OUCH. That pretty much sums up the race that I am in right now. It is the tour of Alsace and it has 25 teams in which none of them are fluff, well I am feeling like fluff but that is my own issue. The biggest and baddest team here just missed out on riding the Tour de France this year and certainly know what they are doing. Think of them as a big bully and us as little babies with lots of candy. They are going to get a lot of my candy this week, I would say I have lost a lot so far. I know that these hard races will be good for me down the road but they are most certainly not the easiest things to do. I find myself in the state of mind where moving around my tiny french hotel room to go take a shower as a large task where I need to meter out my efforts. I am 3 stages into this race with 3 more to go and well, close to 500 km's to go. I guess that means lots of food and sleep too.
In other news, I have found an amazing part of France to be in. I am located in the Alsace wine region and my hotel is nestled in the mountains in the heart of vineyards. To say where I am is pretty is a large understatement. I have also found what is quite possibly the prettiest city that I have ever been in the world and that would be Strasbourg, France. Internet is really slow right now with everyone on it, so I cannot get any photos up, but trust me, it is amazing. You shall see tomorrow. Alright, off to bed to try and make some legs appear in the morning.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Record button
That was a weekend that is going to give me lots of lessons to take home. Nothing too special happened, the plan was 2 days 2 races and that certainly happened. What was not planned was making some big mistakes on Saturday and watching a race win roll away. Nowadays it seems that with every mistake made, I then go on to make some different mistake down the road. Maybe I will quit making them and everything will click. Instead of a rewind button, I just have the record button to learn from.
Sunday, was a joke. I just did not have legs. A breakaway went, and someone rode me straight off of their wheel getting across to it. That was one of the more humbling experiences and I eventually pulled out. Nuff said, not a good day. But today, Monday is another day and tomorrow is the start of yet another stage race. I am hoping some things start to turn around.
Today is the day that I will be parting ways with the other Americans over here and while it was great to have them around, I can certainly tell that in 3 short weeks, my French is certainly dropping a bit. Here in about 2 hours I am hopping on the train to head up to meet my teammates in Belgium before we head to the Alsace region of France(German border.) I certainly have a long day of travel ahead of me, but nothing compared to the guys' 10 hour plane rides tomorrow. Sorry, that I have such a boring post, with more time I will get some more french anecdotes up and some amazing candid images of typical Normandy folk up here. Needless to say, walking around and checking out the locals will certainly lift your spirits and give you a bit of a moral boost. No promises on Internet this week, but will try my best.
Also to give you a different perspective on life over here check out the blog
http://dylanbikes.blogspot.com/
Go back 3 weeks or so and check out his experiences, you will get a kick.
Sunday, was a joke. I just did not have legs. A breakaway went, and someone rode me straight off of their wheel getting across to it. That was one of the more humbling experiences and I eventually pulled out. Nuff said, not a good day. But today, Monday is another day and tomorrow is the start of yet another stage race. I am hoping some things start to turn around.
Today is the day that I will be parting ways with the other Americans over here and while it was great to have them around, I can certainly tell that in 3 short weeks, my French is certainly dropping a bit. Here in about 2 hours I am hopping on the train to head up to meet my teammates in Belgium before we head to the Alsace region of France(German border.) I certainly have a long day of travel ahead of me, but nothing compared to the guys' 10 hour plane rides tomorrow. Sorry, that I have such a boring post, with more time I will get some more french anecdotes up and some amazing candid images of typical Normandy folk up here. Needless to say, walking around and checking out the locals will certainly lift your spirits and give you a bit of a moral boost. No promises on Internet this week, but will try my best.
Also to give you a different perspective on life over here check out the blog
http://dylanbikes.blogspot.com/
Go back 3 weeks or so and check out his experiences, you will get a kick.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Taking off again
The time for my American mates is coming to a close unfortunately. I have really enjoyed having some English speakers around for the past 2 and a half weeks as it continues to keep me sane having a bit of a feeling of home around. They will be taking off next Monday to head on back to good ol America the land of some amazing things. Mexican food, burger joints and milkshakes will all be there for their consumption, it is only a few weeks away know for me to be able to partake in such glorious tastes. But, away from the dreaming and back to reality, I just found out that I am also going to be taking off on Monday. Next week I am going to be heading back up to Belgium to meet up with some of the USA guys to go and do another stage race in the Alsace region of France. That would be right by Germany. But, before then I have got myself another few races this weekend and have some intentions of doing something good in them, we shall see.
