Yes, I understand that there are a lot of days to cover due
to my lack of blog posts, but I will try to sum them up for you the best that I
can.
Update on Grace’s Suitcase: It is officially LOST. Yes, lost.
When I said all was figured out in my last post, what I meant was we had
been in contact with United Airlines who had told us that her bag had never
left Phoenix, Arizona, where Grace flew out.
They said that it would be on the next flight to Paris and would be
delivered to us the following morning.
It was that following night that we again got in contact with the
airlines who then said that it was marked that her bag had still not left Phoenix,
however its location was unknown, making the bag officially lost. And as fun as buying a whole new wardrobe in
Paris sounds, it’s the exact opposite when it comes to my sister. She is a very picky shopper on the best of
days, so the replacement shopping was a little more than stressful.
Stressful Luggage story #2: When we bought Grace a new suitcase, we
decided that for our drive from Paris to Normandy my mom would put all of the
gifts for people that she had bought in Italy and Paris would go in Grace’s new
bag because she thought they would be safer that way. That meant that Grace’s one pair of jeans and
three two shirts would go in an extra duffle bag that we had brought with us,
which at that point grace could care less which bag her few items went in as
long as they stayed with her. On the way
to Normandy my family and I stopped at Monet’s Garden to go on a tour while our
friends/traveling companions, Richard and Charlene decided to keep driving in
their separate van to Normandy. Let me
remind you again that there are ten of us.
Five of that being my family and me, six with my Grandfather, eight with
Shane and his mom, and ten with Richard and Charlene. So picture ten people, two vans, and over
twenty bags. Yes, twenty. So, of course some of the bags had to go in
the van only carrying two people rather than all of them in the van carrying
eight. So, that left Grace’s new bag,
carrying hundreds of dollars worth of my Mother’s gifts to go in Richard and
Charlene’s van sitting on top of some other suitcases. While Richard and Charlene left us at Monet’s
to continue on their drive, a slight problem occurred. When they were driving
down the highway the back of their van opened.
When they realized this they turned around and picked up everything that
they could see had fallen out. The issue
was that they did not see that Grace’s new suitcase had fallen out. When we all met up at our house in Normandy
later that night, we unloaded both cars and realized what had happened. After calling the local French Police, and
having our incredibly sweet tour guide from Monet’s garden drive along the
highway looking for Grace’s bag, it was never found. The reason we did not drive back and look was
because it was two hours from our house.
You can say Mom was not very happy that night. However, we are not going to let Satan ruin
our trip with some baggage trouble, as inconvenient as it may be. The trip must go on!
Fun Stuff: The Segway tour in Paris was incredible as
expected. They are always a blast and I
highly recommend them to anyone going anywhere that offers them. I always learn more than I expected to learn
and it is information that sticks with you forever. As far as Paris, if you are the slightest bit
interested in the Revolutionary War of Napoleon Bonaparte I would absolutely go
on a Segway tour because they are pretty much based on them, as they should
be. Here are some pictures from the
tour:
Monet’s
Garden on the way to our house in Normandy was very beautiful of course. My Dad is a huge fan of Monet so this tour
was extra special for him, but all of us enjoyed it. It really is true that when you walk on the
bridge over the pond from his most famous works, you really do feel as if you
are apart of the painting itself. It was
a really great experience!
Our first
full day of Normandy has probably been one of my favorite if not top favorite
days of our whole trip. The whole day
was spent driving along the coastline looking out at the beaches of Normandy, which are very breathtaking, and visiting
different Museums on WWII and D-Day. It
is very hard to try to picture that just 70 years ago those beaches portrayed a
very different sight. We started with
The American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.
That was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had in my entire
life. There are many different ways for
people to learn about history, and I love all of Miss Herring’s classes with
all my heart because she is easily the best History teacher I will ever have in
my opinion. However, sitting in class and listening to her explain
what D-day was, and then standing on Omaha beach where some men parachuted
themselves to their death and standing in the cemetery where 100’s and 100’s of
them are respectfully buried are two very different experiences. I think as a teenager especially it is a
little difficult to really try to visualize WWII or any war for that matter
happening, since we ourselves haven’t experienced anything like it in our
lifetime. However, this experience made
it very really to me. There is a museum
right next to the Cemetery that explains everything about D-day that if anyone
is ever in Normandy I would say that they HAVE to go to. It is very moving. And the way it works out is that you start in
the museum and end in the Cemetery. My
favorite quote from the Museum was the very last thing you saw before exiting
the Museum and entering the Cemetery.
“If ever proof were
needed that we fought for a cause and not for conquest it could be found in
these cemeteries. Here was our only
conquest: All we asked… Was enough… Soil
in which to bury our gallant dead.” - General Mark W. Clark – Chairman,
American Battle Monuments Comission, 1969-1984
After that
we stopped at another small museum up the rode that had more visual scenes set
up along with a couple tanks and some equipment used during the war. After that we went to a 360 degree movie
about WWII. It was about 16 minutes long
and was the most heartbreaking thing I had ever watched. It was nothing but real footage from WWII
with everything from the war itself to the aftermath and what has become of
Normandy now. That too I highly
recommend.
The next
couple days were pretty relaxing. On one
day the main thing we did was visit a cider farm where they make some of
Normandy’s best apple cider. The next
day (today) we visited a Copper workshop where the best copper pots in the
world are made. For those of you that
didn’t know, Normandy is the home of copper.
That was very interesting. The
end of our day was spent at a very cool castle/village known as Mont
Saint-Michel. That was incredible and
very beautiful. It really is amazing to
think of the base that being built 709.
Well, until next time, Adieu!
-Emma
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