LAST WEEK IN PARIS!
Besides returning from Amsterdam and going to Versailles, there wasn't much going on except packing and getting ready to get back home.
Upon returning from Amsterdam I did become seriously addicted to a game called Panzer General. It is a game that was on floppy disk from 1993. My Uncle Blair actually had this game way back in the day when I lived in Missoula. It is incredibly addicting.
Between games I did manage to whip up a purdy awesome picnic for Jenny and I. I bought this roasted pepper pesto sauce, some bow tie pasta, avocado, tomato, some lettuce, and a little wine. I whipped up a little pasta and a salad with tomato and avocado. We had ate our little picnic in view of the Eiffel Tower. It was tasty and purdy cool to just chill in the grass.
The Wednesday of that week was Bastille Day. Bastille Day is like the 4th of July for France except not as cool of course. Bastille Day is in honor of the day the Paris citizens stormed Bastille Castle in Paris signaling the start of the French Revolution.
Thursday we went to Musee d'Orsay. This is the impressionist art museum. Impressionism is the same kind of art that Claude Monet used. Remember when I went to Giverny. We walked around admiring the art for a little while.
Friday after Jenny got off of work we headed to the Louvre. The Louvre used to be the French King's palace before Versailles. It is now the most famous museum in Europe. It is GIGANTIC!! It would take you all day to do the museum or you might not even be able to get through it all in one day. Jenny and I just went and saw the famous things including the Mona Lisa.
So in short we kept it going through the end of the week. We cleaned up all day on saturday and had a nice sit down meal and some beers on saturday night.
Sunday we struggled with our 5 bags to get to the airport. We struggled into a cab, struggled through the metro, and struggled through all of the terminals to get to our terminal. After struggling all morning the flights were actually purdy good. Jenny got off her flight and on to mine from Montreal to Chicago and the best part was that she got paid $100 to do it. Awesome.
We arrived in Chicago and were very glad to be back in the United States!!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Versailles equals out of control
So I'm trying to remember this little trip since it was now about 3 and a half weeks ago or so. I feel bad but again that week got a little crazy since we were leaving and staying busy when we got back. Sooooo Versailles.
Versailles is the palace built by Louis XIV who was the king of France in 1682. It was once a little country village but now is a suburb of Paris. To get there I rode with Jenny as far as the Trocodero. That is where she changes trains to get to work and I caught the suburb train to get out of Paris. It was about a 20 minute ride by train to get to the Versailles stop which is the end of the line. I got out of the station and it was about a 5 minute walk to the palace or chateau as it is called. The line seemed like it would take forever to get a ticket but I cruised right through. The line to get into the palace was actually longer than the ticket line but I got all settled in about an hour and a half from when I got on the trian at the Trocadero.
This palace is the picture of extreme ridiculousness. The gate is encrusted in gold along with the statues and tops of the buildings. It was so crazy just to see the outlandishness of the middle ages kings.
The rooms were just as ridiculous and outlandish as the exterior. The king and queen each had their own wing of the palace. Each with several rooms. There were sitting rooms, bedrooms, meeting rooms, libraries, apparently anything a king or queen would need. There were tons of epic paintings in each room. There were tons of family portraits and paintings of the kings doing epic things like hunting and saving the world and what not. The paintings also had a lot of Greek and Roman influences. The kings were often portrayed as gods or doing god like things.
One of the coolest rooms was the Hall of Mirrors. This is a huge dancing and meeting room. The room is full of statues and chandeliers. The mirrors are on the interior side of the room and perfectly reflect the windows opposite them on the exterior side of the building. It was purdy awesome.
My favorite room however was a room, I can't remember what it was called, that had a paintings of all of France's major military victories from Tours around 700 AD until Napoleon in the early 1800s. My favorite painting was of the victory at Yorktown. It was an American victory but the French helped I guess haha.
After parousing the rest of the palace I stepped out into the gardens. I can't even describe how big these are except to say that it can be measured in acres. There are hedges everywhere that hide many ponds and fountains and flowers and it goes on forever and ever. It's pure craziness. I snapped a few pictures and what not. I just went through them quickly cause I was getting tired and I was all by myself but you could easily spend all day in that place.
