My first week abroad has been nothing but great memories, amazing learning opportunities, and diving into this new culture. This week we have been staying in Lisieux, where we have visited Normandy and Mont Saint-Michel. We first stopped at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. Written on the walls in the memorial at the front of the cemetery are the names of the soldiers who were not found. I learned that they will place a bronze medal by their name if they were later identified. While walking around the graves, we were able to see the soldiers’ names, what state they were from, and sometimes what their military ranking was. We even saw some A&M flags by some of the gravestones. We toured the Omaha and Utah beaches where we enjoyed the beautiful scenery and had lunch. Walking on both of these beaches was very monumental, given that this was where the invasions on D-Day took place. We also visited Pointe du Hoc, where we saw the rock that Rudder tower at A&M resembles, both being around 100 feet tall. Here, we saw many deep craters in the ground where bombs had been previously dropped. We then visited the German Batteries, where we got to walk through each bunker at the site. I really enjoyed getting to see where the men would sleep, eat, and learning about the different cannons they used on site. Walking around the batteries gave me a different perspective than just simply learning about them because I could picture the soldiers being in the exact same place years before me, which was very eye-opening and amazing to experience.
The next day we spent the whole day at Mont Saint-Michel. This city is on an island in Mont Saint-Michel, France. A fun fact is that the movie ‘Tangled’ actually based their town on this city. We first ate at La Terrasse Du Mounton, where I tried my first mussels, which I noticed is a very common thing for locals to order. We then got to tour the abbey where the monks used to live. Each room was designed for a specific purpose, and each had a unique touch to them. In one of the rooms, there was a wheel that pulled up water and resources from the ground. The wheel would move by six men who would run on it, normally the prisoners. The monks would eat their meals in silence, so they created their own sign language and hand motions to ask for different things at the dinner table. They would not eat anything coming from animals and were on a strict diet so their meals would mainly consist of bread, fruit, water, wine, and fish. It was really cool learning more about the monks’ lifestyle and the architecture. We then traveled to Paris, where we did a bike tour around Paris, went to Disney, and spent a whole day at Versailles biking and exploring the whole area. I have learned so much about the different architecture around Paris and the different French monarchies. Since being in France, I can tell that I am becoming much more confident in speaking with the locals and have learned so much about different locals’ lives. It has been so much fun diving into their culture, trying different foods, learning all about the history, seeing beautiful places, learning new sentences in French, and much more.
