And here is the link to the pictures that go with what I'm about to write about:
May 16th. I left the house in Holland with Bas, who had slept over the night before and was going back to The Hague, which was also where I would have to transfer trains. And I was off to Bruges, Belgium, where I had that awesome surprise up my sleeve. So now I have to reveal this big surprise. It was a hot air balloon flight. Wait can I just say again that I had a ticket for a flight in a hot air balloon? It's something I've always wanted to do but never thought I would. All this time anticipating this trip, I was most excited for that flight. I knew all along, though, that it wasn't guaranteed to fly because there's no way to predict the weather that far in advance. For that reason, I picked alternative time slots just in case. Well, when I arrived in Bruges, I called the balloon guy and learned that my first two options were cancelled. I had a small chace that my last option would still go on the next night (I had originally planned to fly at 6 the next morning.), but he said the chances were small.
I'm surprised I didn't cry about it. I was so disappointed, but I kept hope that everything would turn out okay. So that night I walked around the city and, of course, took a canal ride. Everyone in Bruges takes canal rides! It was a little too touristy for me, but hey, I was touring the city afterall! I was a bit sad that the driver of the boat listed all the nationalities of the people in our boat but failed to mention there was an American on board. There were tons... Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish, Malasian... but no mention of me. Wonder why, because he never even asked. Afterwards I just walked around the cute little city. I was surprised at how easy it was to navigate. I can see why people like the city so much, but it just felt like a tourist trap to me, really. I don't know. Just not my cup of tea, although at the same time I loved it. Oh, and I bought myself some chocolate which turned out to be a bit disappointing, but kind of tasty nonetheless.
My hotel room was freaking awesome. The lighting in the room was amazing and cozy. And get this. In the morning when I went to turn the shower on, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a flourescent green-lit shower. So I shut of the water, went out to turn the regular light off (the shower was IN the room), and showered in the dark. It gave the effect of showering in a night club. I figured why not take advantage of the opportunity?!
My second day there I did everything with hope. Hope that that evening I'd be up in the sky. It was a weird feeling knowing that I was supposed to have already done it. I looked forward to that for like two months maybe. I was SO excited and imagined all along what it was going to be like. I was going to be on the flight with a bunch of other people, strangers from other parts of the world I'm sure. We would help set up and take down the balloon, and then have drinks and celebrate together after landing. :( At the end of the day, I called again, and indeed, it was cancelled. No balloon ride for me. But I assure you that I will get in one sometime in life.
I went to six museums for one euro. Yeah I'm serious. And not one euro each. Just one euro. Period. That's like, 15 cents a museum. I love being a "student." Yeah I know, I'm not. I saved my UWEC ID though. They never stopped me from keeping it! And it's not my fault there's no expiration date on it.
Oh, I also went into this church that has (supposedly) some actual preserved blood from Jesus. Whether this is legit or not, I don't know. But I went there and saw it. Pretty cool.
Wednesday I was off to Normandy. I spent a few hours in the St. Lazare train station in Paris, but soon enough I found myself in Caen, where I met up with Anna, one of my friends from UWEC. She's living and working in London right now, so it was super convenient to see each other. Since she arrived around 5, we didn't have time to do a whole lot that night, but we walked around the city, saw some churches and walked around a castle, and had a delicious dinner outside. I was dying for a good old French restaurant to relax at. I love that part of vacation. And I had an île flottant for dessert. My new fave.
Thursday morning we had a little bit of a bus fiasco. Long story short, we bought some bus tickets to use before looking at the bus schedule, and later realized it just wasn't possible to visit all the places we wanted to go that day. We were going to try what we could, but first we had to take a train to Bayeux. So we did. From there, we decided to return our bus tickets and change plans. We went into Bayeux and saw the Beyeux Tapestry. I'm supposed to be able to explain to you what it is, but to be honest, despite having written a paper (I think?) on the event, I can't. So go look it up. Normands. England. Something along those lines.
Then we took a tour to the D-Day beaches. It was great! It was a really small group. There were the two of us and then six other people. There was an older couple from Iowa, two girls a bit younger than us from Rhode Island and Colorado, a man from Florida, and a man from Uruguay. Our tour guide was just the cutest thing. She drove a little van to all these places, some of which I remembered from my first trip to France. (But I hadn't seen them all already.) The tour was awesome. We saw Gold Beach first, I think, where we also visited the D-Day Museum. The whole time (every place we went), I tried envisioning actual soldiers there fighting. We saw the American cemetery and Omaha Beach. And more.
