D-Day beaches, thousand year old tapestries, and wet bicycle rides

Sarah in one of the craters made from artillery fire
the photo doesn't do it justice but its over 10ft deep.

This weekend has been one adventure after another as we started our Saturday off with heading to the
seaside of Normandy to Pointe du Hoc.  This was quite an incredible site as this was one of the first landing points of the June 6th D-Day invasion and it has been kept as close as possible to how it was after the invasion.  That means huge blast sites, broken bunkers and amazing cliffs that the allies would
have had to climb to overtake the position.  This area was critical to the success of the Normandy invasion as a large stash of artillery and guns were kept here.  Apparently the Germans didn't think that the allies would ever attack here because of the steep cliffs, but in the nearby museum you can see some of the neat things that the Allies used to climb the embankment.

The view from a German bunker that you could climb
inside as well as the cliff that the Allies climbed.

Next stop was lunch in a local cafe which was delightful and while my French is still quite limited it was fun to try to order and pay in French (and only received a little help in English from the waitress).  After lunch it was off to Omaha beach and the memorial and cemetery.

As you get closer to Omaha and Utah beach you see more and more American flags and, after watching some of the films in the memorial, it is quite neat that the local Normandy peoples still have a huge respect for the Allies and Americans because of the joint effort to win back the land.

one side of the tapestry which is
over 70 meters long!

The museum at Omaha was so neat with lots of information and notes from soldiers who were about to embark as well as all the info and planning leading up to it as well as all the secrets, fake paratroopers that were dropped in different positions to confuse the enemy and inflatable tanks used to create "fake armies" to further distract the Germans.  Sarah and I took a walk down to the beach just to see what it was like to look up at the bunkers and the hill that the Allies would have had to overcome.  It is quite the juxtaposition as if you look along the beach you see all the fun things you would expect at any beach but a quick look up reminds you of what happened here.

Sarah and I in Bayeux!

After a walk through the cemetery we changed eras by around 900 years and headed to Bayeux to look at the Bayeux tapestry, a tapestry that is near 1000 years old!  In 1066, William from Normandy (Guillaume le Conquerant) who was rightful heir to the throne as King of England had to leave Normandy to fight to win back the English throne and, after defeating Harold who broke an oath and claimed the throne as his own, he commissioned someone to make the tapestry which tells the entire story which was really fun and quite comical in parts.  The tapestry is 69 meters long and it was designed to wrap around the walls of a church to recount the story of conquest to illiterate people of the village!

We ended the night with a potato dinner and some card games before retiring for the evening and sleeping in until 11 this morning.  We decided to brave the rainy weather though and rode into Percy this morning to get some lotions and candy (my sweet tooth was uncontrollable) which is only about a ten minute ride.  All that is left today for now is getting dry and relaxing as paving resumes tomorrow!

This is hard work!

Hello, dear readers, and apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of days.  We're in the thick of our workweek, and it is absolutely exhausting.  On Tuesday, we woke up at 8:00 so that we could see Olivier, the son in our workaway host family, off to school at around 8:15.  Our wake up time has been sliding further and further from this ambitious goal, however, as we get more and more tired from the various things we do each day!  The minimum five hours quickly turn into more as you become emotionally invested in a project.  Because this house is ripe with opportunities for DIY, almost everything you do makes a tangible difference.  Over the last couple of days, we have:

Uncle Ben's rice has gone global, go figure! 

• fixed up the bikes so that we can ride into town (if we ever have enough energy, perhaps this weekend)
• fixed up the scooters, on and off road
• raked the pads for the new patio flat and leveled with gravel
• compacted said gravel and re-leveled
• commenced paving activities (that is such slow going because nothing is actually square and we're creating a 3 cm drop to run water away from the house.  Homes built in the 1500s don't have much in the way of water diversion systems)
• washed two cars and a caravan
• vacuumed the house
• gone to the market at Villedieu
• gone to the decheterie (dump)
• spent numerous hours jumping on the trampoline with Olivier
• cooked dinner (thanks for the recipe, Maggie!)

