The Beaches of Normandy

What a wonderful way to spend Memorial Day weekend: a trip to the beaches of Normandy, France! A good friend, her sister, and I rented a car and hopped over to Normandy for a Saturday day-trip. We visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, Omaha Beach, and Pointe du Hoc. I learned so much that day about American history, World War II, and the true sacrifice of American soldiers.

Me at the Normandy American Cemetary

Americans landed on Omaha Beach, along with other beaches, on June 6th, 1944. Many soldiers lost their lives here, so much that buy the end, the beach was covered with blood. However, D-Day was essential in the outcome of the war that the Allies won just a short time later in 1945.

Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach

On June 6th, 1944, at Pointe du Hoc, soldiers scaled the cliffs to seize German artillery that was aimed at American soldiers on Omaha and Utah beaches. After seeing these cliffs, it's unbelievable. At this site, we saw many impressive bomb craters from allied forces' bombs sent by air and naval forces. We also saw German several bunkers.

Pointe du Hoc Bomb Crater

Pointe du Hoc Cliffs!

As sobering as the trip was, we had a really good time as we became even prouder Americans.

The Twinkling Tower

As I read my daily Bible reading, looking out the window at the winking Eiffel, I am filled with contentment. Not only because this is the life, but because I'm getting paid for doing it. I am babysitting a sleeping one and a half year old for an American family. My view could be a painting. Underneath the tall tower, the shadows of chimneys and the varied rooftop mount against the skyline. The bright windows of apartments below show Parisian silhouettes enjoying a Saturday soir. It's a beautiful contrast of the native's lifestyle and the tourist's reason for being here.

After almost six months of experiencing a Parisian lifestyle, I happily realize that I have learned a lot. In France, we do not put our hands in our laps at the dinner table. We do not tell our parents about a bad grade unless breaking the news with an accompanied 18/20. We take a family ski trip every February during the winter vacances. We do not pay attention to the homeless beggars. We do not  eat sweets after afternoon snack; we eat a piece of fruit and/or bread and cheese for dessert after dinner. We wear perfume daily. We take recycling  very seriously. We take pride in our knowledge of the English language. We love France.

Christmas Vacation

Christmas Break Trip: Strasbourg, France; Europa Park, Rust, Germany; Stuttgart, Germany; Munich, Germany; Salzburg, Austria

What a wonderful, unexpected trip! Up until a week before Christmas, I planned on my boyfriend coming to visit me in Paris for Christmas and New Year’s. Due to some unforeseen issues, this trip was unfortunately not able to happen (only 10 weeks and 2 days until I’m home for Andraya’s wedding and get to see him though!). Because I had saved up some money to be a tourist myself while my man was in Paris, I began to look for other options for my Christmas break very last minute. Luckily, I remembered that my friend from French class had invited me on a trip to Strasbourg, France after Christmas but I had had to decline. So, I asked her if she was still going, and she said yes, but she’s added four other cities to her itinerary, and she’d love for me to join! What a blessing! On top of that, she told me that I wouldn’t have to pay for any hotels along the way because her parents had already booked them as her Christmas present! At that point, I knew I had to figure out a way to get on this trip because this was a once and a lifetime opportunity! After some budgeting and a generous Christmas gift into my bank account from my parents, I was able to say yes to this dream trip!

STRASBOURG, FRANCE

On December 27th, I woke up at 4:30 am and caught a train to Strasbourg at 6:55. Upon arrival at 9:15, I had a few hours to myself before my friend met up with me. In those few hours, I fell in love with this beautiful, charming city! Because this town is right on the French border with Germany, it has a heavy Germanic influence. Even the street signs are written in both languages. The architecture blew me away! The half-timbered houses were incredible and everywhere! So well preserved! This architecture was especially picturesque in “La Petite France,” the region of the city where fishermen, millers, and tanners used to live. Dating from the 1500’s, most of the houses of the area had overhangs that the tanners hung skins to dry after they had been scrubbed in the waters of the canal nearby.

Half-timbered houses with overhangs

Loved the architecture

Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune Protestant Church took my breath away. 

