i got a good three hours’ sleep on the plane. sarah did not fare so well as she could not get comfortable. so she stayed up to watch Ocean’s 11. in the last post, i forgot to mention the funniest dialogue that we overheard on the plane. if you read the first post, then you know about the Canadian high school group that was traveling with us to France (by the way, after spending two days with a British couple and a few days in Paris, i’m finding it difficult to pronounce “France” the traditional American way as in “Frants”. it just doesn’t sound right anymore. i keep saying “Fraunse” and i think i like that better. so Europeans have gotten to me that way. c’est la vie).

anyways, back to the funny dialogue. one of the high schoolers sat behind us, to which we both rolled our eyes, and was sitting next to an older woman who was not with the group and was traveling alone. “There’s a lot of you,” she said. “Do you have staff traveling with you?” at this question, sarah and i both snickered. the high schooler replied that there were several chaperones going with the group, and the older woman was satisfied. but she was not finished. she then said, “Are all of you ready to go to sleep?” i about fell out of my chair (except that there was no room in front of me to do so) laughing after that comment and sarah and i were both struggling not to guffaw and disturb the whole plane. but it was nice to know that we were not the only ones who had reservations about being on an 8 hour flight with a bunch of high schoolers. we had also assured ourselves that as much as the French were going to hate us since we were American (not only American, but Americans that do not speak French), they are not going to hate us as much as they are going to hate this group of Canadian high schoolers. a reassuring thought, indeed, if even a very small one.

after i had woken up, i changed my watch to French time and saw that it was about 7:00am. i opened my window expecting to see daylight and was surprised to find that it was still pitch black. this was very strange to me, since it usually gets light about 6am in certain parts of the States. i did not see the first hints of light until about 7:45am, and it was not fully light until about 8:45 or 9:00. we landed about 8:10 and were starting to wonder if we would be able to make it out of the airport and to Gare St. Lazare in time for our 10:43 train to Bayeux, especially since we had to go through customs and collect our bags. when we got to customs, there was a tremendously long line. we waited for a bit and then it looked like the high schoolers were going to try and push their way through. i was not about to let 40 of them get in front of us and cause us to miss our train. so we sort of weaved our way through and finally made it into the narrow line that moved much faster than the mass of people trying to get into the narrow line. but we got through in about 20 minutes, which was great. greater still, our bag appeared after about five minutes of standing around the carousel. we had hoped to get out of the airport by 9:00am and we were sure that that was an unrealistic goal. however, we got to the line for taxis about 8:55. perfect.

by about 9:05 we were headed towards the train station. between the airport and the station is not the prettiest part of Paris. it’s very industrial and very commercial. there are giant neon signs on the tops of buildings letting you know whose offices are there. my first impression of Paris is not very good. in fact, i think i said to sarah, “is all of Paris this ugly?” i knew that it wasn’t, but still. we went by the Stade de France (”Stadium of France”; the soccer stadium) and had a moment of silence to lament the fact that our first plans for Paris fell through and we were not able to visit the Stade to see U2 in concert.

we thought we would be very close to our train’s departing the station, but we got to the station about an hour before the train was to leave. now came the hard part. finding where we were supposed to go. after wandering around aimlessly for about five minutes with a bunch of bags, clearly showing that we were tourists and had no idea what we were doing, i decided it was time to brave speaking with the locals. i found a man in a window that looked like he was a ticket seller. “Parlez vous anglais?” i asked him. “Non,” he said with a wave of his hand. great. he hates me. “uhh…..train du Bayeux?” “Bayeux? Oui, oui, [a lot of French i didn't understand but could see well enough from his gestures that i was to go down the way a bit].” we walked down the station a good length and saw, much to our great joy, Union Jacks! maybe they speak English! “Parlez vous anglais?” i asked a young African-looking man. his answer was a coy smile and a point of the finger towards the Union Jack sticker on his window. great. he speaks English, but he still hates me. however, we were able to get our tickets from him and then we still had about 40 minutes until our train would depart.

we walked up and down the line of train emplacements and could not find one that said “Bayeux” on it. we were actually supposed to find one to “Cherbourg,” Cherbourg being the last stop, but there was not one that said that either. so we were going to have to try and converse with the French again. i find an official looking fellow and say, without trying to let on that i’m a stupid American that can’t speak French, “Ou est l’train du Bayeux?” he was on to me. he replied in English and told me that i should look for a train to Cherbourg, but that it won’t show up on the boards until about 20 minutes before departing. i thanked him and we went and sat until the train showed up and we began boarding.

we had first class train seats and were in a little compartment like in the Harry Potter movies. it was very fun. out of six seats in the compartment, four were filled, with the other two being a couple of French men traveling alone. one had a friendly face but i don’t think he spoke English. he kept to himself most of the time, but would smile at us and greeted us with a “bonjour!” and left us with an “au revoir!” he listened to his mp3 player for most of the trip and appeared to be listening to some kind of heavy rock music. which was funny because that’s not what i would have pictured at all. the other fellow in our compartment was a young businessman who spent most of the trip working on a PowerPoint presentation that i assumed he would be giving when he reached Cherbourg. from the short glances i got at his monitor, i could tell that he was some sort of production engineer or something. he did speak English, which was good because we did not understand any of the announcements that the conductor was making over the intercom. so it was good that we had a translator.

the train ride was beautiful. it was snowing and the French countryside was littered with snow-covered hills and trees and cows. i remember thinking, “i could definitely live here.” after two stops, Liseux and Caen, we finally reached our stop at Bayeux. the stairs off the train had ice on them, so we had to gingerly step so that we did not end up on the tracks below. we safely made it on the platform and began making our way to the car park where we were to meet our hosts. we found Tony shortly thereafter, and were on our way to he and his wife’s farmhouse in Port-en-Bessin. again the ride was beautiful. everything looked so old and Tony told us that some of the structures, especially a few of the churches, had been there since Norman times, before 1066. amazing. most of the other buildings had been there a long time, but not quite as long as that. the farmhouse that they live in is just over 300 years old.

we got to their house, met Pat, Tony’s wife, had a spot of tea, and got settled. sarah was pretty “knackered” (to use their term) and decided that she wanted to lay down and rest. not wanting to waste any time while i was there, Tony and i went hunting to see what we could see.