Caen, France (Normandy)

Two weeks ago (I've been a bad blogger), took my first trip outside of Paris to Caen, France which is in the Normandy Region! (Lyon doesn't count!). We decided to go on this trip very last minute but surprisingly, we got our train tickets/hostel for very cheap so we were really excited. Planning the itinerary was a little bit stressful because we didn't realize that our hotel was super far away from everything. And that Mt. Saint Michel, the reason why we wanted to even go to Normandy, was suuuuper far away. BUTT, when we got there, every single thing worked out perfectly fine. It was so amazing. The people of Caen = super, duper, duper, super nice. 

Thursday, we took the train and arrived in Caen at about 4pm. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and were a bit surprised at how the hotel was. It smelled really bad!!! Like super strong tobacco odor but we semi-got used to it and ended up bringing the smell home on our clothes. Well, at least I did. After we settled into our humble abode, we adventured the "city centre" and found that every single place closes at 7pm -___-. Poor, starving us finally found a place to eat and I had "Scalops Normande" which tasted like chicken...but they gave us our salade et frittes in cool clear cups so it was all gravy. We also just made it to the "Office de Tourisme" to buy tickets for a tour of Mont St. Michel...heck yeahhh! We went to bed at like 10pm that night because we are such dedicated tourists...

Friday, we woke up bright and early for our tour of Mont Saint Michel, which is a village where the Abbey of Saint Michel is. This abbey was built because the angel Saint Michel came to Albert one night and told him he needed to built this abbey for him. I believe it was the 10th century? I tried to pay attention as much as possible. It was also the worst weather ever going up. It was super rainy and windy and my umbrella flipped inside out about 10 times before it eventually broke. Us So-cal (as opposed to the Scottish couple/siblings) kids looked so miserable and newb that our tour guide even took a picture of us on her iPhone. I suppose she is going to show all her friends how pathetic we were.  But newaiz, the tour itself was really fun and the village was très mignon! On the way down, there was free champagne tasting, because Mont Saint Michel is famous for that I definitely got drunk off of it. There was also cookies- made-in-this-village tasting and they were yumz. Got some for my fambam fosho!! Again, when we got back, we adventured the city centre, though there was not much left to see because it's not Paris and it's a nice, small provincial city. Slept at 9pm that night to go to the D-day landing beaches the next day. Again, dedicated I say!

Saturday, woke up dark and early (the sun wasn't even out) to go to the D-day landing beaches. I said everything was perfect but I guess not. We had to end up going to Juno Beach, which was the Canadian landing beach because we didn't plan well to go to the American Beaches. It was nice but we really wished that we could've gone to the American ones because that would have been legit. We realized that in the States, we barely learned about the Canadians being involved in WWII but here they had a memorial and museum and everything! Nonetheless, it was pretty cool! I got this cool military water canteen for Lucas because he's a military nerd and plays with his military backpack and military helmet in the snow for hours by himself. Hehehe, I'm so excited to give it to him! We were trying to find our way out of the city go back to our hotel. We realized that we had to wait one whole hour and so we were kinda bummed. But we asked this lady what we should/could do and they actually walked us over the the next bus stop. The bus was right about to leave so we chased it down so that it wouldn't go. It was really, really funny because my natural instincts went a little cuckoo and I started shouting, "PLEASE PLEASE!!!" to the bus drive who probably couldn't even here me. But we got on and it was all gravy! Then...came some more unperfect stuff. By the time we got back to the city centre, WE FOUND OUT THERE WAS A STRIKE. The French people have many strikes and when there are strikes, there is no public transportation whatsoever. So basically, we were stuck sitting and waiting for a bus that was never, ever going to come. We had already missed our train and so we started to walk to our hotel, not really knowing how long it was going to take or if we could really get there by looking at the city's map. BUTT!!! as we were walking, some lady came up to us asking, "Are you lost? Where are you trying to go?" And we said, "We missed our train, we're trying to walk back to our hotel so and somehow get back to the station so we can possibly catch the next train." And she graciously responded with, "I can take you with my car!" All of us were so happy and surprised that we were all about to cry. I seriously was about to get my ugly, crying face on but she asked so many questions that it distracted me from the tears. Her name was Odile and she was an English teacher for 42 years. She has been retired for 4? years now and Susan, Sherise and I almost believe that she spends her time searching for lost tourists and giving them hope and inspiration for a better world. She even gave us her number so we could crash at her place if we were to ever come back. UM LEGIT?! I really want to be like her!!! But yeah, we were able to take the next train, without paying extra!!! So in the end, everything truly was perfect!

(Find more pictures on my facebook, course!)

I super thank Susan and Sherise for being the perfect traveling partners for my first trip out of Paris. You girls are very level-headed, patient, kind, fun, loving, etc, etc, etc. Hehehehe! Traveling gets hard and frustrating but seriously, you girls were lay-git!!

Memories of the trip:

"I laaaaahv it."

"Peut-être."

"Bonne idée!"

"Jessica, there's a man outside my window...and he keeps walking by...what should I do?!"

"Don't turn the lights on!!!!!"

"I know, I'm just getting my glasses."

"Oh."

"S'il vous plaît!!! S'IL VOUS PLAÎT!!!"

And so much more...

Next up: Berlin, Germany!