Getting back to normal daily life here, my ants have finally gone away thank god. I just now have a nasty bleach smell that will not go away in my room, maybe another week and it will I hope. It has certainly been interesting as we have now employed daily spider checks of beds and attire before putting clothes on as the other day I felt something wiggling in my bibs to only find out that I had a big spider in them. I do not think I have been that scared in awhile. I guess that these are just the things that you deal with when living in a home that is some 300 years old. It is quite funny though to walk our yard and take in our house. The ground and walls all have white powder (ant killer) everywhere and if you did not know what it was, it would certainly look a bit suspect. Thankfully, all the local pets are alive and doing fine. Well, sorry but I have to get back to my Tour de France coverage. Today is a pretty important day in the mountains and I can't wait to watch the fireworks. Until later.
Getting back to normal daily life here, my ants have finally gone away thank god. I just now have a nasty bleach smell that will not go away in my room, maybe another week and it will I hope. It has certainly been interesting as we have now employed daily spider checks of beds and attire before putting clothes on as the other day I felt something wiggling in my bibs to only find out that I had a big spider in them. I do not think I have been that scared in awhile. I guess that these are just the things that you deal with when living in a home that is some 300 years old. It is quite funny though to walk our yard and take in our house. The ground and walls all have white powder (ant killer) everywhere and if you did not know what it was, it would certainly look a bit suspect. Thankfully, all the local pets are alive and doing fine. Well, sorry but I have to get back to my Tour de France coverage. Today is a pretty important day in the mountains and I can't wait to watch the fireworks. Until later.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Working on it
Apologies for being away for awhile, it has been a hectic last few days. I got the chance to race on Saturday and Sunday and it was a great weekend for the team. Sunday morning a teammate of mine pulled off his first win in over 4 years which was awesome. Nothing special for me, I just rolled around for a few hours in the group and did not do anything worth calling home about. But, it was the first time that I have had the chance to ride with the other US riders that have come over and that was certainly fun. On a side note, one of the riders, Marcel did not really get to race too much, mid race on Sunday his shifter just fell apart and it fell off of his bike. Somehow he was left to ride the race in 1 gear. Unfortunately for him, most everything is closed on Sunday and Monday in France and having a race on Monday meant that his bike was not going to be fixed. He was certainly frustrated to not be racing since he came here to do that, but we got his bike into the shop and he will be all set for the upcoming weekend.
On to Monday and once again, we had ourselves a good day. Did we win, No. Am I bummed about that you bet I am. We had both myself and Dylan in the race and we were both in positions to do well all day, but we just made some mistakes along the way. Did the race provide opportunities to learn from our mistakes, you bet that it did. But, Dylan Jones pulled off a third place finish on the day which is great and I rolled in for a sixth place finish. I am really happy for Dylan and we even pulled off the top team placing on the day as an added little bonus. That mean a nice trophy for our director and a few euros for the riders-SWEET!!! Losing a race is never fun, no matter how it happens, but it is much easier to lose a race to people that are just plain faster than you. But to lose a race by making critical errors is quite difficult to swallow. Every day I am reminded that I have much to learn in this sport and I just hope to continue working on it. Now we have a few days easy before a big weekend of racing coming up.
On to Monday and once again, we had ourselves a good day. Did we win, No. Am I bummed about that you bet I am. We had both myself and Dylan in the race and we were both in positions to do well all day, but we just made some mistakes along the way. Did the race provide opportunities to learn from our mistakes, you bet that it did. But, Dylan Jones pulled off a third place finish on the day which is great and I rolled in for a sixth place finish. I am really happy for Dylan and we even pulled off the top team placing on the day as an added little bonus. That mean a nice trophy for our director and a few euros for the riders-SWEET!!! Losing a race is never fun, no matter how it happens, but it is much easier to lose a race to people that are just plain faster than you. But to lose a race by making critical errors is quite difficult to swallow. Every day I am reminded that I have much to learn in this sport and I just hope to continue working on it. Now we have a few days easy before a big weekend of racing coming up.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Bastille Day
Not the day I was looking for. I have been having the opportunity to enjoy nice, clear sunny days every day here in Normandy now for close to 2 weeks. That horrible spring time weather has departed, folks are taking vacations to the beach and summer is in the air. What a splendid time. Yesterday I awoke to dark, ominous layer of clouds hanging over France. Not an hour later, she decided to open up on race day, but of course. As the time got closer to my departure for the race, the sound of thunder could be heard and lightning seen, but still I prepared. Upon arriving at the race my vision was limited to 50 meters because of the heavy rain. On any other day, motivation for the field would be low, but not on this day, the day of days in France. Every single Frenchman wants to win and every non Frenchman wants to beat them. It was not to be for the latter.
