La bataille de Normandie

"Comrade in arms whose resting place is known only to God."- Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Sorry that I have been radio silent for a couple of days but a lot has happened and I have just been lazy as well. I will kick myself in the butt for not updating no that day but hey it's too late. So this blog post will be all about my trip to the Normandy Coast on June 7, 2013. 

The day started at five in the morning and catching the metro at 5:45 to get to our bus stop at 6:30. The morning was long and confusing but eventually we (Ben, Haskel, Kyle, Sarah and I) got on the bus that would take us out to the city of Caen in the Normandy Department. The French countryside is as quaint and beautiful as you picture it. The rolling hill of farmland, the stone houses and mid-evil towns that are like you blink and you missed it. I would have loved the chance to stroll in any of the towns we passed through especially Caen since the place looked really classy. 

Our first stop was at the Caen Museum that had the history of not only D-Day (June 6, 1944) but of the whole Second World War along with artifacts on the First World War and smattering on other major war/battle events. The place was huge and very over whelming. I wish we would have gotten to spend more time there but we were on a tight schedule and had to have lunch at noon. We ate lunch at the museum it was sorta a buffet style but they only gave us a main course which I really enjoyed even though I didn't know what it was until after I ate it. Turns out it was stuffed chicken (with what? who knows!) and a potato cake thingy on the bottom. I tried brie cheese there for the first time and I have to say that I didn't really have a taste to me. 

After the museum the tour took us to Omaha Beach at Pointe du Hoc where Rangers scaled the sheer cliffs at about 7 AM. I didn't get too close to the cliffs but I could see the almost 90 degree angle that those men had to climb and it just astounded me. At Pointe du Hoc there were deep holes in the ground from bombs. The land   is scarred. In a way it looks like how I picture the moon to look with all the holes in the ground only Pointe du Hoc has started to heal with the growth of grass and the slow deterioration of the German bunkers. These bunkers were meant to last, like really last. Not as in temporary only for the war but for post war time that in the German eyes would not necessarily be occupation of French land but those bunkers were built to the long haul. I ran all over the land that was so heavily fought far and every inch was a milestone to the troops but for me it was just another step. It is crazy to think that can take a thousand pictures and see the beauty of the land where as the soldiers hardly had time to think because they were fight for my freedom. 

At Pointe du Hoc I went in to one of the lite German bunkers and they were larger than I expected and warming as well. Looking up you could see the charred wood of the ceiling as the only marker of the fact that when the American troops invaded they took flame throwers to the bunkers and fried the Germans. The bunkers were not hidden but they were nearly impenetrable unless you of course had a flame thrower. Walking back I could only think of the soldiers who saw this land after the invasion was some of the hardest fought for land in the war. And what it must have looked like to them; dirty, charred, devastated but glorious and miraculous all the same. 

The next stop on our tour was at the actual Omaha Beach that was stormed by American troops in the early morning hours of June 6. 1944. We spent very little time there but we did get to go on the beach that turned red from fallen men. It was so weird being there. You stand there knowing that over 2,000 men were killed on the sand you shake off your shoes but when you turn around you see fairly fancy and large houses. Yet these houses fly the American Flag just as high as the French Flag. It is such a confusing time with such conflicting emotions. For these people live on history every day and take it for granted but they in a quite manner honor the history that their lives intertwine with every day.  

The one place that I will never be able to describe is the American cemetery in Normandy the finally resting place of 9,387 military personal who gave their life for our freedom. My quote from the top comes from "The Wall of the Missing" which has 1,557 names inscribed on it. Standing there reading the names I just wanted to cry, just as I do now remembering it. I walked through the cemetery and wished I could take a picture of every head stone and show it to the family that probably will never see it. The lack of closure on land that is meant for it was heart breaking. There were so many I wanted to go on forever and read every name but I couldn't. I couldn't read every name even if I had the time because 1,557 stones have no name. 1,557 stone have the "Here rests in honored glory, a comrade in arms, known only to God." Every single one of those stones rubbed salt in my wounded heart. The place was crowded but still so moving. Since we went the day after D-Day there was a small gathering of veterans of WWII and some of them had "Normandy" pins on their uniforms. We clapped and thanked them from their valiant service. My above description doesn't even attempt to describe the feeling you get walking through the cemetery and finding a quiet place to break down inside. I would recommend that if you are ever anywhere in France you to the cemetery even if you don't go to any of the stormed beaches.

