Before we go over to my sister’s for the annual Koski family Christmas Eve Celebration of Noise, Loraine and I have a stop we make. And even though there’s a foot and a half of snow on the ground, at least this year, it’s a stop we have to make, because for us, it’s a tradition.
Let me explain a little more--every Christmas Eve, we make a stop at Park Cemetery. Buried there is a young man named Leo Robinson.
Leo was born in Marquette in 1925, and grew up in Sundell, eventually graduating from (what was then) Eben High School. Like many men of that era, he was asked to join the U.S. Army, and in 1944, was assigned to the 705th Tank Destroyer battalion. His unit was in Belgium in December of that year, and when the Germans launched what became to be known as “The Battle of The Bulge”, Leo was in the thick of it. You see, he was in Bastogne, Belgium, ground zero for that famous battle.
Although Army records are sketchy from those few weeks, we’ve been able to determine that Leo received a leg wound a couple of days before Christmas. It wasn’t serious, but he was evacuated to a makeshift hospital in Bastogne for treatment. Now, if you’ve ever watched the TV show “Band of Brothers”, you know what hospital I’m talking about. It was a set up in a church basement, where a Belgian nurse named Renee LeMaire did her best to help treat hundreds of wounded Allied soldiers brought in, soldiers like Leo Robinson. If you’ve watched “Band Of Brothers”, you also know what happened to that makeshift hospital. It was hit by a German bomb, killing the young nurse, other local residents, and 30 Allied soldiers.
Leo Robinson was one of those 30. He survived his leg wound, only to die when the hospital in which he was recovering was destroyed.
When he died on Christmas Eve 1944, Leo Robinson was 19 years old. He was never able to start any holiday traditions of his own. That’s why every December 24th, Loraine and I stop by and bring him a flower or two, before we head over to our traditional family gathering.
As far as traditions go, it’s the least we can do.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
We're Back!!
SUNDAY, 9/9:
The clouds finally broke just as we flew over Lake
Superior and just as U2’s “A Sort of Homecoming” popped up on my
iPod’s shuffle.
Coincidence or not? You
hafta wonder. . .
Bummer. But I do have
to marvel at the timing of their departure.
The one time the clouds DID break, though, we were right
over Greenland, which means I got to spend 20 minutes studying the topography
of glaciers and ice sheets from 35,000 feet.
It was actually quite neat; I got to see how glaciers move like rivers (only,
of course, at a glacial pace) and I was also able to observe how they create
icebergs when they finally start to melt after reaching open water.
See? Geography nerd!
Other than that the day’s been mostly uneventful. We did
have one interesting moment when everyone in our terminal was stopped in their
tracks at Charles de Gaulle airport. We
were told to wait in line, heard an explosion a few minutes later, and then
were told to go on our way. As it turns
out, whenever they find a piece of luggage just sitting unattended, they blow
it up. No, really. They put it in a little bomb box and detonate
it, blowing up any potential explosives and, of course, everything else in the
luggage.
Oh, and they also fine you 450 Euro if they figure out to
whom the bag belonged. So don’t leave
your luggage unattended in Paris!
Okay. I said
yesterday that I had a few pictures I haven’t posted that I wanted to. You ready?
This is how they deliver mail in cities in France—
Here’s the newest restaurant in Bayeux—
Restaurants all over the place are starting to cater at
American and British tourists, in fact.
Here’s one right outside of Carentan=--
This is the view from the church at La Pernelle, which sits
several hundred meters above everything else, including the coast—
Here’s the car, an Opel, we drove for 2,260 kilometers—
And finally, here are two flower shots, one from Avranches—
and one from Bayeux—
As always, Loraine and I thank you for following along, and
hope you enjoyed it. We also hope you’ll
join us in a mere 51 weeks as we join the legendary Tony the Tour Guide to
ramble around eastern & southern Germany,
with a side trip to Poland. Make sure your virtual passport is up to date
by then!
(jim@wmqt.com)
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Bye Bye, Bayeux
SATURDAY, 9/8:
I’m glad to see Mr. Attard is still around.