I met up with my friend at the hotel and was finally able to drop off my luggage after walking the city lugging it behind me. We then went to discover more of Strasbourg. I took her to all of the places I had already been, which was a welcomed review for me! We then went to Place Kleber, the location of the humongous Christmas tree and a little bit of the Christmas market. Strasbourg is famous for its Christmas market, the oldest in France! The spirit of the city in December is inspiring. Literally every house and store is heavily and beautifully decorated in Christmas cheer. Every year, the city of Strasbourg invites a certain country to host a mini-market in Place Gutenberg. This year, Switzerland was invited. Here, I had the best vin chaud I’ve ever had and my first bretzel (how Europeans spell “pretzel”). I was thrown off because the bretzel was big and salted like an American pretzel but not warm! Weird, but still wonderful. Bretzels slowly became an addiction throughout the trip. It was in Strasbourg that I found my favorite cathedral in the world. It’s scary to say that because it’s such an unwavering statement, however you would too if you ever see this place! It’s incredible. I literally could not keep my mouth closed, the detail of the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Strasbourg was just stunning! After taking a little tour of the inside and the sun went down, we took a little break to “faire de la patineige,” or ice skate.

Notre Dame de Strasbourg

We ended up eating at a really cute restaurant, where we ate sausage (glorified hot dogs) and really sour sauerkraut. With a cup of hot wine of course! After 2 hours of sleep the night before, and 10 hours of walking that day, I was beat. I remember that being a wonderful night of sleep.

EUROPA PARK, RUST, GERMANY

I thought Strasbourg would have prepared me a bit more for my first trip to Germany, being so heavily influenced by the German culture. However, I could not have been prepared for the huge, sudden, and obvious changes upon arrival in Germany the next morning. I’ve travelled from country to country before, but I just wasn’t expecting such distinctions between Germany and France. For some reason, although I have NO idea how to speak German, I felt safer right when I stepped off the train. And I have never seen so many blond-haired, blue-eyed people in my life! I honestly can’t pin-point it more than that; it was just bizarre.

We had a fun day in Europa Park, the biggest amusement park in Europe. Although we only went on only one medium-sized ride (the two biggest ones were closed for some reason), we had a blast walking around the beautifully decorated park-it felt like a winter wonderland. It was great because there were sections of the park dedicated to certain European countries, like Switzerland, Norway, and Italy, to name a few.

STUTTGART, GERMANY

Upon arrival, we were starving. After dropping our luggage off at our super nice hotel, we headed to the center of the city for lunch. We ended up at Ochs’n Willi, which was recommended to us by the tourist office as legitimate food for this region of Germany. Boy, were they right! Our thoughts were that we would eat a bigger, pricier lunch and just have a snack for dinner since it was so late in the afternoon. Though we had no idea how BIG our lunch would be. We were intrigued by the “crispy grilled giant leg of pork served with Semmelknodel (a specialty of the area-similar to dumplings) and white cabbage salad.” It was a HUMONGOUS serving to say the least. I will leave you with a picture:

German portions 

Barely being able to walk after our giant lunch, we slowly made it to the train station tower. There we had a beautiful view of the city by night under a bright shining Mercedes emblem. After seeing this emblem and noticing that more than half of the cars driven in the city were Mercedes, we decided that Mercedes must sponsor the city. I guess that’s what a city gets when the Mercedes museum is in the outskirts.

View of Stuttgart 

With a yummy, bready, and crispy bretzel in hand, we headed to the Christmas market. It had a small, but homey feeling with a really unique bar area. After trying and failing to see some of the main buildings of the town by night, we settled to discovering the local chocolate in a small chocolate shop. It made for a great snack as we toured through Markethalle. To top the night off, we settled into Lavazza-a café/bar/lounge that had a Bailey’s vanilla shake to die for.