Will holding groceries in Villedieu

Highlights over the last few days:

1. Trip to Villedieu-les-Poeles (literally, God's village of pots and pans).  We did our fresh-food shopping here on Tuesday and Will perfectly applied his knowledge of French: Desolé, je ne parle pas français (I'll let you look that one up).  In all seriousness, though, he's learning really quickly and is picking up tons of vocab each day!  This village really wasn't destroyed by WWII bombings or invasions of Normandy, so it's in its pristine medieval state and covered in copper everything.  During the medieval ages, this town's bell foundry provided bells for newly established churches wherever the crusaders went.  Today, the foundry mostly focuses on more usable copper goods like pots and pans.  Imagine the Blacksburg farmer's market times twenty and sprawling throughout several blocks of a medieval town, and you've captured our morning.

Compacting!  Notice the Surf & Adventure Tshirt

2.  Trip to the dump.  The French are really big on recycling whatever they can, so the dump was divided into more sections than you'd usually see in your average American dump.  Because we were throwing away mostly rotted plywood and other random things, our stuff went into your standard all-purpose bin.  After the dump (and this is the cool part), we went to Mont Robin, a lookout over Percy, Villedieu, and the surrounding countryside.  After admiring the view, Will, Roseanne, and I played on the little workout course winding through the park.

3.  So much chess, trampoline time, and minecraft!  When Olivier comes home from school, we usually wrap up our work for the day and have gouté (the afternoon/early evening snack and cup of tea).  After that, Will and I usually play with him whether we do the things listed above, play outside, or play one of his imaginary games.  He's really quite a sweet nine year old boy, though I've heard he can be quite the demanding overlord when it comes to Minecraft constructions.  I've begged out of Minecraft because the way the characters look and walk gives me motion sickness, but Will plays most every evening.

Paving in the rain

4. Paving!  Who knew this could be so hard.  I think Will and I laid 9 tiles today (to be fair, they're 50 cm each, so larger than your average bathroom tile, we don't have any square things around to base off of, and we're making them tilt 3 cm from house to grass) and we're positively beat.  It was chilly and misting this morning and slightly sunny this afternoon, but we managed to cover ourselves in mortar AND get slight sunburns throughout the course of the day.  Roseanne opened up the lost and found DIY clothes cabinet to us and we picked quite clever outfits which kept us warm as we really did pack for a totally different (read: WARMER) climate.  

Yum!

5.  Strawberry, basil, goat cheese, balsamic open-faced sandwiches!  I borrowed Maggie's pizza recipe and transformed it into its sandwich cousin because our oven doesn't currently work.  With Wills fabulous help as sous-chef, they turned out great and paired surprisingly well with a red wine.  I was a little nervous because we initially tasted the chevre (goat cheese) with the rind on, and it was horrible with strawberries.  Luckily, we were able to trim off the rind and the sandwiches were saved. Thanks for sending me the recipe, Maggie!!!  With each dinner, and sometimes with lunch, we go through one-two bottles of wine (ranging from table white, table red, Normandy bubbly, and the famous cider made from Normandy apples) and linger at the table for at least an hour and a half.  The conversation is always so stimulating and we go into crazy in-depth conversations about everything from religion to politics to comparing and contrasting our different cultures.  If I had to categorize the personalities at dinner, I'd say Ben is the young idealist, Will and I fall somewhere into the category of pragmatic dreamers, Roseanne is a wealth of wisdom (she's done it all from banking consultant to full-time mom), and Mike is always willing to play devil's advocate.  It's safe to say that meal times are never dull!  What's also a wonder is how well Olivier is behaved during dinner, not that you'd expect anything otherwise from a nine-year-old French boy.  He sits politely and contributes when he is spoken to or has something to add for most of it and, when he gets bored after an hour or so, asks to leave the table without any fuss.  It's incredible!

Everyone gathered around the dinner table.  Olivier
approves of dinner!

