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