Hoping back on the bus we drove by Gold Beach where the British landed and took about ten minutes at the windiest beach of them all and they all were ridiculously windy. The Canadians stormed a small but harsh Juno Beach. I didn't spend much time there since we were almost done with the trip and I was so very tired but I was an unforgiving beach to say the least. 

On the bus ride back we ate at a gas station and on hour 14 we arrived back in Paris behind the statue of Joan of Arc. Walking over to the Tuileries Gardens in front of the Louvre and running alongside the Seine that had the Musee d'Orsay on the other side, we watched the sun set while eating ice cream. It was a wonderful cap to a very long and emotional day.

Jusqu'à demain
Bisous, Janice

The beautiful French countryside drive to Normandy

The eyes of the whole world are upon you. The hopes and prayers 

of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you."

 General Eisenhower to troop for D-Day 

I assume a German gun was there in the middle.

These were everywhere along the coast.

Could you image scaling cliff sides 

like that while under fire?

Inside a German bunker. Look at the ceiling

you can see the fire damage done.

The whole landscape was pocketed by bomb holes.

Omaha Beach

"The Wall of the Missing"

"Here rests in honored glory, 

a comrade in arms, 

known only to God."

9,387 graves too many

Juno Beach

Joan of Arc

Sunset in the Tuileries  Gardens

Decompressing from the day with a beautiful view

    

Fatigué de rouler les trains

"Paris ain’t much of a town." ~Babe Ruth

Well Mr. Ruth you may be the best baseball player but Paris is so much more than any town. And today I went to a part of Paris that I haven't been to before. It was the original location of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company bookstore. It has now turned into a clothing shop but it has a little plaque that notes where it is. However it only mentions the fact that Ulysses from James Joyce was printed there. There was nothing on the amazing person she was nor about the nurturing she did for the Avant garde writers. Such writers as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot and many many more.  

It just so happened that the apartments that were once Sylvia Beach's are just to the left of the apartment that was once Thomas Paine. He was the writer of Common Sense the pamphlets/book that helped get the colonists revved up and to call for the Revolutionary war. The history nerd in me was just as excited to know that I was seeing the same road that Paine had once walked. 

Other than that I really haven't done much. I went to ACCENT and printed out a secret and then went to the boulangerie one tram stop up and got myself a baguette and my first croissant here. The croissants here are much flakier as in not just layered but they really do just flake away to bits. It

was really good and I ate most of it with nutella (just like all the bread I eat).  

Well I hope you had a great day. There probably won't be a blog update tomorrow, because I have a very long and special day planed out that will more than likely wipe me out. So sorry about that but there will be an update devoted just to that so no worries.
Jusqu'à demain,

Bisous Janice

In 1922 in this house Miss Sylvia Beach

 published "Ulysses" from James Joyce

The original building of Sylvia Beach's 

Shakespeare and Company.

Cobblestone peaking out like Beach 

and Paine would have walked

Thomas Paine lived in this building from 1797 to 1802. He put his passion 

for freedom in the service of the French Revolution, 

was a member of the Convention and wrote The Rights of Man
"When opinions are free the power of truth will always prevail"

Paine's Home 

Moderne est plus ancienne qu'on ne le pense

"She’s one of those third year girls who gripe my liver… You know, American college kids. They come over here to take their third year and lap up a little culture… They’re officious and dull. They’re always making profound observations they've overheard." ~Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan in An American In Paris

Well I certainly hope that I am not officious and dull to the French while I am here, however I have come here in my third year to lap up a little culture. Today I lapped up a whole bunch of different time periods of French and not so French culture.

After class today we had went to the Grand Palais to the Dynamo exhibit. It was a contrast to what you would expect to see in this grand palace that looks so very turn of the century with heavy influence from the 18th century. This exhibit was conceptual art; it was very "modern". The pieces were often like optical illusions or used fluorescent lights. It was very strange to see art from an artist and know that 9 1/2 times out of 10 the artist had no part in the actual making of the art piece they just conceptualized it. Even though I could not make a personal connection to really any pieces I still found the exhibit so much fun and very exciting. I was so different and interesting to be able to interact with the art pieces. With conceptual art I feel that there has to be you, the audience, present for it to be art and with other forms it would we art even without the audience. This idea puts the observer in a vital position and makes them part of the art. If my train of thought is correct than this "modern" art is just as dependent on us as we are on it. 