After viewing the chateau it was easy to see how the French Revolution happened in 1789. The whole palace is ridiculous. It had to be a super drain on the resources of the country. The average citizen had nothing while the rich were partying and encrusting everything they had in gold. But the rich got theirs during the revolution. Revolutionary commoners from Paris stormed the chateau and captured the king. Then they preceded to cut his head off and his lovely queen Antoinette's as well. Lovely.
So ends the Versailles saga.
Versailles is the palace built by Louis XIV who was the king of France in 1682. It was once a little country village but now is a suburb of Paris. To get there I rode with Jenny as far as the Trocodero. That is where she changes trains to get to work and I caught the suburb train to get out of Paris. It was about a 20 minute ride by train to get to the Versailles stop which is the end of the line. I got out of the station and it was about a 5 minute walk to the palace or chateau as it is called. The line seemed like it would take forever to get a ticket but I cruised right through. The line to get into the palace was actually longer than the ticket line but I got all settled in about an hour and a half from when I got on the trian at the Trocadero.
This palace is the picture of extreme ridiculousness. The gate is encrusted in gold along with the statues and tops of the buildings. It was so crazy just to see the outlandishness of the middle ages kings.
The rooms were just as ridiculous and outlandish as the exterior. The king and queen each had their own wing of the palace. Each with several rooms. There were sitting rooms, bedrooms, meeting rooms, libraries, apparently anything a king or queen would need. There were tons of epic paintings in each room. There were tons of family portraits and paintings of the kings doing epic things like hunting and saving the world and what not. The paintings also had a lot of Greek and Roman influences. The kings were often portrayed as gods or doing god like things.One of the coolest rooms was the Hall of Mirrors. This is a huge dancing and meeting room. The room is full of statues and chandeliers. The mirrors are on the interior side of the room and perfectly reflect the windows opposite them on the exterior side of the building. It was purdy awesome.
My favorite room however was a room, I can't remember what it was called, that had a paintings of all of France's major military victories from Tours around 700 AD until Napoleon in the early 1800s. My favorite painting was of the victory at Yorktown. It was an American victory but the French helped I guess haha.
After parousing the rest of the palace I stepped out into the gardens. I can't even describe how big these are except to say that it can be measured in acres. There are hedges everywhere that hide many ponds and fountains and flowers and it goes on forever and ever. It's pure craziness. I snapped a few pictures and what not. I just went through them quickly cause I was getting tired and I was all by myself but you could easily spend all day in that place.
After viewing the chateau it was easy to see how the French Revolution happened in 1789. The whole palace is ridiculous. It had to be a super drain on the resources of the country. The average citizen had nothing while the rich were partying and encrusting everything they had in gold. But the rich got theirs during the revolution. Revolutionary commoners from Paris stormed the chateau and captured the king. Then they preceded to cut his head off and his lovely queen Antoinette's as well. Lovely.So ends the Versailles saga.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I don't speak freaky deaky Dutch
Hello again I'm Cole Prevost. That was a really long break from writing and I'm sure you guys have tuned out by now which is sad because the story goes on. I just got really busy after we got back from Amsterdam because the next weekend we left to head back to the United States. Anyways............ Amsterdam!!
I'm not for sure on the entire history of the city of Amsterdam, but I do know that is a really cool city visually. The train station that we rode in on is a man made island. I think a lot of Amsterdam might be something similar. The city has a series of canals that ring out from the center of the city. So the deeper you go into the city the more canals you have to cross. But the first thing you really notice about Amsterdam is the bikes! There are a billion bikes everywhere. They have special bike lines enough for like 5 bikes across and they have bike traffic lights. It's purdy wild. It would have been fun to try it out but we didn't think we were ready for intense city biking. Even though our hotel looked a ways off on the map we walked to it in approximately 15 minutes. The city is surprisingly small which we would really find out later. Our hotel was called the Bulldog Hostel. It was apparently started by some British guys in the 1970s so everyone that works there (and most of the people who stay there) speak English. Not that it was much of a problem because everyone in the city spoke English along with Dutch (and probably German and French too). We got settled into our room and headed out to walk around for a little bit. We then started to notice interesting things about the city we were staying in. Our hostel just happened to be in a little place called the Red Light District.