With the heavy rain, wrecks abounded quite frequently and not an hour into the day, we got to experience a stretch of cobblestones in the rain as we raced through of the of umpteenth towns we went through. Like I have said numerous times, common sense is quite limited and especially on this day, every riders sense of risk taking hits a new level. On that cobblestone stretch, I went down with around 40 other guys. Trying to brake on the wet pave reminded me of trying to ice skate, no matter what I did, the wheels would just slide out and compound that to a whole peloton of riders and you have a cluster of a time. Thankfully I came out ok, just sore, but not missing my teeth from trying to eat a cobble or any number of other injuries. That one dude was messed up, he looked like he came out of some horror film. Later when all was settled, the rest of the race who did not wreck were close to ten minutes up and we who had wrecked were pretty much out of the running. Thankfully, the race was neutralized and we got back to them to have a second start which was pretty unique, I have experienced 2 races now in one season where I had to have 2 starts in a day and never once in my life before had I had to do that.
But, it was not my day as more and more wrecks kept happening as the other riders common sense in the rain was turned off. I ultimately pulled the plug, cut my losses thankful that I neither broke any equipment or bones on the day, something many others could not say.
The highlight of the day I must say was seeing the flyover in Vernon from the French Ai
r Force.
I am convinced that this is the whole of the French Air Force too. But, regardless it was cool to see.
With the heavy rain, wrecks abounded quite frequently and not an hour into the day, we got to experience a stretch of cobblestones in the rain as we raced through of the of umpteenth towns we went through. Like I have said numerous times, common sense is quite limited and especially on this day, every riders sense of risk taking hits a new level. On that cobblestone stretch, I went down with around 40 other guys. Trying to brake on the wet pave reminded me of trying to ice skate, no matter what I did, the wheels would just slide out and compound that to a whole peloton of riders and you have a cluster of a time. Thankfully I came out ok, just sore, but not missing my teeth from trying to eat a cobble or any number of other injuries. That one dude was messed up, he looked like he came out of some horror film. Later when all was settled, the rest of the race who did not wreck were close to ten minutes up and we who had wrecked were pretty much out of the running. Thankfully, the race was neutralized and we got back to them to have a second start which was pretty unique, I have experienced 2 races now in one season where I had to have 2 starts in a day and never once in my life before had I had to do that.
But, it was not my day as more and more wrecks kept happening as the other riders common sense in the rain was turned off. I ultimately pulled the plug, cut my losses thankful that I neither broke any equipment or bones on the day, something many others could not say.
The highlight of the day I must say was seeing the flyover in Vernon from the French Ai
r Force.I am convinced that this is the whole of the French Air Force too. But, regardless it was cool to see.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Infestation
I have had myself a pretty darn crazy few days. It all started around 3 days ago when I woke up to look across my room in the morning and what does one see? Ants, and not just a few but my window was covered. What do I do, the most logical thing that one can think of-pour bleach all over to kill them. I assumed all was good and went about my day hoping that when I came home life would be peachy. I went out and watched Spain crush it in the World Cup match, which by the way, the Super Bowl does not hold a candle to the spectacle of World Cup. Anywho, back to the ants, by the time I got home that night, it was a whole new game. We found multiple holes in my wall where ants where crawling out off and we had even progressed onto the flying ants with wings. My life was getting to be interesting. Knowing that late at night, the store was closed our options for extinction where limited so once again, a bleach foam was laid out all over. The floor was covered, a barrier was put down in the hopes of blocking them just to my room and general pandemonium ensued. Because of the nice bleach stench I am now bunked up with my coach. The next morning, we made it to the store to purchase every single ant type of killer possible. I have thrown liquid down the holes, set traps, laid powder around all perimeters and still they continue to come. What luck do I have? The photo that I have is of the very beginning of the infestation, it is worse now, but I it is too toxic in my room to even go in and get a photo, sorry about that.
