SATURDAY, 9/3:
Today we went to the one of the biggest
beaches I have ever set eyes on, and I had to recoil in horror when I
saw no one was there.
More details on that in a bit. We
spent another sunny and 80 degree day today just tooling around
Normandy, visiting places we've visited before and taking in a bunch
of new things, the beach included. But as always, we started our
Saturday by visiting one of the main reasons we keep coming back to
Bayeux, and that would be the town's weekly market--
Like I've mentioned before, it's a
combination of a farmer's market with the world's strangest flea
market. Need a mattress? You can buy one here, right next to the
place that sells live ducklings.
You know...like these ones--
Of course, you can also get your fresh
fish at the market--
And grab some lunch to take home with
you--
While I didn't indulge in any paella
this time, I did buy my customary container of fresh raspberries to
munch on while wandering around and seeing what else there was to
see, like the guy who was in the middle of the market trying to sell
one little, shivering piglet, but found no takers.
But maybe, for the shivering little
piglet, that was for the best considering the purpose for which it
was probably being sold!
We made so many stops today that it's
hard to get to them all without boring you to death, so I'll just try
to highlight what we found driving and wandering around Normandy.
For instance, yesterday I was mentioning a guy from Maryland,
Theodore Mister, and one of our first stops today was the memorial
placed where he and a dozen of his comrades died trying to cross a
river that's all of four feet across--
Mr. Mister actually led the charge
across the river, making him a bit of a local hero, so much so that
the street of a subdivision in a town many kilometers away is
actually named for him--
The cool thing about Rue Theodore
Mister? There's a time capsule there to be opened on June 7th,
2044, one hundred years to the day he died. I'm assuming I'll still
be alive then, so who knows—maybe I'll hop over and watch as they
open it.
Oh, and at Mr. Mister's memorial we
made a new friend--
Actually, last time we were here, there
were four horses in the field, as opposed to only one today. But
Loraine, who's been a horse freak since childhood, was happy to see
it, and even happier when it ate a bunch of grass out of her hand.
Too bad it would be such a hassle to get it through Customs;
otherwise, I'm sure she'd love to have it as a pet!
From there we drove around, stopping to
have lunch in a little park in Le Hommet d'Arthenay, where they
still have the decorations up they installed when the Tour de France
passed by in July--
Little towns all across France put
these things up when le Tour passed through, in hopes the TV cameras
spend a few seconds of air time focusing on their work. Because U.S.
TV coverage hadn't started when the Tour passes through Le Hommet
during stage 2, I have no idea if the bicycle Viking ship made French
TV, but a big part of me hopes it did.
We also visited another cemetery today,
this one the German military cemetery in Marigny--
Whenever we stop at a German military
cemetery over here, it's always the same thing—it's empty and it's
quiet. And you see a lot of headstones like this one--
Which translates to “Two German
Soldiers”. It's estimated that Germany lost over a quarter of an
entire generation of men during World War II, and many of them died
unknown, to spend eternity in a grave unmarked with even their name.
Have I ever mentioned that war seems
really, really stupid?
Finally, I suppose I should mention the
beach, right? We were driving along a road on the western side of
the Contentin Peninsula (what most people think of as “Normandy”),
when we saw a sign that said simply, “La Mer 1,5 K”. That meant
the sea was a mile away, so we decided to take a saunter down to see
the sea. We saw the sea, plus one of (if not) the biggest beaches
upon which I've ever laid my eyes.
This beach--
A beach totally devoid of anyone
enjoying the sun, the endless sand, and the fact that there was a
huge honking beach all for the taking. Since my dream job would be
to work as a professional beach bum, I was really disappointed it was
so empty. In fact, for the next half hour, as we were driving away,
whenever we saw someone standing around, I would yell out to them
that there was an empty beach nearby. No one heard me except
Loraine, and I'm sure she got tired of it quite quickly, but it stuns
me that there was an amazing, low tide beach open on a perfectly
sunny day, and no one was taking advantage of it.
It was a shame.
Tomorrow, we stop playing around so
much and spend the first of a few days in a row meeting with people,
doing things, and saying “hey” to friends we haven't seen for a
few years. But don't worry—we'll still try and do enough to keep
you guys entertained!
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