Overall, we're happily exhausted at the end of each day and loving our time in Normandy.  Our hosts have been living in France for 19 years, so they're really able to explain differences in customs and why the differences exist.  For instance, the number of bisous (kisses of greeting) you give really depends on age.  Will and I went with Roseanne to pick up Olivier from karate, and each of the little kids ran up and greeted her with one bisou.  Later, they came and greeted Will and I, and we were all startled when we (W&I) expected to give two kisses and the children only expected to receive one.  Roseanne later explained that they probably felt quite grown-up by our double kiss and not offended, so all is well on that front.  We try to go on as many little excursions as we can to better explore the surrounding area and meet as many genuine French people as we can.  These French folks are totally different birds than their Parisian cousins, and I'm so glad we decided to take this trip!

Preparing for Paving

Today, work began!  We uncovered the gravel area and moved at least twenty wheel-barrows full of fist sized stones from the backyard into the rock pile up near the top of the property.  Will put his bicycle skills to use to fix the tire of one of the wheel barrows and assist in the operation of the air compressor.  After everything was cleared away, we began the painstaking process of leveling the area where we'll be building a tile patio.  Here's the catch: this house wasn't built with any rain-deflection, so the patio also has to direct rain away from the house and into a natural ditch built near the edge of the concrete platform.  This means that the entire thing will be slightly sloped, which makes it quite hard to level!  While moving things around, we found several ants' nests (we left them for a couple minutes, and they cleared out all their larvae by the time we returned), more spiders than you could imagine, and two beautiful salamanders!

We worked from nine to one, took a pause for lunch, and then worked again until 4:00 when we stopped for gouté (the French version of tea time with a snack).  After work was done, Will and I took a turn on the trampoline and then went for a walk down to the river.  The trampoline is fascinating because it's constructed entirely without springs!  While we were walking, we saw some of the most beautiful cows I've ever seen.  Normandy is dairy country, and the cows were all different kinds of colors.  They also looked surprisingly clean, but I'm not sure what that could be caused by.

In terms of language, we alternate back and forth between speaking French and English depending on what we're doing and how complicated the construction task at hand is.  Will is picking up the pronunciation and a ton of everyday phrases!!!

We are also having fun comparing what each of us call things.  Between the UK, USA, France and New Zealand there are a lot of names for things (like french fries, hot chips, frites, etc.) so each day we go through the motions of figuring out what someone is actually meaning when they say something (even salad is not sacred).

Tomorrow is our first trip into the local village to go to market and rent some equipment for laying tiles so we are all excited about that but I don't think we will have any issues staying in shape with all the moving of things happening around here.  Also, yesterday we went into Granville, a seaside town to a big trunk sale (basically a big yard sale in the street).  It was pretty funny to see that just like in the USA everyone haggles on price.  When we went to the water there were still bunkers on the beach from when the Germans occupied the land , it was a pretty surreal site to see.

Until next time!

S&W

Home Sweet Normandy

Sarah here!  I'm happy to report that we made it safely to Normandy!  We woke up this morning around 8, popped into our closest boulangerie for a croissant amande and a pain au chocolat, took the metro to the train station, and made it to our fairy tale-esque country home!  We only had two minor mishaps today including getting on the wrong car of the train (they all have a huge number two on the outside and the actual car number was conveniently located inside the cars) and someone walked in on me in the train bathroom.  Other than that, it was smooth sailing.

Our new home for the next few weeks is positively incredible!  We'll have to devote an entire post to its wonders later on, but for now here's a little bit of info.  The first section of the house was built in the 1500s and the second part was built two hundred years ago.  Mike and Roseann, our hosts, have restored it all themselves, beginning as just a stone house with no water or electricity.  The bedroom and rest of the ground floor where we are staying housed cattle and other livestock just until recently, so you get the idea that this is a legitimate country home.  Will has totally charmed their nine year-old son, Olivier, and I'm sure they are going to have some wonderful trampoline/cricket/minecraft/archery adventures!  There are also three fun cats and a hedgehog (yet to be spotted) running around the yard.  Our door opens right up to the back set of fields, and we fully expect to wake up to cows peering in through the windows.  Our fellow workawayer is Ben, a British student from around Oxford who already asked us why American policemen were so trigger-happy.  We quickly assured him that while there are some bad apples and some significant flaws to the system, change is on its way, especially after the push for reform in Baltimore.  Funny what media portrayal can do!