On to the next morning and my teammate comes home to find this waiting for him to crawl next to in bed.
Yes, that is a sack on its back carrying lots of babies. By now, we are all feeling pretty much like we are a part of the classic film Starship Troopers. Is the film corny, yes, is the film real, no, is the fact that I live in an invaded home for real, you know it. Makes ya sleep good at night.
This is a new place that I moved into about a week and a half ago and I have to find it somewhat ironic that I have been having nasal issues since I moved into the house too. The others allergies have been acting up at the same time and quite frankly I am just scared to start checking for mold in the walls. The less I know the better.
On to important news, tomorrow is Bastille Day, which is Frances July 4th. I am off to some race where every French rider will want to win and I am going to do my best to make sure that this does not happen. Lets hope for good things.
On to the next morning and my teammate comes home to find this waiting for him to crawl next to in bed.
Yes, that is a sack on its back carrying lots of babies. By now, we are all feeling pretty much like we are a part of the classic film Starship Troopers. Is the film corny, yes, is the film real, no, is the fact that I live in an invaded home for real, you know it. Makes ya sleep good at night.
This is a new place that I moved into about a week and a half ago and I have to find it somewhat ironic that I have been having nasal issues since I moved into the house too. The others allergies have been acting up at the same time and quite frankly I am just scared to start checking for mold in the walls. The less I know the better.
On to important news, tomorrow is Bastille Day, which is Frances July 4th. I am off to some race where every French rider will want to win and I am going to do my best to make sure that this does not happen. Lets hope for good things.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Humidity
Nothing too much new to report on. Finally, my bloody nose string has ended, that was quite the miserable 8 days. I have been enjoying having the chance to speak some English again with the other Americans here. But, hands down the hardest obstacle that I have been dealing with as of late is the humidity here. What is amazing, is that the french weathermen every day are saying that it is a new record and that this heat is not normal. A typical day is around 90+ degrees with around 95% humidity. What does this mean you ask? As a person living without air conditioning, this means that I am sitting around all day drenched in sweat, not even doing anything I am covered in it. I have to sleep in minimal attire on top of covers and wake up drenched. Quite frankly, it is extremely uncomfortable. I am certainly missing the desert right now.
Sorry for forgetting, there was that race in my hometown on Friday night too. Nothing special to report, I felt like junk and did not do anything of importance. I just rode around in circles around my town for 2 hours coughing up blood clots, good times.
I have also been given the task of trying to get the 2 American riders here with me some train tickets to go and visit the beach this week. Should be interesting to send off 2 young kids in a foreign country that do not speak any French. Life is all about growing up right?
I really wish that I had some really cool stuff coming up to report on, but just the same ol same ol. I will be racing on Wednesday and I will just be training otherwise this week. I do have limited internet access with my change of residence here. I now have to get across town to get to the internet rather than right up the street. Oh well, a little walking never killed anyone.
Sorry for forgetting, there was that race in my hometown on Friday night too. Nothing special to report, I felt like junk and did not do anything of importance. I just rode around in circles around my town for 2 hours coughing up blood clots, good times.
I have also been given the task of trying to get the 2 American riders here with me some train tickets to go and visit the beach this week. Should be interesting to send off 2 young kids in a foreign country that do not speak any French. Life is all about growing up right?
I really wish that I had some really cool stuff coming up to report on, but just the same ol same ol. I will be racing on Wednesday and I will just be training otherwise this week. I do have limited internet access with my change of residence here. I now have to get across town to get to the internet rather than right up the street. Oh well, a little walking never killed anyone.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
People
Firstly, want to apologize, I have been away for a bit. It all started around a week back when I got myself a bloody nose. If you know me, you know that these happen pretty frequently in my life and I normally have one bad one a year. Normally, run in to see my doc, get it cauterized and I am all peachy. Now, things are a bit different. For about 4-5 days have been having bloody noses and 3 days were just continuous. So, needless to say, my race on Monday was a wash, and doing much of anything else was just a joke.
