is the largest-4 miles long. Our guide is Jean Paul, he is funny; French; his English is really good. I'm thankful Jean Paul doesn't feel the need to talk non-stop. The sky is sunny with some clouds, about 47 degrees. We crossed over a beautiful suspension bridge, over the river Seine, to a town named Honfleur. We are driving through the countryside, a little town named ... read more

Mont Saint-Michel. Our first stop on this day was to be Mont Saint-Michel off the coast of Normandy. This would be followed by a visit to Omaha Beach, site of the American Forces D-Day landings on June 6, 1944. I was excited at both these prospects. Pictures of Mont Saint-Michel had always struck a chord of wonder, rising, as it does, pyramid-like out of the sea to a perfect pinnacle formed by the spire of the abbey. What was exciting about Omaha Beach was that it was just down shore from Juno Beach, where Canadian troops had landed. We were on a special mission related to Juno Beach. The drive to Mont Saint-Michel took about 3 hours and went through rolling Normandy farmland featuring a lot of canola and flax. Cindy drew our attention to the ... read more

Did you remember at what point in time you realized your partner was “the one”? I do. I was suddenly down with dengue fever in a strange city. My family was living on the other side of the country. I didn’t know who to turn to, so I contacted my then ex boyfriend (we were on a long break). Not only did he help to checked me in to a hospital, he also visited me every single night after work – without being asked. He even sneaked in fried chicken when I hated the hospital food. For comparison, my parents only visited me once for couple of hours in the 2 weeks duration of my hospitalization. To make matter worse, my lease was actually due that weekend and I have already signed new lease elsewhere. My ... read more

We had a really nice last morning. I made breakfast - Gordon Ramsey's famous scrambled eggs and bacon. While we ate, we explored the apartment's CD collection and found a couple of new artists that we like. We wanted to go back to a few of the sites that we visited yesterday starting with Sainte Mere-Eglise. There was a few antique stores there Matt wanted to visit. We barely had enough time yesterday to pop into one, and Matt found what he has been looking for in the US but couldn't find, a big old shell casing to use as a garbage can in his WWII gun room - it's even German! He was really hoping to find something old and dug up from the area today, and he did. An old German helmet complete with ... read more