The Red Light District is Amsterdam's famous neighborhood. The area is designated by, you guessed it, Red lights on posts. Inside this little area you will find all the lovely ladies of the night. It's real classy haha. They each have their own window and people apparently window shop. These windows are everywhere. They are on the main street and in all the alleys. The district is also home to tons of "specialty shops." Shops to buy everything you need for your wildest fantasy haha. There is marijuana history museums, cafe's, and "special" theaters. Funny thing about the cafe's in the RLD, they don't just sell coffee they also are distributors of the ganja. This was a lot to take in all at once. We did notice a restaurant that we would frequent throughout the weekend. It was called Wok to Walk and I will describe it later. After snooping for awhile we headed back, had a few beers and headed to bed.
Saturday morning we got up early, like nine-ish. Our first stop of the day was The Anne Frank house. It was a really powerful museum about the Holocaust and intolerance. This was the house that Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis from 1942 until they were captured in 1944. The family and a family of close friends hid for over 2 years living in fear in a tiny apartment. Anne Frank kept a diary which was later published by her father when he returned from the concentration camps. It was really sad but it was really powerful as well.
After we went to the museum we did a little shopping on the way back to the hotel. When we went back to the hotel we had a few beers, it was noon after all. We walked around a little bit and hit up Wok to Walk. This is like HuHot if you are familiar with this restaurant but it's to go. You choose your type of noodle, veggies/meat, and sauce. They have a nice asian man complete with samurai headband, working the wok. It takes about five minutes and you have an awesome meal that is almost too much to eat. It's that awesome.
After Wok to Walk we headed back and took a nap. We got up a little later and went to a little Wine and Cheese cruise on the canals. It was way cool, it was just a little cruise around the city. We had two bottles of wine, a selection of cheese, and some mixed nuts. Very classy little cruise. Right after the cruise was over, it started to rain hurricane style. So we were forced to stay in the bar and have some drinks until it stopped. When it finally did stop, we went back and walked around the Red Light District since it seemed like the thing to do at night.
Sunday we only had a couple things on our list. One was the Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken Museum. We took our sweet time getting around to things. We actually took a cab to the Van Gogh Museum because we were a little lazy. It was about a 30 minute cab ride to the Museum that was at the very edge of our map. We layed in the park bordering the museum for awhile before we headed in. At the park they were setting up for the World Cup Final between the Netherlands and Spain. They were setting up huge screens and getting ready for a party. The museum was purdy cool. Lots and lots of paintings and what not. We then went to the Heineken Museum! They brewed Heineken in the building for over 100 years but now the building is a museum and they brew the beer elsewhere. The tour was self guided but it was way cool. There was a video/ride that put you as beer getting brewed. We got three free beers and went through the entire history of the Heineken brand including their advertising campaigns and innovations such as the mini keg. We also got a bottle of Heineken that has our names on it. Brewed by Jenny & Cole.
On the way back we decided to walk. Instead of a 30 minute car ride, it was a 20 minute walk back to the hotel. We fought our way back to the hotel through all the partiers and soccer fans to get our bags and head back to the train.
All in all it was an awesome weekend and I'm really glad I went. Next up will be Versailles.
Booyah.
I'm not for sure on the entire history of the city of Amsterdam, but I do know that is a really cool city visually. The train station that we rode in on is a man made island. I think a lot of Amsterdam might be something similar. The city has a series of canals that ring out from the center of the city. So the deeper you go into the city the more canals you have to cross. But the first thing you really notice about Amsterdam is the bikes! There are a billion bikes everywhere. They have special bike lines enough for like 5 bikes across and they have bike traffic lights. It's purdy wild. It would have been fun to try it out but we didn't think we were ready for intense city biking. Even though our hotel looked a ways off on the map we walked to it in approximately 15 minutes. The city is surprisingly small which we would really find out later. Our hotel was called the Bulldog Hostel. It was apparently started by some British guys in the 1970s so everyone that works there (and most of the people who stay there) speak English. Not that it was much of a problem because everyone in the city spoke English along with Dutch (and probably German and French too). We got settled into our room and headed out to walk around for a little bit. We then started to notice interesting things about the city we were staying in. Our hostel just happened to be in a little place called the Red Light District.
The Red Light District is Amsterdam's famous neighborhood. The area is designated by, you guessed it, Red lights on posts. Inside this little area you will find all the lovely ladies of the night. It's real classy haha. They each have their own window and people apparently window shop. These windows are everywhere. They are on the main street and in all the alleys. The district is also home to tons of "specialty shops." Shops to buy everything you need for your wildest fantasy haha. There is marijuana history museums, cafe's, and "special" theaters. Funny thing about the cafe's in the RLD, they don't just sell coffee they also are distributors of the ganja. This was a lot to take in all at once. We did notice a restaurant that we would frequent throughout the weekend. It was called Wok to Walk and I will describe it later. After snooping for awhile we headed back, had a few beers and headed to bed.