Back to the race, I did try and start and whenever I would go hard, well I would bleed. So, I DNF'ed and spent the rest of the day watching the race I was just in. I have not done this too much and I have to say, it can be pretty darn fun. I stopped on the side of the road and ran into some fans that I know out on course. For the following 3 hours I drank good wine, ate bread and amazing Normandy cheese and generally had a pretty rocking time.
Back to normal life now, I am hoping that the bloody noses have stopped long enough for the 3 months until I get home. Frankly, I just do not trust the whole socialized medicine over here and am quite scared to have to go to a hospital here. God Bless America.
I also would like to report that Corey, Dylan and Marcel arrived in France and it has been nice to have some English spoken to me a bit. But, as I had mentioned in a previous post, over my vacation I met some unique characters and I want you to know a bit about them. On Sunday afternoon when I was ready to leave, I headed to the train station to grab a ticket home but was kindly told I had 2 more hours until the next train left as Sunday night, not too many trains run, so what did I do? Like any good Euro person, I headed off to the nearest cafe. Sat down at the bar and was generally just taking it all in. Watching World Cup on the Tele and talking to folks. A nice gentlemen decided to sit next to me and start talking to me and trying to be a friendly guy I talked back. Well, as the conversation kept on going, I was asked if I was alone, where was my girlfriend and where I live normally. None of these seemed to be redflags but when asked what I was doing that day I mentioned my train was leaving in an hour. Seizing the opportunity, he just straight out of the blue asked if I wanted to hurry back to his place and have sex before I left. WHAT? Yes I know. Upon rejection, I inquired as to why he may have thought I would want to do such a thing upon which I was told that I was in a bar, by myself in a heavy gay area, thin and clean cut. Whoops, guess from now on, need to find myself a gal around here or something. Pretty funny now that I think about it.
I also want to leave you with a photo of a gal that was in the city of Rouen, France. Once again I had about an hour and a half in between trains the same night so I decided to walk around town to get a feel for the culture. She was trying to get money out of everyone she could and I am said to say, she asked me too. I had to be a mean guy and say no. I just cannot support this habit.
Going to try and race tomorrow night if I can. I have a night time crit in my hometown over here and am just praying I can pull it together. Lets see.
Back to the race, I did try and start and whenever I would go hard, well I would bleed. So, I DNF'ed and spent the rest of the day watching the race I was just in. I have not done this too much and I have to say, it can be pretty darn fun. I stopped on the side of the road and ran into some fans that I know out on course. For the following 3 hours I drank good wine, ate bread and amazing Normandy cheese and generally had a pretty rocking time.
Back to normal life now, I am hoping that the bloody noses have stopped long enough for the 3 months until I get home. Frankly, I just do not trust the whole socialized medicine over here and am quite scared to have to go to a hospital here. God Bless America.
I also would like to report that Corey, Dylan and Marcel arrived in France and it has been nice to have some English spoken to me a bit. But, as I had mentioned in a previous post, over my vacation I met some unique characters and I want you to know a bit about them. On Sunday afternoon when I was ready to leave, I headed to the train station to grab a ticket home but was kindly told I had 2 more hours until the next train left as Sunday night, not too many trains run, so what did I do? Like any good Euro person, I headed off to the nearest cafe. Sat down at the bar and was generally just taking it all in. Watching World Cup on the Tele and talking to folks. A nice gentlemen decided to sit next to me and start talking to me and trying to be a friendly guy I talked back. Well, as the conversation kept on going, I was asked if I was alone, where was my girlfriend and where I live normally. None of these seemed to be redflags but when asked what I was doing that day I mentioned my train was leaving in an hour. Seizing the opportunity, he just straight out of the blue asked if I wanted to hurry back to his place and have sex before I left. WHAT? Yes I know. Upon rejection, I inquired as to why he may have thought I would want to do such a thing upon which I was told that I was in a bar, by myself in a heavy gay area, thin and clean cut. Whoops, guess from now on, need to find myself a gal around here or something. Pretty funny now that I think about it.
I also want to leave you with a photo of a gal that was in the city of Rouen, France. Once again I had about an hour and a half in between trains the same night so I decided to walk around town to get a feel for the culture. She was trying to get money out of everyone she could and I am said to say, she asked me too. I had to be a mean guy and say no. I just cannot support this habit.