Friday we went to Rouen, where we spent the night. Our hotel's rooms were all named after different French artists. We had the Gauguin room. :)
In Rouen, the coolest thing for me was seeing where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. But almost better was our dinner. It was pork in a Normandy sauce made of apples and cider and something else. And pasta with tons of garlic and goodness on it. And some tasty caramel thing for dessert. It was just SO good.
Saturday we went to Le Havre. I had no clue what Le Havre had to offer before going. And now, despite having spent a day and a half there, I still don't know. To be honest, I didn't enjoy the city at all. I'm glad I went, but it wasn't really cool. It felt kind of dumpy and trashy. But anyway, there's a pretty good story that goes with this.
So we decided that day that we wanted to go to Honfleur (which, by the way, was the first city I ever stayed in in France), a super adorable little port town only two bus stops away from Le Havre. We checked the bus schedule early, knowing the times might suck like the did for the D-Day beaches. We realized it was totally do-able, visiting Honfleur. We'd be able to spend three hours there and still have time to return to Le Havre for dinner, plus spend more time in Le Havre the next day. We decided to do it. So in the few hours we had before our bus, we visited the a museum where we saw some Monets and some Gauguins and some Matisses and some... oh crap. I can't name them, but I can recognize them! Renoirs. And more. At about 1:35pm, we showed up at the bus stop. We stood there waiting until finally a man came over to us and told us the bus wouldn't be stopping at that stop because of the manifestation (which had nothing to do with busses or trains) going on nearby. Because the people were blocking the streets, there was no way the bussed could access the bus station. And so it would stop somewhere else. This man tried explaining it to us. Basically he just point toward this river and was like, "It'll stop over there!" Okay, not very helpful. By this time it was one minute away from the time it was supposed to stop. So we ran. We ran and we ran and we ran. Anna was ahead of me. We were weaving in and out of people. Crossed a pretty big road, went over a bridge, and then on the other side of the street, just before stepping onto the sidewalk, I tripped. I tripped on the sidewalk edge. At first it just felt like I stubbed my toe or something. But the ground was getting closer and closer. And before I knew it, I had become one with the ground. And nobody (except Anna) stopped to ask if I was okay. But really I was fine. Anna asked, and as soon as my hand hit the ground, I like immediately sprang back up like nothing had happened. I was never ON the ground. It felt like I just did one massive push-up. But anyway, I got up faster than you'd imagine and took off running again. I knew we'd probably missed the bus, but I still wanted to try. It was either try, or don't and be stuck in Le Havre all day.
We saw some police officers on the sidewalk and asked if they knew where the stop was. They had no clue (since it wasn't the regular stop for that bus), but pointed toward a different stop saying it could be over there. No luck. And that was it. Our one chance was gone. Surely the bus had already come and gone, wherever that stop was. So we walked back, and on our way, the same police officer stopped us to ask if we found the bus. No, we obviously didn't. Don't you think if we'd found it we wouldn't be walking back right now? But anyway, we told them no, and then Anna explained how there was no way to find it because it wasn't posted or anything. The man looked at us, sighed and shrugged his shoulders a little, and said to us, in an oh-so-French way, as if he couldn't think of anything else to say, "Bienvenue en France!" (Welcome to France!) Like it was just typical (and I know it sure is!).
So basically we had to make do with whatever else was there to keep us company. I think I was more annoyed than Anna was, but whatever. We figured we might as well take advantage of the manifestation, so we sat on some steps and watched these people parade around, collecting flyers from all the people passing them out. Then we went in this mansion of a house. Not about to explain, so go look at my picture album and see for yourself. Saw some churches and wandered around, then headed back to the hotel and had kebabs for dinner and went to bed early. In my mind, there was nothing better to do.
In the morning, we visited the natural history museum, where we counted and searched for insectes in all these showcases! It was actually quite fun! Whenever I go into museums now, I always ask myself to name three things I learned in the museum. If I can't say three things, I didn't take good enough advantage of the museum.
And that was it! I left on my train at 2, and arrived back in Lure at 10:35. The more times I come back to Lure after being away for a while, the more it feels like home. I really don't want to leave.
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