I do not know Bayeux
resident Robert Attard. I wouldn’t know
him if I saw him in the street, and I certainly could not tell him apart from
any other Jean, Francois, or Henri I’d come across. However, every time we go to Bayeux,
I look to see if he’s around. You see,
Robert Attard lives just a few doors down from our hotel. The first time we were in Bayeux
in 2004 we were walking down the street when we came across Mr. Attard’s name,
which I noticed because of his address on the Rue St. Patrice—
Yes, I know, I’m a dork.
But anyway, every time we’ve come back to Bayeux
and take our first walk down the street, I always look at see if Mr. Attard is
still living at 107 Rue St.
Patrice. I’ve thought of leaving him a
business card or sending him a letter explaining why I look at his mailbox
every time we visit, but some people think I’m strange enough as it is.
So I’ll leave it at that.
I’m writing this from the Paris
suburb of Roissy-en-France. We spent
one last Saturday morning in Bayeux,
where we went to the market and I picked up breakfast—
Loraine managed to make one last animal friend—
And I managed to take one last beauty shot of the city—
We then left and made the three hour drive through Paris to
Charles de Gaulle airport, where we dropped off the rental car without a
scratch (well, with nine or ten scratches, but they were all on there—and noted
by Avis—before we picked it up). We then
hopped on the hotel shuttle bus to Roissy, which is why I am writing from
here!!
Roissy-en-France is a unique place. While it’s several hundred years old, the
only reason it exists today is because of 5,000-some hotel rooms that ring the
city (including, I might add, the one I’m writing this in). Because of the complexity of international
travel, a lot of people find themselves needing a place to stay close to the
airport in order to catch an early morning flight (we among them). And Roissy, just a few kilometers from the
airport, fits that bill to a “T”. They
seem to embrace their place in the world, too.
They know that most people who visit are just here for a few hours, and
so they always have this big photo display in their public gardens, which gives
visitors a chance to enjoy (while jets fly overhead) a little fresh air, a lot
of plants, and some very interesting photo displays—
That’s one of the works from this year’s exhibitions,
celebrating women of the world. They
change it up every year; my personal favorite was in 2009, when they had 80
aerial photographs of French landmarks blown up to the billboard size you see
above.
That was neat.
Seeing as how it was 90 degrees and sunny today, after we
dropped off the rental car we spent quite a while just wandering around
Roissy. We even managed to catch the
tail end of a wedding!
In France,
they decorate the car of the bride & groom up with flowers, and then the
newlyweds lead a caravan of family and friends throughout the town, honking
their horns as often as possible. The
happy couple must’ve been a popular couple, as well, as their caravan was quite
long and quite loud!
We also spent some of our time looking for a Renault
Twingo. Just because of the name it’s
our favorite car in France;
add to it the fact that it’s small and very eco-friendly and just makes it even
better. Well, after seeing hundreds of
them all throughout Normandy, the
only one we could find here is being used as a delivery car for the local sushi
restaurant—
Anyway, that’s what a Twingo looks like!
We leave Paris tomorrow around noon here, get into Chicago
around 2 Central time, and then have to spend four or five hours at O’Hare waiting
for our flight back to Marquette, where we should land just before 10. If I did my math correctly—which, as we all
know, is always a very iffy proposition—that means we’ll have spend
approximately 16 hours from the time we head to the airport from the time we
land.
Ah, the things you go through for chocolate fresh from the
source. (Speaking of chocolate, be sure
to read my P.S.)
Since I have the time and the battery power, I’ll try to
write another blog from the plane tomorrow and upload it from Chicago. I have a ton of pictures I haven’t used yet,
and many (hopefully) interesting things left to share. But for one final time from France.
. .
(p.s.—Okay, here’s the chocolate reference. Because Tony the Tour Guide knows us a little
too well, the first question he asked when we ran into him yesterday and he saw
we were carrying a bag was, of course, “Is that your chocolate?” No, it wasn’t. But before we checked out today we left Tony
a little “gift” at the front desk. We
hope it was yummy!)