Going to try and race tomorrow night if I can. I have a night time crit in my hometown over here and am just praying I can pull it together. Lets see.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
4th of July
Happy 4th of July to yall!! It is certainly a bit of a bummer to not be back home in the states celebrating on OUR day, but what can I do? To all back home, enjoy your fireworks, barbeques and beer for me, what do I eat on this sacred American day you ask? A nice french baguette and quiche. Pretty backwards eh? To touch my American roots though I am watching some U.S. Dirt track racing on Discovery channel, the only thing I now need is some PBR to watch too.
I have got some exciting news for this week as my coach Corey Hart is going to be arriving in France on Tuesday and he is bringing 2 other riders with him to get their feet wet in Europe. The 2 riders coming with Corey are Dylan Jones and Marce Delisser.This is a part of the BODE or Boise Development cycling program and is a great way to help under 23 riders along the cycling path. I owe a lot to this program as it has been a huge help in getting me to Europe and follow my dream. Some nice things about their arrival are that I am going to have an outlet to speak some English with fellow Americans around and get to show some visitors around giving me a little bit of a feeling of a "local"
I also have some other news to report. I have had quite a few breakthroughs this year with my French language skills from when I first arrived. My first 2 months were pretty awful honestly, but things got much better and I and others became quite complacent with the level that I was at. That stage is long gone and now on multiple occasions daily, those who I have lots of contact with are continually upping the French that they use with me and I am back to learning lots of new words and phrases. So the downfall to all of this, what I do know, I can speak with conviction luring those around me into a sense that I have a much larger grasp of the language, which I do not. This results in even more chances to learn and hopefully less fatigue when speaking down the road.
First week back training has been great and I am off to go and see how my legs like me tomorrow on race day. Good times are waiting to be had and looking forward to a great week.
I have got some exciting news for this week as my coach Corey Hart is going to be arriving in France on Tuesday and he is bringing 2 other riders with him to get their feet wet in Europe. The 2 riders coming with Corey are Dylan Jones and Marce Delisser.This is a part of the BODE or Boise Development cycling program and is a great way to help under 23 riders along the cycling path. I owe a lot to this program as it has been a huge help in getting me to Europe and follow my dream. Some nice things about their arrival are that I am going to have an outlet to speak some English with fellow Americans around and get to show some visitors around giving me a little bit of a feeling of a "local"
I also have some other news to report. I have had quite a few breakthroughs this year with my French language skills from when I first arrived. My first 2 months were pretty awful honestly, but things got much better and I and others became quite complacent with the level that I was at. That stage is long gone and now on multiple occasions daily, those who I have lots of contact with are continually upping the French that they use with me and I am back to learning lots of new words and phrases. So the downfall to all of this, what I do know, I can speak with conviction luring those around me into a sense that I have a much larger grasp of the language, which I do not. This results in even more chances to learn and hopefully less fatigue when speaking down the road.
First week back training has been great and I am off to go and see how my legs like me tomorrow on race day. Good times are waiting to be had and looking forward to a great week.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
On to the final day of the vacation and boy oh boy was it a doozy. I knew that the American Cemetery in Normandy that is dedicated to the fallen US soldiers during WWII was close to where I was living this year and felt that it would be such a shame to not go and honor their sacrifice. I set off Sunday morning to find the Cemetery, knowing that it was going to be around a 25 km hike to make it to the beach from where I was, I was in for a long day. The minute that I made it out of town, a nice Frenchman stopped just ahead of me on the road and asked me where I was going. When I explained to him where I wanted to go he immediately said hop on in. He was only going half the way, but still drove me the whole way there because he said that it was the smallest thing he could do, he was a little child during WWII and America gave him freedom again he said. While dealing with some bad French apples a few weeks back, it was nice to meet the good apples too.
On to the Cemetery and Memorial, I was not prepared in the least bit for the amount of emotion that this place can bring out in you. You start your day by taking a tour of the Memorial learning even more of its history and significance before having the opportunity to walk through the graves. Before you watch this little video, I suggest that you turn off any music or TV around you and just listen to how truly peaceful the area is. It is amazing to imagine that this is the exact land that 66 years ago, one of the worlds largest battles took place.
