Normandy

I'm sorry i didn't write this like a week ago because i feel like the distance of time will leave me with musings that do not do justice to Normandy.

On the one hand it was just like any touristy expidition- a coach bus, hotel, breakfast with croissants and audio guided tours of old places. On the other hand it was so simple, easy and peaceful that it was somehow than just a mere shuffling in and out of museums and monuments. As I wrote somewhere already to someone.. can't remember when or where- I hadn't realised how much i missed the country until I found myself one more surrounded by green, cows, and little villages. I sit in my room on the sixth floor of my house in Paris - out my window stretch scattered rooftops, and it doesn't intrinsically bother me- I like it even. It looks like a european city: the kind that people in movies always see. But there's an affect that you don't even sense from the everyday pavement beneath your feet, the gusts of stale wind that rush past in the subway, The stiff and silent stares of business men with shiny shoes and ironed shirts and the artifice after artifice that though aesthetically pleasing and impressive - at the same time can not equal nature's creation. I never though that much about it but when you live in the city you're constantly surrounded by human life- you don't see all of it, because it's hidden in the buildings you walk past - it's under your feet as you walk over streets that hide beneath them stretching metro lines. It was nice to just be back with grass and stretching views of ocean or fields.

The itinerary began with a visit to the disembarkment museum and one of the beaches of Normandy turned into an artificial port during WWII. Afterwards we rode onto the American Cemetary at Omaha Beach, which is technically American ground- so i guess i went back to the U.S. for a few hours last week. The weather was amazing- sunny and clear - so i just strolled through all of the gravestones looking at the different states the soldiers had come from. Saturday night we stayed in a small hotel and watched the rugby game in the hotel bar. Sunday we headed onto Mount Saint Micheal, another day of beautiful weather and clay beaches to stroll. Then onto the Tapestry of Bayeau and then The trip concluded with a visit to a chateau and a viewing of The Gladiator dubbed into french on the bus- I really don't think any french person should ever try to dub for Russell Crow- but so it was.