j'habite à Paris...pour maintenant!: normandie trip: day #1

the day started off on a terrible note, haha. we had to wake up insanely early to meet at l'Opera Bastille at 7:45 AM. oh, and it was also raining pretty hard when we had to run 3 blocks to the subway station. that wasn't fun. but we all made it on time, and left Paris at around 8:00 AM or so.

we arrived to our first stop, a town called Bayeux, at 11:00ish, to go see a very famous tapestry from the middle ages. i really enjoyed it, even though most people found it boring. then we had lunch at this random restaurant in a little hotel in town, and i took a risk and tried something i hadn't had before. and it was pretty delicious! i'm definitely expanding my food-frontiers here. :) then we checked out the Cathedral Notre Dame de Bayeux, which was also pretty beautiful. the building was, but even the brick pathways and flowers around it were very nice too.

it depics 58 scenes from October 1066 in Normandie.

(this is only about half of it...wow)

in battle, haha

in Bayeux

roasted chicken...and RATATOUILLE! it was pretty good.

graffiti on the wall...very classy.

Cathedral Notre Dame de Bayeux

fiona & krystina, getting in my way of taking a photo

beautiful

explaining the architectural style

our next stop was a little while away, but it was worth the drive. we visited Omaha Beach! it's in Vierville-sur-Mer. it was really epic...i'm so honored to have been able to see it and to to stand on the same beach that so many soldiers died on for the liberation of France, and ultimately the rest of Europe, on D-Day (June 6, 1944) during World War II. we climbed up a pretty big hill right by the beach too, and it was breathtaking from up there. i wanted to stay forever, haha.

Omaha Beach! it's amazing.

the war memorial

these were the cliffs they had to climb up.

a bunker

tom, running through what looked like trenches on the hilltop

breathtaking

krystina killed me, haha

then we went to see the Normandy American Cemetery, where thousands (i think) of soldiers from WWII are buried. it was a very solemn and retrospective moment...but it was still beautiful.

our last stop of the day, before going to where we would spend the night, was on a cliff near Lion-sur-Mer (Juno Beach, where the Canadian troops landed on D-Day) to take some photos at a very picturesque and WINDY spot. it was wild...but really awesome.

lol, great photo

haha, it was so windy!

then, after an hour or so on the bus, we made it to Trouville/Deauville, where we spent the night at the very lavish (in my opinion) Kyriad Prestige Hotel. they really put us up in a great hotel...i wish we would have more overnight excursions, haha. oh well.

our hotel room (for tom and i)

our bathroom was pretty fantastic. i loved the shower.

the view outside of our window

after dinner and hanging out for a while in the girls' room playing card games, we went out to the beach only a few blocks away. tom got in the water, because he "had to"...while we were content to just watch and root for him. haha. we really had a fun time walking around there and around the town at night too, even though it was pretty quiet. we sat on some steps going down to the river/canal too. i'm so glad i wore watertight boots! they really were useful on this trip. after that, we went back to the girls' room and hung out for a while longer and talked about random nothings...and eventually went to bed, really late.