After the fun and sometimes profound moments at the Grand Palais a bunch of us walked across the most ornate bridge crossing the Seine in Paris (if not the whole river). Pont Alexandre III was grand and magnificent. Looking at the things makes me wonder how they survived both World Wars with what appears to be minimal damage and make me so grateful that Hitler's order to destroy Paris was not followed. The beauty and the extravagance is astounding not only in what I visited/ saw today but every day I walk the streets of Paris everything seems to be just that much more beautiful and ornate. 

After walking across the bridge we went to the recreated Shakespeare and Company bookstore and browsed around for a bit. I plan on going back right when they open so that there might be less of a crowd and I can enjoy the uniqueness that is Shakespeare and Company. I did buy A book "Tender is the Night" by Fitzgerald and can't wait to devour it. After the bookstore a smaller group of us went to eat at a little restaurant Maison Blanc and it was no good. The service was bad and took forever and some of the people I was with had issues with their food. But we paid ten euro for three courses so I guess we get what we paid for. After that we went to get gelato for the first time ever and I most defiantly want to go back and get some more. So with that I wish you a good whatever day it is where you are and hope that you to will one day be able to read a book outside the store and look out onto the Seine and the setting light.

Jusqu'à demain  
Bisous ~Janice

Grand Palais 

Untitled (to you, Heiner, with Admiration and Affection)- 

Dan Flavin (1973)

Petit Palais, right across the road 

Pont Alexandre III

Shakespeare and Company, reading Fitzgerald 

Il fait beau.

"In Paris you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise." ~Virgil Thomson

I feel so very Minnesotan always talking about the weather, but it is such a vital point to a "good" day in Paris. I don't really think that I can have a bad day in Paris, but when the weather is just right everything just seems to fall into place. Today was one of those days. 

After class this mid-morning and afternoon, my seminar partner and I went to scope out the route that we want the rest of the class to look at since we are doing ours on Baron Haussmann, the architect/ city planner that made Paris look the way did does today. We decide to end our "walking tour" at Le Jardin du Luxembourg. Where we proceed to look for a baguette for me to eat in the garden, it took forever to find one but eventually we did. We then settled down for a bit of relaxation and "sun-bathing". Now you are thinking, "What! Janice in the sun she will burn like a lobster without a shell." And you would be thinking right, however I was a Girl Scout so I was prepared. I had my trusty sunscreen tube on me and I lathered my face up. So there I was sunbathing in the Luxembourg Gardens with a baguette in Paris, no big deal or anything. It was a sorta crazy surreal moment when I realized that I have enough time in Paris to spend a lazy day in the park and not have to worry about rushing off to this museum or that monument. 

I don't know if I have learn wit while I am here you will have to tell me if I am at all witty or if I was witty before if I am witter. But I now know where I have to go to become a well-rounded person. So who wants to go to London and Florence?? I would really love to learn some poise since I thing I have indeed become clumsier since coming to Paris. I think I hit my head at least three times a day and I run into the door almost every time I go to open one. Their doors are quite tricky here. I think they change them in the night which way they open. And they often try and hid the door seal so you can't tell which way to swing the door. Life can be a challenge here in France. 

I often talk about the little things here but when you are in a foreign country they become the big things. Like France has ginormous buttons to flush the toilette or that men and women share common space in the bathroom. The fact that there are no screens on windows or that your maid wakes you up at nine AM to give you new sheets. Let me tell you that is no way to wake up. Having a random woman in your doorway speaking very rapid French is very confusing. Nine AM is much too early to speak French. But it is nice when French people that I interact with ask if I am American and I respond to them in French and they continue to talk to me in French. I really want to communicate with them in French they just speak so fast that it can be very hard. The other day I was asking a waitress for more water and I had intended to ask in French instead it came out in broken English. So if you are with me when I just come back please understand that while I did not learn better French my English did get worse.

So this was a mishmash blog update, but nothing really structured happened in my free time so it was "a boring day". A nice relaxing day none the less. I hope to spend the rest of my days are like this. Alas the real world in pounding on my door and tapping on my window, but I think for now I will snuggle down in to the comfort of my youth. 

