Dedicated to Larry Speck

Location: Saint Marcan, France

I am completely awe struck. The Month Saint Michel was everything I thought it was going to be and more.

I woke up this morning to a beautiful breakfast with tea, bread, eggs, yogurt, juice... it was fantastic. I hitched a ride with Liz to the Mont and she dropped me off pretty far up the road. I took the first round of pictures of the entire Mont from there. After this, I made the long trek up to the village and spent some time looking around and got a croissant for a snack.

From here I went to the Abbaye and started my actual tour. See the deal with the Mont Saint Michel is that it was a village that some king decided to turn into a church dedicated to St. Michael (the archangel) and so he started building on top of the village. Then over time, it because a monastery, then a prison and then a fortress (during the war, since it was on the beaches of Normandy and was a really high place to see things going on out in the ocean). Then in the 1950's they started restoration and now its just a tourist site/church/village. So the Abbaye tour is really the part that has the most history and everything else is just kind of buried underneath it. The reason I decided to visit this building is that I took an architecture class my freshman year as a fine art credit and I had to write my final paper on this building. So I wrote a good 20 page paper about the architecture of the Abbaye and that´s why I decided to go visit. Turns out though, that it is the biggest tourist attraction in France now, last year it surpassed the Eiffel tower.

Anyways, I won´t bore you with all of the architectural awesomeness of the building and I took some pictures so you can see what I saw. After looking at the inside of the building, it was almost sunset so I decided to go for a hike. The deal with the island is that it is a tidal island. At high tide, it really is an island, and a low tide, it's attached to the beach around it. The beach goes on for miles and miles and you can really tell why they invaded France at this point. You could be on the beach and hiking for miles before you would even see land. It´s crazy. But anyways, the tide is really dangerous and apparently travels inland at a speed of 6 meters per second when it is coming in. Cars have to be moved, people are evacuated from certain areas... it´s really dangerous. So naturally, I wanted a piece.

I knew that the tide had come in at 12:45 PM and wasn´t due in again until the next day so I felt safe at 5 PM. I hiked around the edge and then out as far as I could without getting into the quicksand (which was EVERYWHERE). I took a bunch of pictures and stood in awe for as long as I could stand it (it was FREEZING and the wind was whipping by so fast). My boots were sooo muddy when I was finished and I was sufficiently frozen. I called Liz and she came and picked me up and I went back to the hostel to thaw.

I decided to go back up to the pub that I went to last night to get some more food and just before I left, the first 2 of the group of 14 Dutch hitch-hikers arrived. The hostel was completely booked with a group of Christian hitch-hikers who were hitch-hiking from the middle of the Netherlands to Saint-Marcan. I went with two of them to get some food and we had a great time. By the time I had gone to bed, only like 8 had arrived, but they were SOO much fun!! We sat and talked and watched a movie and had a really great time.

Tomorrow is filled with all traveling and it´s going to be pretty tiring I imagine. After the day I had today though, I could probably just sleep all day :)

XOXO

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Now playing: Goo Goo Dolls - Acoustic #3
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Parlez-vous Anglais?

Location: Saint-Marcan, France

New Years was SOOO much fun. It was one of my favorite New Years in a long time. And that gives no offense to the Babies/Family/Mince Pie/Dick Clark New Years I had last year, or the Lake House/Golf Cart/Hole in the Wall/Up until sunrise New Years from the year before that, but it was fun in a Sparkly Eiffel Tower/Brazilians/Champagne/New Best Friends kind of way.

There wasn't much going on at the Champs-Élysées so I walked down to the Eiffel tower (which took a remarkably long time to do). Once I got there, I sat down on a nice patch of grass. I saw someone sitting alone in front of me so I asked him if he was alone and he was so he came back and we started chatting. Next thing, I hear more English and another boy is asking us something about a plastic bag... I'm more interested in the fact that he's speaking English, so we grab him and turns out he had more friends that were sitting behind us. So, we all 3 walk back to where his friends were and, TA-DA... instant New Years Party. We all sit there and chat and drink champagne until well after the New Year and spend the rest of the evening running around being stupid together. Including trying to find a late night McDonald's :) Some things just stay the same, I guess, even in Paris!! My new friends (Andre, Cael, Maggie, Manolo and two Aussies we picked up on the way - Andy and Mitchell) and I stayed out til about 6 and never even really noticed how late it was getting. It was great fun!!

Needless to say, this morning came very quickly. I had to get on the metro early in order to catch my train from Paris to Caen which would then take me on to Saint-Marcan near the Mont Saint Michel. I missed the earliest train, which was ok, and then caught the noon one and made it to Pontorson at about 4:30. The nice couple who runs the hostel I´m staying at came and picked me up at the train station (which was sooo cute.... it just had two platforms and a little wooden slab where you crossed the track. It was so small and I loved it) and they took me back to Saint-Marcan. I didn't have long at this time, because most everything was closing early (if it had even opened at all) so I ran up to this cute little Oyster Bar in town.

I walk inside, prepared that this guy speaks at least a little English (because the menu was in English) and here´s how the conversation went:

Me: Are you guys still open?
Oyster Man: *gives very confused look*
Me: Do you speak English?
Oyster Man: *Still looking confused*
Me: Parlez-vous Anglais?
Oyster Man: No!
Me: *makes eating motion, acting like I'm shoveling food into my mouth* Food? Food? *Officially looking like an idiot and about to give up*
Oyster Man: (After about 30 seconds of watching me do stupid stuff) Hahaha aww, I'm messing with you... I´m from Manchester.

I was so mad. If I hadn't been starving I may have left... but I was starving, so I stayed and ate a Hamburger and we talked about my trip and where he was from and other normal things. Turns out he was a really nice person and I sat and enjoyed him company for a good hour before coming back to the hostel. He also told me that he usually makes tourists draw things before he gives in. He has pictures of crudely drawn cheeseburgers hanging behind the register. I figured I should count myself lucky.

I guess I forgive him. It was kinda funny. Turns out the guy doesn't even speak French.

Anyways, big day tomorrow. I´m actually going to the Mont Saint Michel and I´m sooooo excited!!!

XOXO

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