March 7, 2005



Now that we actually have the French train system figured out, we’re starting to feel like seasoned backpackers-––well sort of. We obviously fit with the legions of unshowered and starry-eyed college students sleeping on trains and eating nutella sandwiches. Nonetheless, we still have a lot to learn.

This past weekend we chose a well
worn destination for Americans: Normandy. Confession: geography genius that I am, I didn’t realize until this last week that Normandy is a region, not a city. Such a misconception should not come as a shock considering that my parents thought that I was in Norway all weekend. The apple doth not fall far from the tree.

In all actuality, we were staying in Bayeux, France. Most people would have heard it associated with the famous Bayeux Tapestry, an almost millennia old pictorial account of the Norman Conquest––as told from the side of the victors of course. It was hard to grasp the fact that so much history could be embodied in a single place. Talk about historical consciousness; the same shores that the Norman Conquerors sailed from were stormed 900 years later on D-Day! Enough with the history lesson though.