You can't quite tell from these photos, but there are hedgerows breaking up the fields all through the valley.  This location was used as a lookout during World War II, but the problem is that while you can see far distances due to the size of the hill, armies were able to sneak right up to the house as long as they stuck to the thick hedgerows!  We learned this fact and I'm sure we'll learn many more seeing as we are currently living in a piece of history.  As you can tell from our photos, this place is idyllic!

We are both well, body and soul, and well on our way to adapting to the change of time zones.  Tomorrow, we are going to the French equivalent of a yard sale a few villages over.  Also exciting news: I passed the Praxis!!!

À plus tard,
Sarah

I'm going to invest in Rabbits Feet and Four leaf clovers come July 22nd

I consider myself to be someone who luck tends to bless from time to time.  Ill get into restaurants right before a big line forms, I've narrowly avoided many bike accidents (many of which probably were almost caused by myself) and when a song gets stuck in my head it typically comes on the radio soon (which is strange because the song that gets stuck in my head the most is this one ).

I got excited because there were free movies on the plane..
but also because I know how much Gardner Burg would amp on the crosswords.

Well it seems like the lucky streak ran out for Sarah and I yesterday as our plane was slow to board, slow to push back from the gate, told by the pilot that due to weather we needed to regas (so went back to the gate), then told that was a false report, then sat on the tarmac for two hours before taking off and landing to see that our flight to Paris was already on its way.  Even though we thought it was going to be a fun next 24 hour stay in Charlotte (luckily not broken up by this guy ) the awesome folks at US Air put us on a flight to London and before you could say Bob's your Uncle we were underway for the 7 hour experience.  No crying babies to report but I did learn that even if you have the whole 4 seats in the middle of the plane to the two of you, sleeping is not really going to happen.  Luckily my stomach was fueled by extra cheesy pizza, chicken bacon ranch wraps and pasta with extra cheese so that was something quite delightful for the other passengers at 39k feet.

There was an entire shelve just for magazines
for cycling that spelled tire, tyre. Also free tyre levers?!

On to the fun stuff, Sarah and I made it to Paris.  We arrived here at 4:30 pm our time (6 hours ahead of you folks on the east coast) which was a blessing in disguise because we only had to kill about an hour of time before checking into our air bnb rather than the 10am - 6pm what do we do now game we would have played if we made our first flight.  We learned that just because you have an english accent (in Heathrow) doesn't meant you are a nice person, and that I severely underestimated how much French I know.

Tomorrow will hopefully be the last day of big time traveling for a while as we take the train to Normandy to meet our host family which we are really excited about.  They are originally from New Zealand and moved to France recently and purchased a really old (like 500 years) house that they are restoring, its going to be cool.


I don't think I have ever been this excited to take my socks off and lay completely flat.

And yes we totally went and saw the Eiffel Tower and laid on the lawn and gazed at its beauty.  Since Sarah can speak french though I scoffed at tourists and did my best "No Merci" phrases to the vendors.

The workers were on strike yesterday but we explained to them the situation and they opened it right back up for everyone.  

Cheers!

Will

And we're off!

Will and I are officially headed to Normandy for the summer (officially as in we are sitting in the airport outside of our gate and watching the rain fall).  We'll be staying with two different host families and doing a variety of projects in exchange for room and board through a program called Workaway (www.workaway.info).  We will be updating this blog as often as we can/as often as we have new, exciting things to tell you, and feel free to leave a comment or email us if you have any questions!  First stop: Charlotte, next stop: Paris!

Fun facts:  we managed to pack everything we'll need for two months in two hiking backpacks, Will's everyday backpack, and my new purse (thanks mom!).  Our big bags weighed in at 23 and 27 pounds each, which we think is pretty dang good!  Whose do you think weighed more?  The only things we've forgotten (aka I, Sarah, forgot) are headphones and lotion, but both of those can be purchased pretty easily.  Thanks to Sarah Chase-Walsh and her welcoming family for the yummy Thai food, awesome futon, and fantastic French practice.

À plus tard!
Sarah