Saturday morning we got up early, like nine-ish. Our first stop of the day was The Anne Frank house. It was a really powerful museum about the Holocaust and intolerance. This was the house that Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis from 1942 until they were captured in 1944. The family and a family of close friends hid for over 2 years living in fear in a tiny apartment. Anne Frank kept a diary which was later published by her father when he returned from the concentration camps. It was really sad but it was really powerful as well.
After we went to the museum we did a little shopping on the way back to the hotel. When we went back to the hotel we had a few beers, it was noon after all. We walked around a little bit and hit up Wok to Walk. This is like HuHot if you are familiar with this restaurant but it's to go. You choose your type of noodle, veggies/meat, and sauce. They have a nice asian man complete with samurai headband, working the wok. It takes about five minutes and you have an awesome meal that is almost too much to eat. It's that awesome.
After Wok to Walk we headed back and took a nap. We got up a little later and went to a little Wine and Cheese cruise on the canals. It was way cool, it was just a little cruise around the city. We had two bottles of wine, a selection of cheese, and some mixed nuts. Very classy little cruise. Right after the cruise was over, it started to rain hurricane style. So we were forced to stay in the bar and have some drinks until it stopped. When it finally did stop, we went back and walked around the Red Light District since it seemed like the thing to do at night.
Sunday we only had a couple things on our list. One was the Van Gogh Museum and the Heineken Museum. We took our sweet time getting around to things. We actually took a cab to the Van Gogh Museum because we were a little lazy. It was about a 30 minute cab ride to the Museum that was at the very edge of our map. We layed in the park bordering the museum for awhile before we headed in. At the park they were setting up for the World Cup Final between the Netherlands and Spain. They were setting up huge screens and getting ready for a party. The museum was purdy cool. Lots and lots of paintings and what not. We then went to the Heineken Museum! They brewed Heineken in the building for over 100 years but now the building is a museum and they brew the beer elsewhere. The tour was self guided but it was way cool. There was a video/ride that put you as beer getting brewed. We got three free beers and went through the entire history of the Heineken brand including their advertising campaigns and innovations such as the mini keg. We also got a bottle of Heineken that has our names on it. Brewed by Jenny & Cole.
On the way back we decided to walk. Instead of a 30 minute car ride, it was a 20 minute walk back to the hotel. We fought our way back to the hotel through all the partiers and soccer fans to get our bags and head back to the train.
All in all it was an awesome weekend and I'm really glad I went. Next up will be Versailles.
Booyah.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Normandy!!
Well I finally made it. After a childhood spent reading books and books and books about World War Two I finally reached one of it's most famous sites. Normandy.
In order to get there Nick Dial and I had to ride the train. This was a trip in itself because we had to drop the only room key off with Jenny for the weekend. We we did we realized Nick forgot his rail pass (unlimited train rides for over a month) so we had to go back to get the keys from Jenny again, ride the metro back to the apartment, get back on the metro and ride it to the train station. It was a good thing we got Nick's rail pass because the tickets to Caen were 56 euros for there and back. It was approximately a two hour train ride to the city of Caen. This is the town that was the objective of the British and Canadians and is on the eastern side of the invasion area. Instead of riding the trams or taking a taxi we decided to walk to our hotel. This ended up being on the far side of the town and it took about an hour to walk the whole way. It was a cool walk. I tried to imagine Allied soldiers walking through the town during the war but I'm purdy sure most of the original city was destroyed by aerial bombing. We actually walked right by the Memorial Museum and it was a block from our hotel which was outstanding.
That night we had dinner at the hotel. I had this andouille sausage that had a rubbery texture and may have not been cooked entirely. For the main course I had a steak, medium. It came back not pink but dark red, I think I killed it while I was eating it. It was still good though. We checked up on the tours and headed to bed.
We showed up early to the Museum on Tuesday morning hoping to get on a tour for the morning. It was full up for the morning so we had to wait until 2pm to start the 5hr tour. We used the time to go through the museum. The museum was very good. It started in the pre-war years and went through all phases of the build up to war, the actual fighting, the Holocaust and other related mass human massacres and mistreatments by some of the warring nations including Nazi Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The last part of the Museum was the Normandy part. It was just a quick refresher for me since I am a WWII nerd. There was a Soviet special exhibit but I don't care about those commies so I didn't do it.
