"Bloody" Omaha

The most famous of the D-day beaches, I believe this is where most people died. I think 99% of the first round of people were killed almost immediately. And, as we all know, it was this invasion that turned the war to our favor.
















We were told that after heavy rains, you can still see some of the barbed wire coming out from the sand.


































I don't know about you, but I think this makes perfect sense.



















The French government gave this property to the Americans to use as a monument to all those that died. Actually, the paper we received called it a "shrine"... which I thought was interesting, I hope they didn't really mean that. Anyhow, the property is tax-free in perpetuity (that means forever! :-p).


















An interesting side note, this is in Caen. Apparently, they don't have a clue as to where Key West is. Unless there's another one I don't know about, which I suppose is possible. And honestly, I guess I can see where they might get confused since the name does have WEST in it... so it would be easy to assume that it might be in the western part of the United States.

Brugge Windmills

My friend Emily joined me for her Spring Break. After showing her around in Lille on Monday, Tuesday we decided to rush off to see Brugge. Surprisingly, there were some interesting things that I didn't get to see the first time I was there. I had no idea there were windmills in Brugge. We got lucky, between all the hail and rain, we had some nice blues skies and so I got to take some pictures.

So I introduce to you the windmills of Brugge...
















I got a little carried away... there are so many nice pictures that I decided to put most of them up.













I thought the benches were pretty neat...






























































And of course, you can't go to Belgium without having belgian waffles. This one was particularly nice... it had seasoned cherries on top... mmmmm...

St. Patty's Day

No green beer this year. Actually, the french don't seem to embrace this holiday quite like we do in the States. Which is interesting because they like to drink... so why not drink even more on St. Patty's day?

So what did we do instead? Well, a mutual friend, Mario (from Germany), visited us. We walked around for a few hours... showing him different parts of the city (some of which I hadn't even seen before).

As we were walking around, I had the pleasure of taking some pictures of a good ol' french protest...













(This is not to be confused with a good ol' French riot.)














If I remember correctly, these are the buses that carried all the policeman (then again, I could be making that part up...)














A small group of friendly policemen waiting for action-- ya know, in case this group of people start getting a little rowdy.




From what I gathered, this was a protest against nuclear energy. Apparently, some improvements have been made to the technology. The french government is again looking at building some of these energy plants somewhere around here. It seems these people would prefer investment in other safer and more environmentally-friendly options.




These people have a cause! (and it doesn't include bathing).
















Actually, I found the atmosphere quite pleasant. It was like a small festival. They had music playing. People were selling stuff. I only stayed long enough to take these pictures. Flo was too scared to walk over there with me...worried that the US government wouldn't allow him back into the country if he did go. Interesting, huh? Apparently, this happened to one of his friend's parents.

Random Things

I know, I'm a bit late... but it's better than never, right? Besides, I'm distracting myself from homework right now. This is something I *need* to do.

So, here we have some pictures of the time it snowed and actually stuck to the ground. This was back at the beginning of February.



This is Flo's car covered with snow... probably its first time ever having such an experience.


Foot steps on the side walk... note the steps aren't very deep... it didn't really snow much but it was nice, nonetheless.














Ok, so this is completely unrelated to snow... but I thought this was funny.












My french audience probably won't understand why I find this funny. A spleen is an organ in your body... at the moment, I'm not sure of what its function is... I just remember from Beavis & Butthead, Beavis was also screaming "ack, my spleen! my spleen!" (and I doubt that explanation gave much understanding as to why I find it funny... but I tried).




As we all know Flo.

















Here we have Alban, a friend of Flo's here in Lille. We see him quite regularly as we often eat lunch at his place.





















I think this is a really interesting picture. I like the perspective and the off-color... the strange mood... all that...





















And, finally, an unusually sunny day in Lille... this is very rare. I couldn't resist the urge of going to the park to feed birds and take pictures.