Walking row upon row reading the names on each grave truly means so much. There are roughly 10,000 Americans buried here and I still cannot wrap my head around it. The number of lives that the War touched is amazing and to have the opportunity to read the stories of so many of the men gets one to really think. Many of the lives lost were even younger than I am currently and it certainly brings to mind that while they made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, what in my life have I done? If I were to die today, what would my lasting impact on the world be and was it positive? These are just a few of the questions that this place implants in you and having quite a bit of time to walk and think are an important part of this memorial.
The Cemetery overlooks Omaha beach which was one of the landing points for American forces on D Day and today is quite a peaceful place. It was pretty neat to be able to hike on down and check out the beach today. Not to mention have some sand running through my toes and get to dip my legs in the Atlantic.
Knowing that this was the last day of my trip and I would not get to have many truly calm days left, I decided to just hang out on the beach for a couple of hours. A nice little picnic while watching kids play around in the water and families relaxing on Sunday afternoon was just what I needed. It is certainly great to be able to see the happiness on this land today considering what this land has seen in its days. An interesting twist is that at one of the memorials, it is written in Latin that this land was taken back for the people who took their land. This is in reference to the Norman conquest that I visited on day 1 with French taken over England and 878 years later, the English helping take back land for the French. In no ways was this planned that my trip timeline would work like that, but an added bonus.
To this day, old German bunkers are still left to decay on the hillside while giving a unique insight to what the US soldiers had to deal with. With the day nearly over, I headed off to make my way back to Bayeux and the train station and once again, a friendly stranger gave me a ride from the beach back into town. The people that you get to meet along the way certainly make for an interesting trip and the conversations are able to give one an insight into local culture even more so than just a standard visit. A successful trip all around in that I got in some ok R and R, even though all the walking was draining. I also got to see some sites that I have always wanted to see and now, am extremely motivated for the second half of the season. Stay tuned for an update on some of the more "unique" characters I got to meet on my trip.
On to the Cemetery and Memorial, I was not prepared in the least bit for the amount of emotion that this place can bring out in you. You start your day by taking a tour of the Memorial learning even more of its history and significance before having the opportunity to walk through the graves. Before you watch this little video, I suggest that you turn off any music or TV around you and just listen to how truly peaceful the area is. It is amazing to imagine that this is the exact land that 66 years ago, one of the worlds largest battles took place.
Walking row upon row reading the names on each grave truly means so much. There are roughly 10,000 Americans buried here and I still cannot wrap my head around it. The number of lives that the War touched is amazing and to have the opportunity to read the stories of so many of the men gets one to really think. Many of the lives lost were even younger than I am currently and it certainly brings to mind that while they made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, what in my life have I done? If I were to die today, what would my lasting impact on the world be and was it positive? These are just a few of the questions that this place implants in you and having quite a bit of time to walk and think are an important part of this memorial.
The Cemetery overlooks Omaha beach which was one of the landing points for American forces on D Day and today is quite a peaceful place. It was pretty neat to be able to hike on down and check out the beach today. Not to mention have some sand running through my toes and get to dip my legs in the Atlantic.
Knowing that this was the last day of my trip and I would not get to have many truly calm days left, I decided to just hang out on the beach for a couple of hours. A nice little picnic while watching kids play around in the water and families relaxing on Sunday afternoon was just what I needed. It is certainly great to be able to see the happiness on this land today considering what this land has seen in its days. An interesting twist is that at one of the memorials, it is written in Latin that this land was taken back for the people who took their land. This is in reference to the Norman conquest that I visited on day 1 with French taken over England and 878 years later, the English helping take back land for the French. In no ways was this planned that my trip timeline would work like that, but an added bonus.
To this day, old German bunkers are still left to decay on the hillside while giving a unique insight to what the US soldiers had to deal with. With the day nearly over, I headed off to make my way back to Bayeux and the train station and once again, a friendly stranger gave me a ride from the beach back into town. The people that you get to meet along the way certainly make for an interesting trip and the conversations are able to give one an insight into local culture even more so than just a standard visit. A successful trip all around in that I got in some ok R and R, even though all the walking was draining. I also got to see some sites that I have always wanted to see and now, am extremely motivated for the second half of the season. Stay tuned for an update on some of the more "unique" characters I got to meet on my trip.
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