Tuesday June 17
Saying I’m tired would be an understatement! Today I ate four meals: lunch, breakfast, lunch and supper. My stomach and my body clock are very confused... In the afternoon, we got a guided tour of La Rochelle. The architecture was interesting because the buildings were from the middle ages but the technology was from the 21st century. .
Wednesday June 18
In France a lot of door knobs are in the middle of doors. Don’t ask me how they open them... In France, there is just as much hype about Quebec’s 400th anniversary as there is in Quebec. Anyways, today we started by going to a fortified citadel named Brouage. I am amazed that our tour bus can get through the streets; it takes up both lanes! I learned that Quebecers should say Samuel Champlain because putting the “de” between the names is only used for noble people and he wasn’t noble...
Thursday, June 19
Today we got up at the same time as usual. I say “got up” because I wasn’t actually awake. We all piled into the tour bus and drove to a fortified town in Bretagne... For supper, we had mussels and potatoes. I have to admit, mussels are probably the most disgusting looking food ever, but I tried one and they are actually edible! ...Canada should have round-abouts: it would avoid stops....
Saturday, June 21
Today we drove for the whole morning, and then stopped in Dinan for lunch... I bought my first souvenir, a flag of Bretagne. I think it is pretty cool because it’s like the American flag but black and white. In France, the light switches are upside down: the light is off when the switch is up and on when it is down. The next place we went was the Manoire Samuel Champlain. We watched a movie about all the different explorers to North America and another of Samuel Champlain’s three voyages to Nouvelle France. Then we got a guided tour of his house... Late in the afternoon we got to our hotel which is probably the best place we’ve ever stayed. It had a tennis court, ping-pong and foosball tables and an internet station. We had sole brochette and it was delicious. We discovered that this weekend was the national music festival in France, so we went into Saint-Malo and enjoyed the music. We got back at 11:00 PM and went to bed at midnight!
Sunday June 22
I was so tired from going to bed late last night that I got up at 8 o’clock even though we were all supposed to be up at 7. Today was a very relaxed day. At 9 o’clock we left for Saint-Malo Intramuros, which is only a half hour walk away, and we walked all over shopping... In the afternoon we went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean while the tide was out. The water was freezing cold and the waves were really big. I envied the people who had surfboards because the waves were a metre high. We went back to the hotel and I wrote my first e-mail to Dad. It took quite a long time because the keyboards are different in France....
Monday, June 23
Today, we left for the Chateau Combourg, a castle where the famous writer François-René de Chateaubriand lived. The castle was huge, but we couldn’t visit the whole thing because Chateaubriand’s grandson was living there with his family... After the castle we went to the Mont St.-Michelle to have lunch and shop for a while. We were told not to wander around the patrimonial site because there was sinking sand. There were a lot of tourist souvenir shops, but I found a store that sold swords and axes from the middle ages. I would have bought a mace, but I wasn’t 18 years old. Before going back to the hotel, we went to a botanical garden. The most memorable part of the park was the toilets. It automatically cleaned the bathroom after each use. This is the second weird toilet we’ve seen, the first one was a hole in the ground (none of the girls went in those ones).
Tuesday June 24
Today was a very full day. We started out by going to an important cheese factory in Isigny-sur-mer... After the cheese factory, we went to the beach where the ‘débarquement de Normandie’ took place. The field where the Germans defended was amazing! There were holes made by missiles that were 20 feet deep. Our bus driver told us that most of the Germans were between 13 and 14 years old because all of the other soldiers were in the north. When you tried to imagine what it was like during the war, and when you walked in the holes made by the missiles, it made you realise what the soldiers really had to do....
That's just a brief taste of what the first few days of Benjamin's trip was like. Want to hear more? Get in touch with Benjamin directly...
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