i'm tired, so let's make this quick. [that's what she said.]

[annie, me, and kelly on omaha beach.]

last weekend, we went to normandy as a whole study abroad group.

it was soooo much fun. maybe it was because i sat in the back of the tour bus this time, where all the loudness and partying is done, instead of the front where all the sleeping and quietness is done. 

here's what happened:

friday: we left way early and took off first for to see the bayeau tapestry, which is basically this really long rug with pictures on it. maybe that's a little disrespectful for me to talk about it like that...yes, it was really cool, but in the end, it was just a long rug with pictures on it. cool beans bayeau. then, a couple of us walked up to this beautiful church and looked around.

after, we were a bit starving, so we stopped at this cute and delicious looking cafe for lunch. after long consideration, i finally decided on a croque monsieur, which is like a grilled cheese with ham, but the ham is on the inside and the cheese is on the outside, if that makes sense. it was actually really good and different than i though it would be, but good. and very filling too.

then we went down [over? up? who knows.] to omaha beach, which is where the d-day invasion was during world war two. it really was an amazing memorial, with movies playing stories of soldiers in the building and miles of white crosses and then stairs down to the beach where you could walk around and just take it all in. it was alittle awkward though to see old ladies running around in their bikini's down there. hey ladies, that's disrespectful to this beach and my eyes! knock it off. it was really special though to be there on the beach and try and feel what had happened many years again. i even saved a few shells [don't remember where i put those suckers....].

after that, we drove to rouen which was a few hours away, and had dinner real quick together in the city at this random, but nice restaurant that had delicious food. the menu was 1.) tomatoes/mozzerella cheese with olive oil and salad and french bread that just kept coming [literally, our waiter kept going to the side where there were all these fresh baguettes and chopping it with basically a paper slicer thing and bringing basket after basket to us].

[i basically traded all my cheese for annie's tomatoes. i am a tomato lovin' freak.]

 [ohhhhh frites. ohhhhh yeah.]

 [the dijon mustard here in france does not equal the american dijon mustard. i swear, i grabbed a small spoonful of this stuff and it burned my nose hairs right off. i'm not even kidding, my eyes started watering. pretty sure that stuff was basted with horseradish!]

[dessert. it was this puff pastry with a poached sliced apple and vanilla cream with raspberry sauce. loved it all except the poached apple. i'm just not a fan of them.]

after dinner, we headed over to our hotel, where we all proceeded to cram into kelly/annie/tiff's room to watch gossip girl on morning's ipad. literally, there was probably 20 of us in the tiniest room ever, and it got a little cray cray for a bit [daryl kept coming and telling us to be quiet], but it was tons of fun. i just love these girls!

[us girls freaking out over which house annie was gonna get sorted into on pottermore. big deal. bigger than mission call.]

saturday: we woke up and ate breakfast. i'd totally miss hotel breakfasts because they always have yogurt, croissants, french bread, juice, pain au chocolat, anything else you want. hotel breakfasts here definitely trump hotel breakfasts in america. but then again, that goes for everything else [ohhhh ouch. point for france.]. then it was off for the outside market!

we got a little lost on the way to the market, but finally, after wandering around, found it. oh, and my stupid camera died two seconds into the day, so the rest of these pictures are borrowed from who knows who. the market was basically like a farmer's market, but then also had some antique stuff as well for sale. i got this really adorable skirt for five euro:

[it's a brown/dark green wool with orange ovals, obviously. it's really cute though, and i'll wear it a little high waisted. also, i promise it's not glittery, my camera just likes things to sparkle, i guess.]

i also got this really cool vintage fashion photo for four euro. i want to start collecting vintage fashion magazine covers and frame them to put in my room at home.

[as you can tell, i love it.]

we shopped around for awhile. it was a really cool market with really nice stuff, and it was less known [or felt like it], so things were less expensive. after, we decided to get some lunch at this euro-looking place. i got a wrap panini thing that had veggies and meat in it with frites, and whattaya know, that holy guacamole burning mustard again. and once again, i took ate a big dollop of it and almost choked to death. some people just never learn.

after, we walked around trying to find this art museum that daryl had suggested we look at. after about a half hour of getting lost, we finally found it. i've never gone so fast through a museum! it was a bummer that i didn't get to spend more time in there, but the art was really cool. is it sad that since i was used to the market i was just at and wanted to barter for the paintings? whoops.

we got back on the bus and headed over to the monet gardens, which were absolutely gorgeous. seriously, i don't blame the guy for painting amazing and gorgeous paintings because that place did nothing but inspire the crap out of me. even though i am in no way a painter. there was this pond with bridges over it and flowers literally spilling around every corner. i had "clair de lune" by debussy in my head the whole afternoon as i walked around in a trance. it was just lovely.

i'm actually really sad i didn't buy a painting in the gift shop. i really wanted to get this one:

but for some reason, i decided against it. and now i'm really regretting it. dang it.

after the lovely monet gardens, we headed back to paris, where me and tiff grabbed some clothes from our apartment, went to the grocery store with brynn for a bit, and headed over to the vesinet, which is just outside of paris for a sleepover/general conference party.

funny story: so me and tiff slept on the ground there, which was fine, but they didn't really have any blankets for us, so they folded up all these towels for us to sleep on instead so the floor wouldn't be so uncomfortable. plus, it was hot when we went to bed, so we didn't need any blankets anyways. i wake up in the middle of the night absolutely freezing and frantically looking for something to keep warm with. i look over and tiff had wrapped herself in some of the towels, so i decide to do that too. except all the ones i was finding were basically hand towels. so i've got about a million hand towels wrapped all over my body and i'm just laying there on the wood floor laughing my butt off for about ten minutes. can you just imagine that picture? classic. it was an awesome weekend though of crazy times on the bus [dance parties, other girls mooning cars, and too many dirty jokes] and then general conference, which was absolutely wonderful. i loved it all so much.

the one weird thing about conference was that it made me forget i was in paris because it was in english. and it made me miss america so much more. it's so weird because i forget i'm in france, but i know i'm not in america, so i feel like i'm floating around in this different dimension or something. everything here is familiar, yet foreign at the same time. comforting, yet discouraging. happy, but sad.