Photos - Normandy

When I headed out on the road my own I hopped in the car and headed up to Normandy to see the sites. My first night I stayed in Dieppe and ended up getting a hotel room with a nice view of the harbour. Here are a couple photos of the day and night views from my window.

After spending the night in Dieppe, I spent the next day traveling around visiting the D-Day beaches and the war memorials. First stop was the Bretteville-sur-Laize Canadian War Cemetery in Cintheaux. It was a nice sunny day and I arrived around 10am and stayed for about an hour or hour and a half. It was really quiet... the only other person there was a guy doing the landscaping and at one point a German couple stopped by for 5 minutes.

After that I went to Juno Beach and the American Memorial and cemetery at Omaha Beach. It was crazy busy there.... tons of American tourists and tour buses everywhere. Quite the difference from the Canadian Memorial. There are almost 9,400 burials there and the grounds were immaculate. Pretty amazing to see. I believe that this was also the place where they filmed the cemetery scene from Saving Private Ryan.







My final stop along the north shore was Mont St Michel.... which I believe is the number one (although I would have thought number 2 after the Effiel Tower) tourist spot in France. I arrived nice and early in the morning and decided to park in the town and walk the 3km to the island. It was a nice walk and I took some nice photos along the way. When I got there... it was insane. Mont St Michel is a walled monastery so there are no cars allowed which is good because the streets are TINY. And there are thousand of people there walking around. And of course people are insisting on dragging their huge suitcases on wheels behind them. Yeah, you better believe I didn't stick around there long. :-)

Photos - Orleans, France

After arriving in Paris, I rented a car at the airport and, with my trusty GPS handy, I headed south to the city of Orleans to meet up with Pascal and his family. As soon as I arrived we headed downtown to check things out. The buildings and streets are just so different than those found in North America.

Pascal and I quickly found a sidewalk cafe and hurriedly ordered a beer. Phew, got that out of the way... didn't want to be in France without having a beer on a patio. Pascal is looking very pensive in this photo but trust me, we weren't talking about work.

We walked around a bit more and went down by the river and checked out some more cool buildings. And of course the cathedral, because every town has to have a cathedral. (and a bakery)

Back in town

Well, after all the traveling the past three and a half weeks, I am back in Ottawa and back to sleeping in my own bed and not living out of a suitcase. The plan is to head back to work and the gym tomorrow morning but I admit right now that seems pretty adventurous. Over the next little while I will sort through my photos and update my blog entries and add more posts so stay tuned. Although the trip is over the stories are not...

Toll-free?

One thing about getting a hotel room from a place where you have rented before, is that they recognize and remember you. So I arrived back in Paris tonight and the girl at the desk said welcome back. Then she told me they forgot to charge me for my phone calls. No problem, since I had only called a couple of local numbers and then Air Canada's toll-free number to change my flights back to Ottawa.

Well, I got the bill and apparently the calls weren't exactly toll-free since they were to North America. (I tried calling the France number but it was closed or something... instructions only in French even after choosing the English option) So that really sucks. And it double sucks because the bill was twice as much as it could have been because I was on hold for 20 minutes with Air Canada before they cut me off and I had to call back and talk to the agent again. Argh.

Its a small world after all...

Ok, whenever I travel I seem to have these small world experiences. Here are a couple examples...

Newfoundland 2003 - While vacationing in Newfoundland with Brian, Richard, and Carolyn we happened to be at Cape Spear (farthest eastern point) and just kind of hanging out watching the whales in the ocean. Then suddenly behind me I hear "those Senators really sucked this year". And while I had to agree, I wondered who it was. I turned around and it was the couple who had season tickets right next to me at the Corel Centre in Ottawa. Small world!

New Zealand 2001 - Jeff and I landed in NZ and rented a car and just drove around to random places. We ended up in a small town called National Park and when we got there the guy asked us if we wanted to go on "the walk". Sure, why not. Turns out it was the Tongariro Crossing and also called the best one day walk in NZ by many. Good call. (trivia fact: one of the mountains was used as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies) On the way down the side of the mountain, a couple stopped us and started talking... they saw the MEC backpacks and knew we were from Canada. Turns out they were teachers in Singapore but they went to Teacher's College in Truro, NS with a ton of my friends from high school. Small world!

Lagos, Portugal 2008 - One night we were walking around after dinner and we walked by a bar. People who work there are always outside trying to talk to tourists to get them to come into the bar. We said we didn't want to go in and the guy recognized our accents (or non-accents?) and we started talking. Turns out he grew up in Port Williams, NS and knows a bunch of the same people that I know. Small world!

One night in Paris

Ok, I am back in Paris now after spending the week in Portugal. The weather and beaches there were awesome and I had a great time. And not to brag, but I probably have the best farmer's tan you have ever seen. :-)

Back to Ottawa tomorrow morning. And then sleep sleep sleep....

Olympics

So being in a foreign county while the Olympics are on is interesting. Lots of coverage of the French team, in French of course. In a couple of hotels got access to the EuroSport TV channel, but it was in German. At my hotel in Paris I am watching the English feed from England. Not a lot of coverage (hardly any) of the Canadian athletes but at least I can understand what they are saying.

But one thing I have got to wonder... what is up with this steeplechase thing? Isn't that an event for horses? They first mentioned it on the tv and I thought that my definition was wrong but oh yes, there were people jumping over hurdles into water. Does anyone else think that is weird?