The next day, we woke up at the crack of dawn in order to see some more of the sights by daylight. We then took the S-bahn to the Mercedes Museum. So wonderful! They had car models from the very beginning to the most recent! I especially loved how the museum includes a timeline of general world history events throughout the visit so that the visitor can see what was going on in the world at the time and some of the reasons behind the certain car models coming out in the years that they did. We also learned a lot of fun facts, like how obviously speed limits were necessary as cars became faster and faster, “initially restricting motorized traffic to the pace of life in the pre-motorized era: In 1909, a maximum speed limit of 10 mph was imposed throughout the German Empire-the equivalent to the speed of a trotting horse” because the world wasn’t ready for anything faster. We ended up having to rush out of the Mercedes Museum to check out of our hotel and catch our train to Munich!

 MUNICH, GERMANY

The first thing we did after checking into our hotel in Munich was walk to see Marienplatz, the plaza with the church named Neues Rathaus, better known as the church with the Glockenspiel. That night we ate dinner at the Bier and Oktoberfest Museum where we found a traditional Bavarian “beer hall” atmosphere and food selection. I chose to eat Schnitzels and potatoes with Augistiner beer. So delicious!

The next morning it snowed! It started out lightly at first, but as the day went on it, it got heavier then wet. It ended up being miserable. Nevertheless, we started our day with an amazing walking tour through Sandemans [check out their website here: http://www.neweuropetours.eu/. Great tours for free (you can give a tip at the end) in many of the world’s biggest cities.] We learned so much about the wonderful and interesting city of Munich! We saw the Glockenspiel play at 11h00, went inside the Frauenkirchif church, and visited the Viktualien Market. We saw Hofbrauhaus, the most famous drinking den on earth. We walked on Maximilianstrasse, where Michael Jackson came to get all of his nose jobs, no joke! We saw the Royal Residence and Opera. We went to a place where Hitler went to give some of his more well-known speeches. Finally, we went inside of the Theatinerkirche, a stunningly beautiful yellow cathedral.

SNOW!!

After the tour, we visited the Palace Gardens and the English Garden on our own. By that time, our hair was soaked from wet snow, and we were freezing! Thankfully, we eventually found ourselves eating dinner at Augustiner Braustuben-a traditional beer hall popular with the locals. It was so local that they weren’t serving from the English menu that night. Luckily we were sitting next to two German gentlemen who proceeded to explain the German menu and teach us everything they could about the German culture through very broken English. I ended up with a hearty meal of pork, dumplings, and another Augistiner beer.

To celebrate New Year’s Eve in Munich, we decided to make it easier on ourselves and just sign up for the pub crawl through the hostel. Though quite expensive, it was nice to not have to worry about where to go in an unfamiliar city! After three bars and fireworks, the tour led us to literally the best night club experience I have ever had in my entire life. For those who know me well, I have been searching for this ultimate experience since the age of 12, haha. The only thing that was going through my head was I have to figure out a way to get this DJ to play for my wedding. The playlist was off the chain, to say the least. Okay, anyway, we ended up getting back to our hotel at 3 a.m. New Year’s morning. As you can imagine, we did not get the ideal amount of sleep to catch an early train to Salzburg.

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA

Because we got so little sleep, I supposedly (I have no recollection of this) slept through my alarm about five times. After literally sprinting with our luggage to the train station, we missed our train by ten minutes. Sadly, that meant we had to buy new, more expensive tickets for the next train out. Bummer. The good news was we got to Salzburg in time for our “The Sound of Music” Tour. So magical! During a four hour bus ride, we got to see the lake where the children’s boat capsized, the “16 Going on 17” gazebo, the gate Maria enters to the family’s house, the cathedral where the VanTrapps got married in the film, and Mirabelle Platz-the square where most of “Do Re Mi” was shot. All the while, the views from the bus of the Austrian mountains and the city of Salzburg were incredible! I wish we could’ve spent more time in the city! However, the tour was so worth the trip!

The rest of the day was spent with more travelling. It was a long, long day, especially after New Year’s Eve partying in Munich the night before. I ended up not getting back to Paris until midnight. Not including the metro ride home. But what a fantastic trip!! I am seriously so blessed to have been able to see all the wonderful cities that I saw and with such a wonderful travel partner :)

My Parisian Christmas

Oh, a Seignious family Christmas. Following my first Thanksgiving without family, this was also my first Christmas away from home. What I missed most about being with my family was waiting at the top of stairs Christmas morning, begging Dad to let us run down the stairs as Mom put the final touches on the present piles awaiting us. This is a great picture of hope and joyful anticipation, and this is what Jesus gave us when he was born over 2000 years ago. There are many more family traditions that I love, and this holiday was especially difficult to be away from my family. However, I made an effort to realize that God wanted me in Paris for Christmas this year for some reason, and I tried to take advantage of it.

