Voyage to Normandy- Part 1, Conquering the French Bureaucracy

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the place where so many gave their lives, not just to secure our freedom.

It all started with a snap decision made by my roommate and I. We’d had a full week at school, and dealt with a fair amount of French bureaucracy, so we decided we needed a little break from our beautiful city. We settled on Normandy. I had always wanted to visit, and as it’s not too far from Paris we thought “why not?” In typical fashion, we ended up leaving a little later than planned, and when we arrived at the train station the automated ticket machine was broken. So I’m thinking, “great here we go again, just another fight waiting to happen.” We trudge to the ticket counter, waiting for the news that our train was actually on strike or some other small tragedy, when to our surprise, they lady was incredibly nice and helpful. She was even able to get us a discount and our tickets in the 10 minutes we had until our train left. Now this could be just be because of the not so great experiences I’d had that week when it came to state agencies, but I’m still wondering if I was just dreaming. Thanks for sticking with me while I share my little wins, now for the actual trip part….

So we’re feeling pretty great by this point, train worked out, weather is phenomenal, found our hotel right away, and we get a break from the fast pace of the city. We chose to base our Normandy adventure in the city of Caen. This was one of the first major cities liberated by the allies, and took a massive beating during the second world war, a few years before it was also where William the Conqueror set up shop.

Off we go!

Conquered that castle

View of Caen

Goodbye William...

We walked around the ancient castle, and took in the city views. We had enough daylight left to visit the Abbaye aux Hommes, which served as a hospital and shelter during WWII and the Abbaye aux Dammes. Both are impressive examples of gothic architecture, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Abbaye aux Hommes

Abbaye aux Dammes

We then had an awesome meal in the historic part of the city. That was also somewhat of an adventure, because while I feel pretty confident in the majority of my French, my knowledge of particular types of fish and their respective dishes is realatively limited. So I just went with the house special, hoping I hadn’t ordered some form of anchovies. I was happily surprised with a regional mix of different types of fishes. It was just the right end to what had turned out to be an exceptional day.      

Paris- City of sparkle and amazing hot chocolate

After my last novel about the wonders of school at Dauphine, I'll try to keep it short on the school updates. Finance is still, well finance, and other than that I'm really starting to enjoy my classes. And as an added bonus to having to fight for a seat, I feel like a have an extra drive to succeed in these courses. Maybe that's their logic behind the whole ordeal?

Anyway, back to much more exciting things like… Sparkle. This city is pretty well known for having it's fair share, and I got to experience a bit of it the other day. 

The Grand Palais, which I learned was never actually a royal palace. It was built for the Universal Exposition of 1900, along with a few other well known places around the city. Today, it functions as a museum, with rotating exhibits. The current exhibit is all about the creation and works of Cartier. Basically, rooms and rooms of tiaras and jewels. It was amazing to see, they had the tiara from the Kate and William's royal wedding, some of Elizabeth Taylor's and Grace Kelly's collection to name a few. 

Le Grand Palais

I'll take this one please...

Cartier a.k.a the Tierra company

The famous Cartier panther

Later that week, after a full day of classes, my roommate, some other exchange students, and I went to the famous Angelina.  Now I need to preface this with the fact that after a year in the land of chocolate, I have had the chance to taste some amazing coco combinations, but the hot chocolate at Angelina definitely lives up to the hype, and the desserts are pretty awesome too. Afterwards, we took a little walk around the city (this is becoming a nightly habit), and got to see another one of Paris' sparkly treasures. 

Starting at dusk, the Eiffel Tower sparkles each hour, on the hour for about ten minutes. Even though I've seen it light up many times, it's one of those things that you never tire of seeing. Kind of like the fireworks over the castle in Disneyland. Anyway, chocolate, jewels, and sparkle, what more could you want? Maybe just a little less finance, but for now enjoy a little Paris sparkle.