Normandy, Part Un #HogsAbroad in France

Bonjour!

The past week was my last week in Paris, and it was crazy busy, so I’m a little behind on posts. I am writing this from the floor of Concourse D at Charlotte International Airport, where I am whiling away a four-hour layover.

Last weekend we went on our last ISA excursion, a wonderful weekend trip to Normandy. I'm going to recap day one here, and day two will follow in a second post, because boy did I take a LOT of pictures!

Once again, we met up at the edge of the city at 7:30 a.m. SO EARLY.

Even though it was early, I found happiness by eating un pain au chocolat as big as my head.

The bus drove us to Caen and WWII/Holocaust museum. I was a little tired and I didn't think I was really in a museum mood, but it ended up being a great museum and I didn't even have as much time as I wanted to go through it!

This was outside the museum - the famous victory kiss!

The museum was neat because it was really well laid out and very easy to understand, but it also had a lot of artifacts from WWII. I've never seen this stuff in real life, so that was neat. Obviously, these are the yellow stars that Jewish people were forced to wear on their clothing.

Read this if you're feeling brave. It's part of a letter that a Nazi soldier sent to his wife about the mass murders of Jews. It's sickening.

Sweet baby girls who didn't make it through the camps. Relatively speaking, almost no Jewish children who were taken from their homes by the Nazis survived.

Flags outside the museum

Toys and belongings found after their owners were taken to concentration camps.

T and I ended up rushing through the end of the museum, which covered the liberation and Allies' win. So basically we skipped the only somewhat happy part of the story.

The museum was just so good. I knew most of the stuff about the actual progression of the war thanks to some awesome history teachers over the years, but it was interesting to read about it from a French/European point of view instead of an American point of view. For instance, there was tons of info about the French occupation and what that meant for French people, but they only briefly mentioned Pearl Harbor and the United States' entrance into the war.

They had a lot of old newspapers, which I really enjoyed looking at.

The best (and worst) part of the museum was the part about the Holocaust. It was so haunting, but they had so much information and personal testimonies and artifacts.

There was also a big section of the museum detailing the war between China and Japan, and the atrocities committed by the Japanese army against Chinese civilians. The museum said that the horrific treatment in Asia was equivalent to conditions in Nazi concentration camps, which I found really interesting because it's not something I've ever learned a lot about.

"60 million dead, of which 35 million were civilians"
The scale of this war is just horrific. The museum was so sad but there was so much important information - as the saying goes, if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.

After the museum, we drove a little ways away to the American cemetery on Omaha beach, which played a big role in D-Day. It was so humbling to walk through the graves of so many people who gave their lives for a cause so great. Most of them were probably about my age, and I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to scale these cliffs or fight on those battlefields, not knowing if you would live or die, but fighting anyways.

 

The cemetery is just above Omaha Beach.

While we were at the cemetery, I took some pictures for my photography class. My final project is a photo essay on Montparnasse Cemetery, Père Lachaise Cemetery and the American Cemetery in Normandy, exploring how these places, meant to honor the deceased, have become huge tourist attractions instead of just memorials, and what that means for the men and women whose memories are supposed to be preserved, not overshadowed by selfies.

After the cemetery, we went to Pointe Hoc, another invasion point on D-Day. We got to climb around in the German bunkers and we had a better view of the coast and cliffs that the soldiers scaled than we did at Omaha. It was very neat and I could've spent a very long time running through the fields and exploring. It actually reminded me of Ship Island off of Gulf Port, Mississippi. Unfortunately, we only had about half an hour! I really like these excursions that they take us on, but we're so rushed sometimes!

Goats chilling at the top of the cliff above the beach. France is weird.

There were lots of craters like this where I assume some sort of explosion happened?

We then drove about two more hours (SO MUCH DRIVING) to our hotel in St. Malo, which was seriously the cutest town I've ever seen. I could have spent days there.

It's a really interesting town historically speaking. A lot of pirates set off on their journeys from here, the Malouins successfully defended France from many, many attempted English invasions and also the city declared itself totally independent at one point. Also the medieval walls along the outside of the city are still standing, which is really really rare.

We started the day in Normandy, which is one of the many regions of France, but St. Malo is in Brittany, which is famous for cheese, apples and beignets. St. Malo specifically is famous for its cider, so of course we drank some of that at supper. I also ate a yummy omelette.

Then we went down to the beach, and it was so magical. Seriously one of the best nights of my life. Look at that sunset! Also I ate a crepe!

This castle was the home of a famous French writer, Chateaubriand.

Ireland and I

Carrie

It was just a great day and night. Another one of those awesome experiences that I've had on this trip that I will remember forever and ever!

I will recap day two in the next post!

Au revoir!
Sydne
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Read more from Sydne at http://theyesgirlwrites.blogspot.com/
To find out more about the ISA Paris, France: Arts & French Language at the Institut Catholique de Paris program, check out http://studiesabroad.com/paris