The tour was everything I could have asked for. It was 5 hours long give or take. We had an English speaking tour guide (even though she had a thick french accent haha She was originally from Sait Lo in Normandy). Our first Stop was Arromanches. This was on Gold Beach. This was where the British soldiers landed on June 6th 1944. Arromanches was the site of the artificial harbor built by the British. There were no natural harbors in Normandy until the cities of Cherbourg and Le Havre were taken later. These artificial harbors allowed massive amounts of men and equipment to be landed. Another one was located at Omaha beach but was destroyed in a Channel storm soon after it was built.
The next stop was a German battery overlooking both Omaha and Gold beaches. It was a collection of four concrete encased cannon. One bunker was completely destroyed, one gun was hit, and the communication phone lines were knocked out by naval gunfire which made the guns completely ineffective on game day. It was cool you could walk around in the little bunkers. I took a few pictures but my camera is dead and I don't have the charger.
The next stop was The American Cemetery. This place was so emotionally powerful. You could just feel it all around you. These were Americans that had died far from their country. Their final resting place is beautiful. It is one of 2 pieces of French territory that have been given to the United States. The other being Pointe du Hoc which I will describe later. The graves are perfectly aligned side to side, front to back, and diagonally. There is a monument at the head of the cemetery with a statue that signifies that the Americans came from across the ocean to liberate France. There is a chapel in the middle. The entire cemetery is shaped like a cross from overhead. The mosaic in the ceiling of the chapel shows on one side Lady Liberty is blessing the soldiers as the go off to war and on the other is the Lady of France bestowing a laurel wreath on the American Dead who gave their lives to liberate Europe. It is very powerful. On the other side of the monument is the garden of the missing. This is where the names of all those soldiers who were unaccounted for are located. There are almost 1000 names of men that were never found. This was a humbling place and I'm really glad I went.
The next stop on the tour was Omaha Beach. It was a little weird to see people laying on the beach and wind surfing on the very same beaches where soldiers fought and died but it was actually refreshing too. At Omaha you could see why it was such a rough day for the Americans. This is the only location along the entire invasion front that is bordered by highlands and bluffs. Everywhere else is a very flat place to land. This location gives the defenders an excellent view of the battlefield. This coupled with the fact that a violent storm blew most of the boats away from where they were supposed to land, adding to the disorientation of the soldiers caused massive casualties on Omaha. Another important fact was that there were only supposed to be 800 men defending this portion of the beach when in reality it was closer to 12,000. Americans suffered more casualties at Omaha then and of the other beaches combined. On a happier note the Americans kicked ass and liberated the whole of northwest France and swung around the Germans and trapped many of them while the British, Canadians, and French were stuck barely 50 miles from where they started.
Pointe du Hoc was our last stop. This was the place where on D-Day, a little over 200 U.S. Army Rangers had the mission to climb vertical cliffs and destroy cannons overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches. Only being there do you realize how difficult of a mission that this would have been. On D-Day the boats went to the wrong cliff, they had to travel along the coast until they reached the right one. Instead of taking the Germans by surprise, they were receiving fire before they even got out of their boats. Once landed they had to climb the cliffs while taking fire from the enemy only to reach the top and find that the guns had been moved. Without skipping a beat the Rangers went inland found the guns and destroyed them. Then they defended their position for several days until relieved. By the end there were less than 90 Rangers left. I do have pictures of this place that Nick sent me.
Bunker at Pointe Du Hoc
Some of the bombed out landscape at the top
The Ranger Memorial with some awesome quotes
Our driver bless his heart, put the pedal to the medal and got us to the train station in time for the early train. I got back to Paris around 9ish. Jenny and I are getting ready to go to Amsterdam this weekend. It sounds like it's going to be an amazing time!!
