A Guest Post by Yours Truly (Month 4)

~ A guest post by Alex ~

Samantha and I have been one part busy, one part lazy over the last few weeks, so I decided to give her a hand and write a guest blog post. I hope I can provide at least half the humour Samantha seems to pack into these posts, so enjoy! 

Let’s begin by asking a simple question: How do you cover what we’ve done in the last month in a single post? You don’t! Hopefully this will motivate us to keep writing and fill in all the blanks with more stories.

Day-Trip to Bayeux/Landing Beaches

Oh boy do I not miss having to go on class trips. Upon embarking on the bus, we were introduced to our guide (read: chaperone) for the day: Pierette (daughter of Pierre). Here was a woman who is passionate about teaching people about both the language and history of Normandy on a bus of 50 twenty-something (actually, many were 18 and 19) non-native French speakers. I did not envy her. From what I overheard, most of the students had been out partying until anywhere from 4-6 am the night before, so I think Samantha and I were the only people actually excited about taking the trip.

In front of an old mill in Bayeux, excited for a day of sight-seeing!

Le Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux

Some beautiful stained-glass inside the cathedral

We started by going to Bayeux, where they have a world famous tapestry depicting the Norman conquest of England in the mid-11th century. It’s really a remarkable piece of work (and history) that was made in England in about 1070, just after William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings. It’s about 70 metres long (so ~3/4 the length of a football field) and was embroidered–which means it technically isn’t a tapestry, but it still goes by the much catchier name–by monks with 8 colours of thread. It was truly awesome to see this relic, and it’s amazing that they have been able to preserve it for nearly 1000 years. 

An omen in the form of Hayley's comet.

Guillaume's boat. Notice the fancy mast he's rocking!

We had an interesting adventure to start our trip, however, because Samantha and I weren’t content with just following the audio guide and quickly walking around the tapestry like most people, but wanted to go back to the beginning and look in more detail. Since we were the first people of the 50-person group to enter, we assumed we would have enough time to go back and catch up, but were we ever wrong. When we left the display, the tour group was nowhere to be seen. Generally, it’s hard to lose 48 people, so we quickly left the museum and went into the street to look for signs of them, to no avail. We went back to the museum and asked the security guard if he saw our group leave, to which he responded no, but did mention that there was an upstairs to the museum and that we may want to check there first…whoops. Anyway, after returning to the pack, we made sure to keep pace for the rest of the day. 

"Don't make me tell Miss Finster on you!"

The Doomsday Book. It sounds much cooler than it is, since it was basically just the first ever survey/census of the British empire.

After the museum, we had about an hour to grab lunch before we regrouped and moved on to the D-Day landing beaches. We went to this cute café with very eccentric decoration; it was a lucky find with great food! 

Chez Paulette; an eclectic café with delicious bagel-sandwiches (hard to come by in France!)

We were far too rushed all day, as we easily could have spent an entire day just roaming the narrow, historic streets of Bayeux checking out other museums, but we were herded onto our bus and moved to the next stop: the landing beaches. However, the pace didn’t let up at all and we went to 4 war-related stops in about 3.5 hours that afternoon, which isn’t nearly enough time to appreciate (let alone really see) where we were.

I won’t go into too much detail, but we saw a few bunkers, a few old anti-aircraft guns, and some memorial statues. We also came across some recruits in the French Army who were running some training exercises (jogging by us) so naturally most people had to capture the moment by trying to get a selfie. When they passed our group, many of the recruits smiled and/or waved, which irked some of the Americans who proudly boasted that their Marines were too cool/tough to smile to a group of tourists.

A war bunker and cannon

The third stop of the afternoon was an American War Museum. We learned a fun fact on our drive to the museum, namely that the French wanted to gift the Americans their section of the beaches as a sign of thanks for their war efforts but they weren’t permitted. It’s because the French constitution states that the République (de la France) is indivisible, so they had to settle with giving the Americans military authority. So, you know what that means: TSA-style security checks for all visitors! After going though security, we had a whopping 60 minutes to walk through the American War Museum, which obviously wasn’t nearly enough time. The plan was to meet back at the bus approximately an hour before the museum closed so we could return back to Caen (the planning and timing could have been better). Anyway, most of us followed the schedule and made it back to the bus on time, but ultimately we had to wait over 30 minutes for people who either lost track of time or, just frankly, didn’t care about when the bus was supposed to leave. It was rather frustrating, and several of the more obnoxious passengers decided to sneer and boo at the latecomers; I think everyone would have rather we all agreed to stay an extra 30 minutes as there was a lot more to see. 