Friday, September 7, 2012
C'est Le Monde Petit
FRIDAY, 9/7:
You will never ever ever ever convince me that this is not a
small world.
Ever.
Our last full day in Normandy
took us once again from one side of the region to the other. We started the day by driving to what’s known
as the Suisse Normande; basically, it’s a park-like region of the area that
some people say resembles the Swiss Alps.
And while the hills are nowhere near as big as the Alps,
it was a pretty area, and we did get to drive on a narrow road with rock walls
towering 20 or so meters over us.
You don’t get to do that every day.
While there we stopped at a 13th century
church/graveyard in the town of St.
Benin because
it provided an overlook of the area. The
overlook was okay; the headstones in the cemetery, though, were something else—
I don’t know if there was someone in the area who
specialized in those types of headstones, but they were everywhere you
looked. It was kinda beautiful and kinda
creepy at the same time. I kept
expecting Tim Burton and/or Johnny Depp to pop out and surprise us.
From there we went to the edge of France. In fact, we went as far as you can go without
falling off. Now, that’s not really
saying much; there are many areas of France
where you can only go so far before you fall off. But Loraine noticed on her roadmap a point of
land called Pointe de Brèvands that allowed vehicular access, so we drove up,
got out of out car, walked a few feet, and came to the edge of France—
I know; kinda anti-climatic, isn’t it? But if you kept going the next land you’d set
foot on is the southern shore of Great
Britain, so in a way, we really did go to the
edge of France.
After a few more stops we headed back to Bayeux
one last time and spent a while just wandering around. In fact, that’s where your Bayeux
beauty shot of the day comes from—
If you’ve been following along with these trip ramblings over
the years you may remember that the cathedral in Bayeux
was built starting in 1077 to commemorate William the Conqueror’s conquering of
England. It’s a huge building; in fact, you can see
the steeples while driving on the coast seven miles away from here. I was just at the right angle to get it all
in one shot; there are very few places around here where you can do that.
Oh, we also went to Bayeux’s
public gardens, where your flower shot of the day comes from—
There’s also a huge tree in the middle of the gardens that
was named “France’s
Stately Tree of 2001”. Yes, they give
out awards like that over here; no, I don’t know why. Anyway, the tree, a weeping beech, has gotten
so large that they actually have to use cables to hold the branches up, lest
the tree collapse under its own weight like a deflated meringue. Can you see the cables?
Now, onto the business of how you’ll never convince me it’s
not a small world. When we were walking
back to our hotel after cruising the streets of Bayeux
we noticed a bus parked in the lot.
There have been a lot of tour buses here in the week we’ve been
around. We’ve seen buses from Holland,
buses from Italy,
buses from Germany,
buses from Great Britain,
and even a bus from Sweden. As has become our habit, we walked over to the
bus to see from which country it came.
That’s when the door opened, and that’s when our friend Tony
Cisneros—the gentleman we refer to as “Tony The Tour Guide” in these
blogs—stepped out to greet us. You may
remember Tony; he was our guide last year in Belgium
and Germany, and
he’ll guide us again next year when we return to Germany. Tony has a tour group he’s taking around battle
areas, and they just happen to be in Normandy
the same time we are. In fact, he’s been
reading these every day (thanks, Tony!) and wondering if he’d come across us.
Well, he can wonder no more.
And just so the whole world knows the planet is indeed a very small
place—
From left to right is Loraine, Tony, and some dork who snuck
in the shot. Afterwards Loraine and I
could not stop marveling—nor stop laughing—at the random coincidence of it
all. It’s a small small small small
world, people. The more you see of it,
the more you’re convinced of that fact.
Oh, and don’t forget—Tony’s company is called Alpventures, and you can
check it out at www.alpventures.com.
Tomorrow’s both a happy & sad day; happy because we get
to go to Market Day again here in Bayeux, and sad because we have to leave
Bayeux, drive back to Paris, drop off the rental car, and spend a night in
Roissy before flying back to Marquette on Sunday. I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly;
it seems like we just got here yesterday, instead of a week ago. Sigh. . .