In order to get there Nick Dial and I had to ride the train. This was a trip in itself because we had to drop the only room key off with Jenny for the weekend. We we did we realized Nick forgot his rail pass (unlimited train rides for over a month) so we had to go back to get the keys from Jenny again, ride the metro back to the apartment, get back on the metro and ride it to the train station. It was a good thing we got Nick's rail pass because the tickets to Caen were 56 euros for there and back. It was approximately a two hour train ride to the city of Caen. This is the town that was the objective of the British and Canadians and is on the eastern side of the invasion area. Instead of riding the trams or taking a taxi we decided to walk to our hotel. This ended up being on the far side of the town and it took about an hour to walk the whole way. It was a cool walk. I tried to imagine Allied soldiers walking through the town during the war but I'm purdy sure most of the original city was destroyed by aerial bombing. We actually walked right by the Memorial Museum and it was a block from our hotel which was outstanding.
That night we had dinner at the hotel. I had this andouille sausage that had a rubbery texture and may have not been cooked entirely. For the main course I had a steak, medium. It came back not pink but dark red, I think I killed it while I was eating it. It was still good though. We checked up on the tours and headed to bed.
We showed up early to the Museum on Tuesday morning hoping to get on a tour for the morning. It was full up for the morning so we had to wait until 2pm to start the 5hr tour. We used the time to go through the museum. The museum was very good. It started in the pre-war years and went through all phases of the build up to war, the actual fighting, the Holocaust and other related mass human massacres and mistreatments by some of the warring nations including Nazi Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The last part of the Museum was the Normandy part. It was just a quick refresher for me since I am a WWII nerd. There was a Soviet special exhibit but I don't care about those commies so I didn't do it.
The tour was everything I could have asked for. It was 5 hours long give or take. We had an English speaking tour guide (even though she had a thick french accent haha She was originally from Sait Lo in Normandy). Our first Stop was Arromanches. This was on Gold Beach. This was where the British soldiers landed on June 6th 1944. Arromanches was the site of the artificial harbor built by the British. There were no natural harbors in Normandy until the cities of Cherbourg and Le Havre were taken later. These artificial harbors allowed massive amounts of men and equipment to be landed. Another one was located at Omaha beach but was destroyed in a Channel storm soon after it was built.
The next stop was a German battery overlooking both Omaha and Gold beaches. It was a collection of four concrete encased cannon. One bunker was completely destroyed, one gun was hit, and the communication phone lines were knocked out by naval gunfire which made the guns completely ineffective on game day. It was cool you could walk around in the little bunkers. I took a few pictures but my camera is dead and I don't have the charger.
The next stop was The American Cemetery. This place was so emotionally powerful. You could just feel it all around you. These were Americans that had died far from their country. Their final resting place is beautiful. It is one of 2 pieces of French territory that have been given to the United States. The other being Pointe du Hoc which I will describe later. The graves are perfectly aligned side to side, front to back, and diagonally. There is a monument at the head of the cemetery with a statue that signifies that the Americans came from across the ocean to liberate France. There is a chapel in the middle. The entire cemetery is shaped like a cross from overhead. The mosaic in the ceiling of the chapel shows on one side Lady Liberty is blessing the soldiers as the go off to war and on the other is the Lady of France bestowing a laurel wreath on the American Dead who gave their lives to liberate Europe. It is very powerful. On the other side of the monument is the garden of the missing. This is where the names of all those soldiers who were unaccounted for are located. There are almost 1000 names of men that were never found. This was a humbling place and I'm really glad I went.
The next stop on the tour was Omaha Beach. It was a little weird to see people laying on the beach and wind surfing on the very same beaches where soldiers fought and died but it was actually refreshing too. At Omaha you could see why it was such a rough day for the Americans. This is the only location along the entire invasion front that is bordered by highlands and bluffs. Everywhere else is a very flat place to land. This location gives the defenders an excellent view of the battlefield. This coupled with the fact that a violent storm blew most of the boats away from where they were supposed to land, adding to the disorientation of the soldiers caused massive casualties on Omaha. Another important fact was that there were only supposed to be 800 men defending this portion of the beach when in reality it was closer to 12,000. Americans suffered more casualties at Omaha then and of the other beaches combined. On a happier note the Americans kicked ass and liberated the whole of northwest France and swung around the Germans and trapped many of them while the British, Canadians, and French were stuck barely 50 miles from where they started.
Pointe du Hoc was our last stop. This was the place where on D-Day, a little over 200 U.S. Army Rangers had the mission to climb vertical cliffs and destroy cannons overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches. Only being there do you realize how difficult of a mission that this would have been. On D-Day the boats went to the wrong cliff, they had to travel along the coast until they reached the right one. Instead of taking the Germans by surprise, they were receiving fire before they even got out of their boats. Once landed they had to climb the cliffs while taking fire from the enemy only to reach the top and find that the guns had been moved. Without skipping a beat the Rangers went inland found the guns and destroyed them. Then they defended their position for several days until relieved. By the end there were less than 90 Rangers left. I do have pictures of this place that Nick sent me.
