Mini Vacation

Whew, just got back from my mid season break and boy oh boy was it a good time. I set off for the Normandy coast without any real clear plans at all. I did not have any reservations made for anything and I was going to be pretty much running on an open schedule. I have to say, that in the midst of just 3 days, I had more than my share of unique, interesting or just odd things happen to me. Over the next few days I will try and share some of the highlights with you guys. To give you some background I ended up in Bayeux, France which is pretty darn close-10 km away from the Atlantic coast. Why did I end up here, well, I found a youth hostel in this town. The hostel alone, had enough craziness to have its own blog. This cathedral is in the heart of town and my housing was about 2 minutes walk away.













My very first day there I got to go and see the Bayeux Tapestry which was super cool. It is a 1000 year old tapestry that tells the story of the Norman conquest of England in 70 meters and 58 different scenes.













As I did not have a car on this trip, I knew that I was going to be doing a fair amount of walking. On day 1 I set myself a limit that the farthest I would go from my central area would be 10 km, since everything has to be doubled for the return. With this in mind, I set off to go and find the British WWII memorial and cemetery. While walking through the hundreds of rows of tombstones, I ran into a veteran who without asking jumped headfirst into telling me the story of one of the men buried close to us. It was certainly a moving moment especially when looking at many of the ages of the men buried there. Most of the men were much younger than I am currently.

Finally, a long day under my belt I headed off to bed. As I said, I was staying at a hostel mind you. Upon arriving, I found out I was to be sharing a room with many a folk which was fine. I got to meet some cool Aussies and Canadians that were touring Europe this year. And then one of the Aussie girls had actually started her trip in Thailand and had made it all the way over to France. It was pretty fun to meet some new folks. As I have really had a girlfriend in my life nor had to share a bathroom or anything with girls in that matter, I had to learn pretty darn quick. I certainly learned a lot in a few days, who knew the power of makeup.

Tomorrow I will bring you up to date on some more of the neat stuff I got to see. I will leave you with this neat image though. This was early in the morning before most of the town was awake. A nice quiet walk through the old town is a wonderful way to gather lots of random thoughts.