Ploumanach - La Plage de Granite Rosé

It's not exactly the best time of the year to go to the beach, its still a bit cold outside. But dammit, this is sort of my spring break and in the states we go to the beach for spring break...

yeah, ok, I think I've actually gone to the beach once for it. :-/

This is about an hour and a half from Plouédern, Flo's hometown. This is one of the few places that actually has pink rocks on the beach. It was very nice, especially since the grass is always green here (because it rains all the time).

And as usual, France is covered with Castles... this one is owned by some artist who probably visits it two times a year. Lucky bastard.


























I was ordered to stand next to this thing so pictures could be taken of me. :-)




This is Flo's dad, Gilbert (pronounced jilbear).

He was nice enough to buy us crêpes after our stroll on the beach. I think this is part of Flo's neverending quest to make me fat... it's working so far... soon none of my jeans will fit me any more.




I'm sure something like this has been taken a million times.




Flo likes to mess up my pictures.






























Their usage of the natural landscape is quite interesting, I think.

It's been awhile...

I recently received a complaint that I had not updated my blog recently enough.

My apologies to the few of you who actually make the effort of checking my blog on a fairly regular basis, I have not updated this blog in a month. Too long, I know. The fault is mine as I clearly cannot blame this on any one else.

My main excuse for the delay is that I haven't had any pictures to post. As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, most of you don't actually read the blog... you just want to look at the pictures. I can't really blame you for this since the pictures are just so nice. Anyway, I haven't had any pictures either because I keep forgetting my camera OR my camera screwed up and all the files on my camera were corrupted, as was the case when I went to Luxembourg.

So yes, I recently went to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and then to Trier, Germany. I have to say that Luxembourg was a wonderfully charming city. It's main landmark or attraction are the many bridges around this city. I understand that that doesn't sound very flattering, you might even find the idea funny... but I assure you, it was beautiful... if you plan on coming to Europe, I highly recommend going to Luxembourg for at least one day.

This picture does Luxembourg no justice. I might even argue it's a disgrace to the city.

After walking around Luxembourg, we decided it would be funny to drive to Germany to have dinner and that we did. Not knowing really where to go, we followed the signs to the unknown city of Trier. Little did we know that we were driving to the oldest city in Germany. It dates back 2000 years. I believe it was established by the Romans and had Roman ruins scattered about the city. As if that isn't interesting enough, it is also the birthplace of Karl Marx. I only got to spend a couple hours there, we ate currywurst, took a bus tour, and then headed back home. I would really like to go back and spend a little more time there.

As for school, things seem be going well. I complain because the classes don't seem challenging enough and because of that, I complain that I have too much free time. I'm not used to this. I'm looking for a job or some sort of volunteer work.

I am meeting some people, but most of you should know that this is usually a fairly slow process for me. Another slow process is my ability to learn French, I haven't excelled in this as much as I would like.

So that's it for now, I hope to have some pictures for you soon and I do appologize for making you read so much. :-)

And in case you forgot what we looked like...

Château de Chantilly

I went here with the international club at Ieseg (my school)... I didn't want to go but I didn't have anything else to do... plus a couple people (one of which didn't show up) seemed like they wanted me to come. I spent the majority of the day with Maria, a girl from Estonia. She's pretty nice and doesn't seem to be compelled to talk non-stop... so I felt pretty comfortable around her.

This castle was completely destroyed during the Revolution. Having said that, isn't it amazing that you can still see it? Somebody decided to rebuild the thing. And that is about all I remember about this castle. It was nice. I'm a little disappointed though, they had a kangaroo farm there and I didn't get to see it. I didn't realize it was there until it was too late. They also had a horse museum (or something of that sort) with real horses.





It was pretty neat as it had water surrounding the whole castle. It was built on a rock.
















I think this is where the stables were.

























































The initials of the owner: Henri d'Orleans.

















I just have to say that I love this picture... it is by far the coolest one I took at this place.