Bunker at Pointe Du Hoc
Some of the bombed out landscape at the top
The Ranger Memorial with some awesome quotesMonday, July 5, 2010
Belgium!!!!
Hello friends. Jenny and I just got back last night from our trip to Belgium this weekend. It was an awesome trip. Belgium along with the Netherlands (which we'll be seeing next weekend) and Luxembourg make up the Low Countries and separate France and Germany. The two cities that we saw in Belgium were Brussels (the capital) and Bruge.
Jenny got off of work really early on Friday. Apparently no one does anything on Fridays here. In France it's also illegal (actually against the law) to work more than 42 hours in one week. So most people work around 36. This is completely ridiculous to me. Americans work till they die. These people cry and cry and threaten to riot when they try to raise the retirement age 1 year. Just one more reason why the US is cool and everywhere else is not. Anyways, Jenny got off of work early and came home and we finished packing for the trip. I grabbed our laundry from the overcharging asian ladies who didn't even fold the clothes (remember I paid 15 euros for this service). We got all our stuff together and headed for the train station. We packed surprisingly light which would be a good thing for our return journey. We rode the metro to the train station Gare de Nord. This is where many of the TGV trains start from. The TGV trains are the super high speed trains like the one we rode to London. This was a similar train to Brussels. It's called the Thalys. The trains are very nice and comfortable. We brought some beers on board and cruised the 1hr and 30min to Brussels. By this point it was getting a little late because even though Jenny got off of work early it would have been expensive to change our tickets to an earlier time. When we got to Brussels we checked into our hotel. This hotel was very nice and it was actually purdy cheap on Hotels.com. It even had an air-conditioner which was a welcome surprise after a week of constant sweating in Paris. It would become apparent that U.S. and European standards for air conditioning are very different. We got settled in and then when out on the town. We ate at a falafel joint along the street which was very delicious. They have about a billion of these places in Brussels. Europe has a lot of Middle Eastern/Northern African people. This is probably because they were once colonies so they speak the language anyways so they come to Europe. We really didn't do much the rest of the night. We stopped and grabbed some awesome Belgian beer on the way back to the hotel. We also purchased Belgiums strongest beer made, it was 13% alcohol. Nice.
Saturday we did a bunch of strolling around. Brussels doesn't have as many of the famous sites like London or Paris. Actually I believe the most famous thing in Brussels is a little statue called the Manneken Pis. It's a statue/fountain of a little naked boy holding his peep and peeing. Very classy we bought a bottle opener in its likeness. We didn't actually find the statue but we did find a really cool Cathedral and the town square was really cool. The architecture in Europe is amazing and I'm really impressed with it. We strolled through the rain to find the Cantillon Brewery. This is the only brewery left in Brussels "county". It was a self guided tour and then we got two free sips. We took a lot of pictures and ended up buying a few things. It was way cool they brew things old school for the most part. The coolest part of the day was when we found The Bier Temple. This store was awesome. They had hundreds of amazing beers, T-shirts, posters, special beer glasses with the beer names on them. It was so cool. The also make like 5 L bottles of beer but those were like 50 bucks apiece. We bought a ton of stuff. Jenny bought 2 Delirium glasses. It has little pink elephants all over it. This beer kicks ass. The sell it in the United States but you'll most likely have to find a specialty beer store to get it. There is one in Iowa City and it is awesome.
We grabbed some pasta and pizza from this little italian place and headed back to the hotel to take a nap. I think the beer was getting to us already haha. We didn't really do much the rest of the night except watch a little bit of the soccer game between Paraguay and Spain. We grabbed a bite to eat which included Belgian Croquettes which are fried cheese balls. Then we called it a night early because we were getting up early to go to Bruge in the morning.