The banks of Pointe du Hoc. 

One American was very proud of the fact that we were visiting Pointe du Hoc, a site dedicated to a group of Texas Rangers who faced a nearly impossible, albeit crucial, mission to destroy some 155 mm guns overlooking the landing beaches. She displayed her pride in the most American (obnoxious?) way she knew, by repeatedly chanting “USA!” and cheering every time the word “Texas” was mentioned by Pierette. Apparently, however, she wasn’t much of a fan of baseball because when I made a few comments about the superiority of the Jays she just stared blankly at me. So much for trying to land a joke…

More than anything it just whet our appetite and made us want to return–perhaps on a less windy day–to Bayeux and the Courseulles-sur-mer area. 

Visiting with Far-Away Friends

We went to Paris to visit with some of my longtime friends Patrick and Angela who were taking a trip to Europe during their holidays for Chinese New Year. They had been travelling for about 7 days before we met up with them, and being on the last leg of their journey we kept things fairly low-key. Our reunion was short-lived, only about 40 hours in total, but as always we made the most of it. We made sure to highlight the best qualities of living in France: great (and cheap!) wine, cheese, and bread; by the end of the visit we had consumed about 8 bottles of wine. It was great to catch up with the two of them, and to do a bit more sightseeing in Paris. I know Samantha has seen nearly every attraction and museum in the city, but I’ve only spent a few days total in Paris, so it was great to check out the art in the Musée d’Orsay. 

Musée d'Orsay is one of the best art museums I've ever visited, and it's housed in an old train station!

Alex, Angela, Sam & Patrick at Musée d'Orsay

The Sacré-Cœur Basilica, located way on the top of a hill in Montmartre. Just around the corner is a very cute artist's village.

You can see the entire Parisian landscape from the hill (the Eiffel Tower can't be seen, but is to the right) and it's a great view!

And Samantha got to meet up with her oldest friend Jessie (who lives in London and Sam hasn't been able to see for the past few years), who was in Paris for some meetings. They went wedding dress shopping, but I wasn’t invited. If you want more details, don’t even bother. I’m marrying Samantha and she won’t tell me anything, so what luck do any of you have? ;)

Sam & Jessie returned to Caen for the weekend after dress shopping in Paris; here's a windy selfie they took by the Chateau de Caen. They were looking for les moutons, but sadly found none this time around.

It was so great seeing such old friends in Paris, and we can't wait until the next time we see you all!

Out with the old, in with the new

Our foster kitty Igor was adopted on February 6th and it was surprisingly hard to give him up. We had Igor for about 4 weeks before he got adopted, and that little ball of fur left a pretty big impression on us. As sad as it was to see him go, we’re glad he went to a nice forever home, and were looking forward to a pet-free home for a few weeks…but that didn’t last too long. Igor was adopted, and a few days later we went to Paris, and the following Wednesday we welcomed Huawei (the French word for Hawaii, the verdict is still out for how to actually pronounce it, something like “eye-why,” but we just stick to calling her “you” or “chaton”) to our humble abode. She’s nearly 2 years old, and has a very different personality than Igor. First of all, she is the most low-maintenance cat I’ve every met. Her life consists of deciding where to nap: will it be in the shoebox we put out in the corner, on a chair, on our laps, or (her personal favourite) on top of all our shoes? Other than that, she enjoys a little cuddling, but doesn’t need constant attention. The only problem is that she sheds. Like a lot. One of her frequent napping spots is on my pillow on the bed. As you can see, after one nap she’s left her mark. So, we’ve had to start vacuuming much more frequently, but it’s worth it for such a cutie. Hopefully she’ll be able to find a permanent home in a few weeks, because that’s what makes the fostering worth it! 

Meet Huawei. Who-way? Way-wee? Hwa-why? Samantha prefers "pretty girl".

Basking in the sun

Sleeping on a pair of my shoes with her head in another (what a comfy way to nap!)

After laying on the pillow for 30 seconds, she's forever left her mark. Here's to doing laundry & vacuuming more frequently!

"Back To School, Back To School
To Prove To Dad That I'm Not A Fool,
I've Got My Lunch Packed Up, My Boots Tied Tight,
I Hope I Don't Get In A Fight"