Normandy

Saturday morning CC and i took the train to the airport to pick up our rental car to take out to the land of Normandy. the kia was manual which meant i had to drive, which i was not looking forward to driving the whole time, but actually it turned out to be a lot of fun to change gears on the streets of paris and normandy. and the ability to manually change gears comes in real handy when you gotta kick it around slower cars or cheesetrucks. plus the kia itself was extremely easy and fun to drive, i like those cars now. after getting thru nasty vacation traffic we made it to the beaches of dday, Omaha and Utah. If anyone has any tiny interest in WWII then i suggest these beaches are an absolute must. it was awesome climbing and playing and exploring the german bunkers that have holes in the walls from bullets and black walls from flame throwers. plus it's on the beach with beautiful cliffs. we drove more and tried to go to the american cemetary but it was closed so we drove thru all these little villages and went to a dday museum, then to our beautiful hotel in Bayeaux. Bayeaux is this ancient town with a big cathedral and the longest tapestry and it was putting on their medieval festival that was a lot of fun. people in this area take it very seriously and party as well. lots of sausage stands, meats cooking on spits, cassoulet tents, beer and cider. it went on all saturday and sunday into the nite. the parade was a lot of fun. we watched it right out side this patisserie where cc's grandmother "died and gone to heaven" in her words (she likes sweets a lot!) then we left after cc's uncle and i had had enough sausage dogs and after we saw the tapistry which for fabric is pretty cool its a long story about a war. At the lobby of the tapistry i saw a picture of Mont St. Michel and i asked cc if it was near and she said it was and that Van mentioned he wanted to go too. I said sweet lets go so we changed plans and didn't tell Phoebe or Van (ccs idea to surprise them). We just got in the car and started driving. Just outside the castle on the hill, Van figured it out and kept saying "CC I'm gonna hug your neck" must be a Charleston thing, but he was really excited. It was really cool. A castle on a big hill that pops out of nowhere. When the tide is in it is an island, when it's not there are miles and miles of sand that you can walk forever on as long as you dont die in the quicksand. At the bottom there are a mess of restaurants and tacky souvenier shops that curve around the hill. i actually liked them. Then we drove to Chartres to see the famous Cathedral. That was cool- there was a Russian quintet singing in the very dark cathedral and it made up for it not having the holy veil of Mary on display. Then we made it home to paris and after dropping the "kids" off at their hotel cc and i went to our local mc donalds for takeout.