We got up and checked out of the hotel but left our stuff in the luggage closet so we didn't have to pack it around all day which was handy. We walked to the train station and after speaking with the ticket guy who spoke silly english we got on a train just in time. The train ride was about an hour. Bruge is such a cool city. It isn't very big and the architecture is all in old style. I didn't really see any modern buildings. The train station was about as modern as it got but it was outside the city just a little bit. We walked through a legit garage/yard/flee market on our way from the train station. There was so much stuff. One guy had an awesome record collection with mostly american music. There were a ton of sweet things to grab but we do have to bring stuff on the plane back. So I just bought a deck of Chimay playing cards (Chimay is a very good beer). We walked around and found a nice little place to eat. We had about a liter of beer to wash everything down with which then made me have to pee the rest of the day. Bruge had an awesome town center as well. It was the same kind of open square type of place. Really cool. After we walked through that we went to the De Halve Maan Brewery (de halve maan is the half moon). It was a 45min tour but the tour guide was so awesome. She was hilarious. The Belgians are very passionate about their beer. They refer to lagers (like budweiser and such) as table beer or children's beer. The views from the top of the brewery were purdy cool. You could see the whole town from up there. After the tour we met a couple from Minnesota that were living in London. We talked with them for awhile until we realized we had to catch the train. We ran through Bruge stopping only to get an ice cream bar and a waffle with chocolate and banana on it. We were in such a hurry that I forgot to share my waffle with Jenny!! I felt bad because we went all the way through Belgium and Jenny didn't get to have a Belgian Waffle.
We made it to the train but had to stand/sit in the space between the cars since the train was so packed. We got back to Brussels and had a little bit of time to walk around grab our stuff and head to the train station. Then it was another 1hr 30min followed by another Metro ride until we finally made it back to the apartment.
It was an awesome trip and I'm now heading off to Normandy today!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Week 1 in Paris comes to a close
Well my first week in Paris has come to a close. It was a nice little week. Saw the Trocadero, The Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, and the Army Museum. Jenny and I also met up with here law school friends and we had a few beers for happy hour. Happy hour is apparently the same in English as in French because even cafes and other bars have happy hours. I also got robbed in the metro by the metro authorities which I am still pissed at. I've cut my gums on many a baguette (long skinny french bread which is very crusty). I mean it literally will cut your gums.
Yesterday I went with Jenny to a mall. Imagine an American mall but way crazier. The clothing stores were packed with people mostly girls running around grabbing things. Jenny was in one store for a half hour and didn't even try anything on because the line was like out the door to try stuff. I didn't stay in that one. I went to find a bench only to find there are no Man Benches in French malls. Apparently in France the men with there little man purses follow the women around the stores as well. That is very sweet of them but my physical tolerance for shopping will only go so far. It's like the mall saps my energy to even walk. I think it all goes to Jenny because she seems more energized the more tired I get. We did grab a fruit smoothie though so that made me happy. I can be coaxed into more shopping with food or drink. We also went into a sporting goods store of sorts. I had to fight my way through all the soccer stuff to get to the basketballs. I bought one because there is a street court down the street from the apartment and I need to use it to get out of the house. There is no Air Conditioning so I'm no better off inside then outside.
Last night Jenny and I made dinner. We made some little brushettas with tomato, onion, and goat cheese. We also made bow tie pasta with some tomato pesto sauce. It was purdy good. We watched most of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and then called it a night.
Today we are heading off to Brussels. I had to do some things like get laundry done. Apparently home washers are the size of a glass of water here so you can do like 5 things at a time or take it somewhere and do it. I took it up the street to some chinese ladies with a laundry store. They apparently speak English too which was cool. I tried a little French on for size and mostly got my point across. It was like 15 euro and it will be done at 3pm. 15 Euro sounds a little expensive for laundry but I can't read any signs so I don't know any other options. We go through clothes here like crazy. It's 90+ degrees today and the sun shines right into the window directly behind me. Other than that I'm packing up some stuff and meeting Jenny at the train station to ride the blazing fast euro trains. We should go from Paris to Brussels, Belgium in around 2 hours. I am bringing a few beers for the road or rails I should say. It should be a fun trip because as you know Budweiser and many of the world's beers are owned by Belgian companies not to mention that Belgian beer is the best in the world with out any shade of a doubt. Anyways I'm bringing my computer so I'll be in touch the whole weekend. Au revoir!!!
p.s. oh yah the pictures from top to bottom are:
- the view from the bedroom window. It's a nice little apartment complex with a locking gate at the front and stuff
- The washing machine. Notice how big it is in relation to the gun slicing baguette that is sitting on top of it.
- the kitchen. no table no oven/stove combo. Things are just smaller in Europe I believe.
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