Jusqu'à demain

Bisous- Janice

All photos taken at Le Jardin du Luxembourg 

Au faire à nouveau

"The Museum is not meant either for the wanderer to see by accident or for the pilgrim to see with awe. It is meant for the mere slave of a routine of self-education to stuff himself with every sort of incongruous intellectual food in one indigestible meal." ~Gilbert Keith Chesterson 


Oh the Louvre! Today was spent roaming the Louvre Museum however it was a tough ride getting there. We left the campus about 10:30 but did get a train until 11:00. Apparently there was/is a strike going on for the train conductors. I now know why major cities cave to the conductor strikes, it really shuts down the city. We had to wait over twenty minutes and the train was so packed because they were running so infrequently they all had to jam in to already packed cars. It was not fun. 

When we finally got to the Louvre I found it quite over whelming. We bought audio guides that were helpful and restricting myself to really not only one wing of the museum but one floor was a good way to stay in control, but I could spend years in there and it wouldn't be enough. I found many painting that I really liked and two that I will talk about in just a bit. I found that I really liked the French sections of what I saw because they tended to be much more varied in their subjects. Although they did have a bit of an homage to Napoleon (that rascal. The other sections that I distinctly remember were the Spanish and the Italian halls. These sections of paintings tended to be mainly of Jesus. Now I think Jesus is awesome and all that jazz but after the hundredth painting depicting either baby Jesus or something from his life and often of his death, it gets a bit monotonous after a while. 

I often walked through rooms and found the ceiling to be just as interesting as the contents. I would have been happy with an empty room if the ceiling was as ornate as most of them were. The day was not as tiring as I expected it to but that maybe because it really was only four hours after an hour taken out for lunch. Which was a very overpriced sandwich and chocolate mousse thingy. 

I of course got to see La Joconde or as it is known in English, Mona Lisa. I also saw Winged Victory (Victorie de Samothrace) and Venus d'Milo. I also went down and saw the mid-evil fortress base that still stands, which was pretty cool that that still exists. I saw many many beautiful and wonderful paintings and other artifacts/ sculptures. After my short visit to the Louvre (I plan on going back this Sunday) I went through part of the Tuileries Garden (I plan on visiting them again as well) and went to a super expensive place for chocolat chaude et macaroons.  It was probably the best hot chocolate I will ever have. It was supper rich and creamy it was basically like drinking melted chocolate but better. It was also the first time I have ever had a macaroon, which was caramel flavored, and it was really sweet and delicious but I don't think I could do more than one in a sitting. However they may be less potent from somewhere cheaper and less grand.

So without further ado my analysis of a painting and then my pictures. 

La Jaune Marytre (The Young Martyr)~ Paul Delaroche 1855

She is alone in the water, is the first thing you should notice. This may indicate that her cause may not have been very noble or that it may be a symbolic act instead of something that is done in hope of change. The beauty of her body is in stark contrast with the ugliness of her act. Martyrdom is not beautiful, of the acts are done without the persons consent or often knowledge that they will after they die be remembered that way. Her halo is floating near her head to indicate either her act is in the process of becoming holy or that fact that her act is that far away from being holy. This women's greatest act was her death. The fact that she is tied up might show that she did not live the noblest life and in death she must be chain as she wasn't in life. Although she is painted dressed in white this maybe a symbol to show her purity/ redemption in death. In the upper right hand corner you can see the horizon behind a man on a horse. This shows a new day dawns on the one who will never see it. It shows the light that the horseman carries with him to the sight showing that he maybe enlightened and have a way to fix the young martyr's problem(s). I surmise that he, the horseman is good not only from the fact that light is traveling with him but that he has a quiver of arrows and they young girl has no wounds to indicate that is man was the cause of her death.  This man is clearly looking for her and is too late, he might have been a family member but knowing the romantics it is more than likely a lover. A lover she couldn't have, which is why she is thrown in the water a death fit for the unfit. She has seemed to find peace a last with her face clean but it is most definitely a sad, mournful face. Upon reading the plaque after writing this all down I found out that is this a painting of Ophelia after she "kills herself" in Hamlet. So that might change how you see this painting. I surmise that the man more than likely is Hamlet her forbidden love come to rescue her and is too late. 

I hope you have a good day and let me know if you have any places you would like me to see that I haven't already been to.

Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice

Outside the Louvre 

Mona Lisa, it was a struggle to get to the front

That's just a ceiling!

Just like the ancients 

Mid-Evil base

Outside in the garden

It was so yummy! 

       

Une journée pour se détendre

"Paris is a place in which we can forget ourselves, reinvent, expunge the dead weight of our past." ~Michael Simkins

Well that is what I tried to do today. I spent my mid-day in the Notre-Dame de Pairs, where I took some pictures and then attended a service. Well walking around the perimeter of the church I thought to be honest it isn't very well kept up. They have things roped off but that's about it. It wasn't very clean as in the paintings and the artifacts were just there gathering dust and grim. I was nice to finally go into the church and it was beautiful but I think that I just build these things up in my mind so big that when they come in to fruition it pales in comparison. The service was of course confusing but I think I will have to just get use to always being confused in Paris. The service was all in French but they had a English summary in the bulletin and they had singers guiding us for when we needed to sing. So I sang in the Notre-Dame! I thought that was pretty cool. 

After service I went back to the dorms for a quick change and then out to eat with my friend we eventually a chose to eat at a crepe cafe. We both got crepes with ice cream, my was mint ice cream and chocolate sauce and hers was like baked cinnamon apples and vanilla ice cream. I wish I would have taken a picture of it but I was just to hungry and lazy to take out my camera. After "lunch" we wondered forever and eventually found a pâtisserie and I bought my first baguette. It cost me 1,15 euros and was worth every euro cent. The French subsidizes bread and wine so it is so much cheaper, and I thank the French government for that. I could not stop eating it. It was delightfully crunchy on the outside and super soft and airy in the inside with all around buttery flavor. I can't believe that I waited so long to buy one. 

I bought the baguette to eat while chilling out in the forest in the 16th arrondissement called Bois de Boulogne. This "park" two and a half times larger than Central Park, however we did not venture very far in. We did not want to get lost or go very far away from a metro stop since we are lazy like that. My friend and I eventually settled on a bench in a little park area that has super cute French children, actually all boys, they were riding their bikes around a little track. They were just too darn cute. We sat and wrote and hung out for a little bit. 

I did my best to forget myself and enjoy Paris an my live here, and it was much easier after I left the hords of tourists, they were not exclusively old people, I know that some older people can be very good tourist. It's just the ones that I have encountered (often European older ladies) have been very hard to handle. So now it is off to bed for I have a long day ahead of me of exploring the Louvre!

Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice

Notre-Dame de Paris

Moi et première baguette dans le Bois de Boulogne 

Pretty little stream in the forest, 

the bush has purple flowers 

Le jour parfait

"Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love." ~Claude Monet 

I think today has been my favorite day so far of this trip. And that is saying a lot given all the things I have done and all the life-long dreams I have accomplished. But going to Giverny, the home of Claude Monet, a place I would have never thought to go to, is one of my favorites if not the favorite thing I have done on this study abroad program. 

The day started our early at ten to nine were the whole group set out on an hour bus ride to Giverny. We arrived and entered in fairly quickly, however we were besieged by hoards of old people, who travel in packs and I think my even devour the young when given the chance. We entered the grounds from the garden and were able to walk the path around the water lily ponds and cross the bridges that Monet painted and see the hanging flowers that he makes you feel in his paintings. When I looked out on to the pond in certain places I would have sworn that that is the exact spot where he painted certain paintings. I was so wonderful even though everybody and their grandma were there.

I must say though the weather for this excursion was PERFECT. I didn't have to bring my coat and my umbrella was an un-needed safety net. I took so many pictures of the beautiful flowers. The tour of the house was crowded but it was so cool to see real thing opposed to the pictures. After that I had a meeting with my professor about my project. The lunch with five other people was probably an hour and a half, at the least. But before lunch we found a poppy field that might have been what Monet painted and we took some photos there. After lunch is was a leisurely walk to another field full of little daises with the best chocolate ice cream cone I have had in France. The day was really just wonderful and relaxing. There was a different energy outside of the garden and house that was so relaxing an beautiful. I have no way to convey the beauty and wonderfulness of this day and just hope that you have experienced a perfect day and can remember that and the feeling you had and know that I just had mine.

My quote from the day: "I speak Frankenstein French."  

Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice