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!
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