I Want to Live at the Bottom of a Garden (Like a Tortoise)

       
          Mad props to those of you who get the reference in the title!
          Okay, I have to admit, after what I saw on Tuesday, I was a bit wary about leaving Paris for our tour of Northern France. I mean, I figured that while the rest of France might be pretty, it couldn’t really match up to the grandeur of the City of Lights. Mom, Dad, please don’t kill me, but I think I set out on this part of the journey preparing to be a little underwhelmed.

              Um.

              

             
                      I may have

                      underestimated France

                   Just a tad.

              

               Holy cow! Is this not the most beautiful garden ever? It was probably the most naturally calming place I’ve ever been. For those who don’t know, this was Monet’s garden in Giverny. Now I understand why he was so obsessed with painting water lilies. If I had a garden like this, I would probably camp out there instead of living inside—during spring and summer, at least.

                

Interesting tidbit: I finally learned the difference between bumblebees and honeybees today, because all I saw were big fuzzy bumblebees in the flowers, and one of the girls in our group looked it up for me: Honeybees live longer, and bumblebees don’t make honey that humans consume. Thanks, Taylor!

Can we all appreciate Grace’s A+ photobombing, please?

Fabulous.

I took way too many pictures of this place—hit me up if you want to see about twenty more!—but one thing that struck me was how the flowers that looked so beautiful in person weren’t really turning out well for my camera. My sister Elise would have a field day here and probably win a front-page picture competition for National Geographic or something. Sorry you have to be stuck with my shoddy camerawork instead.

Still, I did take one picture I’m really proud of, though that’s more due to the flower than my skills as a photographer. Check out this beautiful lil’ thing, just hanging out on a trellis! The perfect little drops of dew, the one petal sticking out! Oooooh, ahhhh.

Monet’s house was really pretty, too, with each room painted a different color in the Victorian style, but I didn’t really get the chance to take many pictures there because after I went in I realized I had, like, two minutes to get back to the bus that was five minutes away. Oops.

Not to worry, though—I got back even before our professor and his family did. He and his wife have like six kids, the youngest of whom is two, and they’re seriously the most well-behaved children I have ever met. But they were no match for Speedy Alaina when it came to getting to the bus on time, ha ha!

I was sad to leave, because I don’t know where I’ve ever seen so many beautifully well-kept flowers. There’s this one really long panoramic shot that I took that will probably help me get through many rainy days in the future, because it has so much beautiful flower energy stored up. Skies have been incredibly blue so far, and as much as I love blue skies at home, they honestly might be even better here; the clouds are closer, and wispier too, so they’re a lot more interesting to watch.

Two pictures for you, Mom: one selfie I really like, and one to show off my new accessory!

               I told you I had a big bow.

               Okay, next up: Bayeux!

               Why are there so many incredible French cathedrals all over the place? It’s weird. You’ll drive past, like, a McDonald’s and a gas station, and then BAM—cathedral that is probably the most beautiful building you’ll ever encounter. I don’t know why it’s this way, but I love it.

          




















               Guess who ordered a jambon-brie sandwich and yaourt aux framboises en français? Oui, c’est moi! I also got a sparkling water, which I did not like. I am okay with carbonation when the drink is sugary, but having bubbly water just made me even more thirsty. Not fun. The food was delicious, though. (Side note: yogurt in France is, as a rule, Greek-style yogurt, so it tastes closer to sour cream than actual yogurt. I had to use a pretty big packet of sugar to balance it out.)

               After lunch we had an appointment at a museum to see the Bayeux tapestry. It’s this insanely long tapestry (70 meters!!!) that tells the story of the battle of Hastings—y’know, the one with William the Conqueror. I didn’t get any pictures because we were doing an audio guided tour, which meant I had to hold this little thing up to my ear to listen the whole time and couldn’t get a steady shot. But a quick Google search of Bayeux Tapestry should pull it up, if any of you are interested in seeing some of the most hysterically funny facial expressions of all time. I swear, every time I see Medieval art it just kills me. Like, how do they not know how to draw hands???? Why is that guy smiling when he just got his head chopped off? Why does everyone look super shady??? The world may never know . . .

The tapestry was pretty cool, even though it took us a literal half hour to go through the tour of just that. But my favorite part of Bayeux was definitely that cathedral from earlier.

               Intricate stained glass is absolutely awe-inspiring, n’est-ce pas? I especially love how the light from outside paints little pictures on the ground. Monet or some other impressionist painter should’ve gotten in on painting some of that, to be honest. I’d’ve bought that painting.

              

               Still trying to take plenty of pictures of myself! It’s been a huge struggle deciding which pictures to include here. I took 142 today. Tomorrow will probably be even worse—or better, depending on your point of view.

               Anyway, that was the end of our excursion to Bayeux! It was about a two-hour bus ride between Giverny and Bayeux, but only about a half an hour from Bayeux to our next destination (also the last one for the day.) Before I talk about that, though, I want to give mad props to our bus driver, Patrick. He is a chain smoker, which I’ve come to discover very quickly is much more common in France, but he’s also this old grandpa who is so cute with our program director’s kids. He always says hi to them so funny, and they think he’s a little weird. It’s okay, Patrick. You go.

               Our last destination for today before we went to the hotel was a little more somber than our previous excursions. It was the American cemetery at Colleville, a war memorial dedicated specifically to the nearly 10,000 soldiers who died liberating France at Omaha Beach. As sad as it is to think about that huge a number of boys losing their lives so young—some of them my age or even younger—I can’t think of a much prettier place to have as your final resting place. I mean:

              

    
              Beautiful now, even though it wasn’t nearly this picturesque when they died. I’m really grateful that memorials like this exist, because it means that, even though war is horrible, the sacrifice all those men made was validated—it meant something, and it wasn’t in vain.

              

               More lilypads! Why don’t we have any lilypads where we live? We need to get on that.

              

               This really pretty pavilion was at one end of the monument, with this gorgeous mosaic ceiling (sorry it’s a little wonky, panoramic view doesn’t really like ceilings):

              

               All in all, today was a very calming day. We started it in a beautiful garden and ended in a cemetery at the edge of the ocean. Oh, gosh, the ocean—no picture would be enough to describe how big and blue it was. I was actually overwhelmed by how pretty it looked. Take a gander:

              

               Every place I’ve gone so far on this trip to the North has given me the sense that I could live there for years and never discover everything about it. That makes me sad to leave—but then I remember that in a while I’ll go back to Paris and get to live there and explore it as much as I want, and I get excited all over again! I am a very, very blessed girl. Thank you to everyone who’s helped me get here! I love you!

              

               Yup, another one from behind. I just love the way that bow looks, don’t you?

                Here’s our song for today: La Mer, sung by Kevin Kline. I just thought it was fitting, since it's a song about the sea, and it was our first day at the sea. Hope you enjoy!

   You there reading my blog, you’re super awesome! Join me next time for more French adventures!  À demain!