That’s it until tomorrow.
I now have to go see if all the chocolate and cereal I bought fits into
my suitcase. If not, I may be throwing
some clothes out. And yes, I’m serious
about that. You actually think I
wouldn’t be?
8-)
Thursday, September 6, 2012
On a Clear Day You Can See Mont St. Michel
THURSDAY, 9/6:
We bought, ripped apart, and ate a pig for breakfast this
morning.
No; we really did, and I have a picture to prove it which
I’ll show you in a little bit. But
seeing as how it was sunny and 75 today, we took a road trip and visited the town
of Avranches, which now rivals Bayeux
as our favorite place in Normandy. Yes, I know it’s shocking that we could have
a place we like as much as Bayeux,
but Avranches is it. In fact, I think it
would make a good sister city for Marquette. It has a lot of hills, a hospital, a ton of
bike riders, some magnificent churches, and flowers everywhere. In fact if there’s one thing Avranches loves,
it’s flowers.
Well, flowers, and George Patton.
They have a HUGE memorial to General Patton right in the center
of the city. In fact, it’s called Patton
Plaza, and I’ve joked before that
the 52-foot monument was based on the size of Patton’s legendary ego. But like I said, they love George Patton in
Avranches. Don’t believe me?
That’s a bust of Patton (in the plaza) with the Patton
Boulangerie (bakery) right behind it.
What you can’t see is that next to the Boulangerie is the Patton
Pizzeria, and across the street from it is the Patton Hotel. And no, I’m not making that up. I couldn’t make it up if I wanted to!
Like Bayeux,
Avranches has one main street on which most of the businesses sit. Unlike Bayeux, it has the remnants of a 1,000
year old castle (Avranches being founded by some dude named D’Avranches, who
helped William the Conqueror conquer England in 1066), as well as an incredible
public garden that overlooks the Mont Saint Michel, France’s biggest tourist
attraction. From the public garden, in
fact, comes today’s flower picture!
See the butterfly on the flower? There are a zillion of them in Avranches,
including this one that Loraine coaxed onto her hand—
She had better luck with the butterfly than yesterday’s
horses!
Anyway, Avranches is a very cool place, and if it ever does
become Marquette’s French sister
city, I volunteer right now to become the city’s official ambassador. You don’t even need to twist my arm.
After Avranches we scooted a little south to visit another
German war cemetery. This one is the
only war cemetery I’ve ever seen that has crypts instead of graves (almost
12,000 of them, in fact), and it has an even better view of Mont Saint Michel
than you get from Avranches’ public gardens—
We then made our way back to Bayeux via 100 kilometers of
winding roads and up & down hills that were not only fun to drive but
offered breathtaking views everywhere you looked. So for those of you who doubted we could
actually take a “vacation”, guess what?
We’re actually on vacation!
Now, back to the pig.
Yes, we did buy, butcher, and eat a pig for breakfast. Would you like to see it?
The bakers here in Bayeux
do wonderful things with marzipan, and this pig is no exception. Its body is actually made of a cake topped
with a thick chocolate cream, which is then covered with a pink marzipan body,
ears and curly little tail. It tasted as
good as it looked; so good, in fact, that we went back down to the bakery after
we returned from Avranches to purchase another.
Sadly, though, they were sold out.
Guess we weren’t the only ones craving le cochon today.
It’s kind of hard to fathom, but tomorrow’s our last full
day in Bayeux. I can’t believe we flew out from Marquette
a week ago, nor can I believe that we’ve seen almost every single thing we’ve
wanted to see (and then some). Tomorrow,
we’re revisiting some old haunts, and might check out a river and the forests
around it. So until then. . .
(jim@wmqt.com), future
ambassador to Avranches, Manche, France.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Swinging Dead Cats
WEDNESDAY, 9/5:
Loraine and I made a new friend today.
More on that in a bit.
Today was the day we were thinking about hanging around Bayeux
for part of the day, just to see how the locals live. There is a second market day here on
Wednesdays, and we thought we’d head down there, check things out, and see what
else there was to see during a typical Wednesday.
Unfortunately, this morning WAS typical for Bayeux,
in that fog from the Channel drifted in and covered everything with a steady
mist. Not only that, but the Wednesday
market wasn’t anything like the big Saturday one we so love. It was filled mostly with second-hand junk
dealers smoking non-stop, so we instead high-tailed it to a couple of grocery
stores and did what we do best—buy chocolate:
Don’t worry; I didn’t buy this all today, and it’s not all
for me. In fact, a big chunk of it is
going out as gifts to family and friends.
But since we talk about chocolate (and buying it) so much, I figured you
might like to see what a typical haul looks like.
By noon the mist
finally cleared and the sun came out, so we did one of the things on our “typical
day” list. We grabbed a very yummy sliced-tomato
and gooey cheese baguette (sandwich) from a local shop and strolled along the
Bayeux River Walk—
The Aure River
runs through Bayeux (it’s the one
that’s been featured in a couple of the beauty shots I’ve posted of the town)
and for a couple of kilometers there’s a trail along it that you can
follow. And that’s what we did today,
all while munching on a delectable sandwich.
Life can be good at times, you know?
After the river walk we decided to head out of town for a
little while, lest I get rusty at driving (and it’s a pity sarcasm doesn’t
travel well in the written form, isn’t it?)
We were trying to make our way to a forest to do a little hiking when we
found ourselves taking a wrong turn.
Don’t worry; that happens on occasion, and usually when it occurs, so
does something kinda cool, like today, when we were breezing down the wrong road,
noticed all kinds of very tall trees, and something else, as well.
We often joke that you can’t swing a dead cat in Normandy
without running into a World War II monument, and we were proven correct again
on that wrong road when we came across a monument we knew nothing about, a
monument to an infantry company that lost 33 men (10 killed and 23 wounded)
while trying to cross the presently itty, bitty Elle River on June 12th,
1944. The whole affair is new to
Loraine, so it’ll give her something to research when we get home. And right next to the monument was our new
friend—
There were actually four horses in the field next to the
monument; this was the most curious of the quartet, I guess. Being a horse freak since she was a little
girl, Loraine knew how to get the horse’s attention—
The funny thing about this?
The horse wouldn’t take one blade of grass from Loraine, the life-long
horse lover. Yet it would take handfuls from
me, who knows nothing at all about horses.
Old men in Normandy like
Loraine; I guess Norman horses like me.
Speaking of that World War II monument, here’s today’s
flower shot—
One of the things we’ve noticed on all of our trips is that
each and every memorial, no matter how insignificant or how out of the way,
always has fresh flowers on it or growing next to it. It’s a very nice thing, and something the
people who live around here take very seriously. And speaking of fresh flowers, the roses
Loraine was given by Mr. Renaud yesterday are still in our hotel room, and
making it smell a lot less like a hotel room than usual.
Tomorrow, we hope to buy a pig. But until then. . .
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
A Few of My Favorite Things
TUESDAY, 9/4:
People who know me (or who’ve been reading my daily blogs
for a long time) know that three of my favorite things in the world are eating
chocolate, walking on a beach, and hanging out with Loraine.
Guess who got to do all three of those things at the same
time today?
Today was a fantastic day, the kind of day you hope for when
you’re going on a “vacation” as opposed to a “trip”. After a couple of stops at grocery stores in
two different areas, we took some of the chocolate and fulfilled a long sought
dream of ours—we walked Omaha Beach—
The tide was out, the sun was (mostly) out, and we hopped
out of our car at St. Laurent-sur-Mer for a little stroll down the sand, where
we saw people sunbathing, people fishing, a lot of seaweed, a couple of interesting dead things, and this—
Now, it may just seem like a Mylar balloon to you, but it has
“It’s a Boy” written on it in English, and since they don’t speak English in
France, you have to assume that it actually floated here from England itself,
about 20 miles away across the Channel.
If it was originally filled with helium I suppose it could’ve gotten
away from a new parent, someone who was probably concerned about holding
something a little more valuable than a balloon, and then made its way via air
and/or tide to France. It just struck me
as a little. . .out of the ordinary to find a Mylar balloon—in English—on a
French beach.
Right down the shoreline from Omaha
Beach is a town called Arromanches,
where right after the D-Day invasions they built a temporary harbor that was
supposed to last for nine months. Guess
what you can still see out in the water 68 years later?
Of course, we shouldn’t be too surprised that it’s lasted
this long. One of its designers all
those years ago was a Michigan Tech grad!
After our beach walk, we had to go meet a guy, and it was,
simply, amazing. Henri-Jean Renaud was
the son of the mayor of Ste. Mere Eglise during the war. He was 10 years old when the Germans invaded,
and he shared with Loraine (and her geeky sidekick) all kinds of stories of
what it was like living under occupation, as well as what it was like being
liberated by the Allies four years later.
Because there was a temporary American cemetery in the town during the
war, and because of her position as wife of the mayor, his mother found herself
the recipient of hundreds of letters from mothers of American boys who had been
buried in the town. She took it upon
herself to take pictures of their sons’ graves, along with pictures of the
towns where they died, to send back to the grieving mothers, and she saved
every letter of gratitude sent her way, letters her son still has. Not only that, but an employee of his
father’s, who developed film shot by the invading Germans, kept a copy of every
one of those pictures for himself, pictures Mr. Renaud ended up with, so we
were able to see some really... interesting photos from that collection, as
well.
All in all, it was a fascinating way to spend part of the
afternoon. And Mr. Renaud must have
taken quite a shine to my favorite World War II detective, because as we were
leaving, he ran back to one of his rose bushes, and presented Loraine with
several freshly-cut blooms, which leads to our flower picture for today—
Old guys dig my wife. . .what can I say?
Other than that, we just enjoyed ourselves today, capping it
off with our traditional date night in Europe. The first time we came over here, we went out
to dinner at an Italian restaurant, and no matter how busy we’ve been on subsequent
trips, we’ve always made time for a dinner at an Italian restaurant. Tonight’s was at Il Bellagio here in Bayeux,
where I had an incredibly delicious four cheese pizza. Two of the cheeses on the pizza were especially
yummy, the Bleu and the Chevre, which in case you don’t know is goat cheese.
Oh, don’t look at me like that. Have you tried goat cheese on pizza yet? It’s delicious!
I almost feel guilty, because I only took 56 pictures today,
but I was kinda busy having fun and didn’t get a chance to shoot a lot, so I
hope you’ll forgive me. I did, however,
take another Bayeux beauty shot—
This one, believe it or not, is actually the backside of the
beauty shot from last night. I really
don’t think you can take a bad picture in Bayeux. I really don’t.
Speaking of Bayeux,
we’re gonna hang around here for part of the day tomorrow and just enjoy our
“home”. More details then!
Monday, September 3, 2012
Why Yes, That WAS a Viking Ship We Saw Today!
MONDAY, 9/3:
My streak of good fortune is still alive.
Back before we came to Europe in 2008
I bought a little umbrella to stick in my backpack, just in case it ever needed
to get used. Luckily, I’ve never had to
use it, and it’s been sitting quietly all these years in the plastic case in
which I purchased it. This morning,
though, we woke up to clouds and a fine mist raining down on everything, and by
the time we got to our first stop, I was worried that I’d actually have to use
the umbrella. Luckily, though, Mother
Nature remembered we had pre-ordered nice weather and got rid of the clouds and
the mist, giving us breaks of sun throughout the rest of the day.
Thanks, Mother Nature!
Our journeys in the mist brought us this morning to several
beaches of which you may have heard, where we saw some strange things,
including this—
Harness racing is huge around here, and the drivers of the
sulkies like to train their horses on local beaches, which is what they were
doing here. The beach, if you’re
curious, is Omaha Beach. In fact, they’re riding their sulkies on the
beach at Vierville-sur-Mer, which is the same beach on which the fictional
characters in “Saving Private Ryan” were landing. Near there is a place called Pointe du Hoc,
where another famous D-Day battle took place.
The thing about Pointe du Hoc is that the French government has left it
in the exact same shape the Allies did after doing battle—
Those holes you see everywhere? Those are bomb craters from U.S. Navy bombardment
of the German gun emplacements that you now see as those big chunks of concrete
everywhere. I don’t know about you, but
war seems like a mighty fine waste of natural resources to me.
We also headed up the road to Utah
Beach, the other American landing
beach, where we saw something else that was kinda curious—
In case you can’t quite make it out, that’s a replica Viking
ship that sails out of the nearby city of Cherbourg,
bringing tourists around to the area where Vikings actually landed and marauded
back in the 800s. It was weird; while
driving up the coast I saw what I thought was a Viking boat, and stopped to
take a picture. Then at the tourist
information office in another town, we happened across a pamphlet that told
about the tours. I guess you never know
what you’re gonna see in France!
You know how we’ve been stopping at a lot of cemeteries
around here? Well, today we stopped at a
German war cemetery in Orglandes, where over 10,000 people are buried. You see a lot of graves there like this—
That translates to “three unknown German soldiers”, all
buried in one mass grave. While we were
walking around the cemetery, I was struck by a couple of things. The first was that most of the people buried
in the cemetery weren’t your hard-core, evil, genocidal and maniacal Nazis. They were just ordinary German citizens who
had either been drafted or coerced (or both) into fighting for their
country. What shocked me walking around
the cemetery was the number of kids buried there who hadn’t even reached their
18th birthday. I don’t know
if this is true, but someone once told me that half of all German men between
the ages or 15 and 40 were killed in World War II, that HALF of an entire
generation died for nothing, died for an insane madman with warped dreams of
conquering a planet.
When we were in the Normandy
American Cemetery
yesterday, we overheard a kid no older than eight ask a very perceptive
question of one of his parents. He
simply said, “Dad, why did the Germans want everything?” I hope his dad explained that it wasn’t all
Germans who wanted everything, especially those Germans buried in a place like
Orglandes.
Okay, enough with the depressing stuff. Here’s today’s flower to cleanse your
palette—
This was on a bush in the pretty little town of Isigny-sur-Mer,
a place that makes butter and cream known around France. And that leads us into today’s edition of
“Food From France”!
(And Jamie LaFreniere, you may want to look away now).
We often tell people about the breakfasts you get here in Europe. For Europeans, breakfast is the most
important meal of the day, and hotels always have a great buffet-type spread
out ready & waiting for you. Here’s
mine from today—
The butter I put on the crepes, by the way? From Isigny!
One of the reasons we stopped at Vierville-sur-Mer was
because today was their market day, but as we quickly found out, their market
day is nothing like Bayeux’s. Where Bayeux’s market consists of over 100
people selling everything from fresh produce to live rabbits to “Ahh Bras”,
Vierville’s consisted of, uhm, one lady selling peaches and apples.
Not quite the same, if you know what I mean.
We did pick up a lot of produce today, though. That’s another of the cool things about France: because farming is so big, and because the
government encourages healthy eating, fresh fruits and vegetables are
incredibly cheap. Loraine bought two big,
red, juicy tomatoes for 50 cents, while I picked up a huge honkin’ carrot for
15 cents. And that’s not even mentioning
the white peaches and white nectarines we also inhaled!
Finally (and Jame, this is where you need to look away), we
found another one of our Holy Grails today.
Back in 2009 we happened across the best chocolate tarts we’ve ever
tried (and trust me, we’ve tried a few).
They’re rich, creamy, dark chocolate (made with cream from Isigny!) in a
buttery shell with just a hint of anise in it.
In all our subsequent trips, we’ve never come across them again. But guess what we found at a Super U?
The ironic thing, of course, is that we also saw them at the
next Super U we came across an hour later.
Three years without seeing them, and we come across them twice in one
day. I guess that means we’ll be trying
them again before we leave!
Tomorrow, we have to go see a guy about a thing. Details on that then.
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