Christmas 2009

My host family here gave me a real French Christmas experience. Since they went to see family over Christmas weekend, we celebrated a few days early. Our festivities started around 9 on Thursday night when everyone was settled in for the night after work and after-school activities. The first round of our feast was hors d’oeuvres in the living room. They opened a wonderful bottle of champagne to celebrate as we enjoyed seasoned cheese bites, crab rolls, and chips. Because the kids just couldn’t wait any longer, we exchanged presents. I received some wonderful gifts from the family, including a painting by my sweet 13-year-old host sister! She painted the Tour Eiffel against a red background and made it into a Christmas tree with ornaments, stockings hanging from the lowest platform, and a nativity scene underneath. She then wrote in English “Merry Christmas in Paris” across the canvas. I promised her that I would hang it in my house from now on at Christmas. What a wonderful keepsake!

We then moved into the dining room for the rest of the dinner. The next round was incredible: foie gras (fattened liver) and caviar with bread. Very traditional! I loved the taste of the foie gras; it was just the consistency that threw me off a little at first. But I enjoyed it overall! And I really liked the caviar!

The third round of our meal was red wine, almost completely raw steak, asparagus, and salad. Funny story with the meat: Once my host mother saw how difficult it was for me to cut the meat (raw meat is very tough to cut when you aren’t used to it), she apologized as she remembered that I probably don’t eat my meat that way and that she could put it back in the oven for a couple minutes if I wanted. I laughed and said that yes, normally I eat my meat medium, however, I wanted the complete French experience and that I would keep eating it. It ended up taking me more than twice as long to finish that round as everyone else because it took me about 4 minutes to chew each bite! When I told them it was often a kind of man-test to see who would order the rawest meat in America, they laughed and said that they were not meaning to test my manliness! Haha! Good experience.

The fourth round was warm little chocolate cakes with pecan ice cream. And to finish it all off, tangerines all around! What a delightful dinner with a great family! I felt right at home.

For the rest of the weekend, I was so thankful have an invitation to spend Christmas with a great American friend of mine in Paris. She, her husband, and two young sons opened their house to me both Christmas Eve and Christmas day to partake in their traditions with them. Including a yummy Chinese dinner Saturday night and a delicious Christmas lunch Sunday afternoon, followed by a Trinity International Church service. What a blessing it is to have such a thoughtful, kind friend in Paris! Thanks to her family, I did not feel lonely this Christmas!

Christmas Eve, after the Chinese dinner, I went to 10:30 pm Catholic Christmas mass at St-Germain-des-Près. What a beautiful service!

St-Germain-des-Près

Overall, I had a great Christmas season in the most beautiful city on earth. And if I had gone home for Christmas, I would’ve missed out on a great trip to Strasbourg, Europa Park, Stuttgart, Munich, and Salzburg… Blog to come :)

A French Thanksgiving

As you all may have realized, I spent my first Thanksgiving away from home this year. It was sad and weird to not be with my family, but I was so thankful to be able to video chat with all four of them the day before. I know this may come as a shock, but Thanksgiving is NOT an international holiday. Why the rest of the world wouldn't want to celebrate Native Americans and the Pilgrims sharing a meal in America beats me, but it's the way it is. ;) That being said, I was so happy that my French host family wanted to partake in some of my Thanksgiving traditions. I ended up celebrating Thanksgiving three times this year!

On Thanksgiving day, I made my first Thanksgiving meal all by myself! I made my Mom's pumpkin dip, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and chicken... Turkey was not an option on Thursday, but don't worry; I ended up eating it for the next three days. Simple as the meal was, it was yummy and made me feel more at home! It was fun to get the kids to go around and say what they were thankful for. Very much like any American kid at his age, my host brother said he was thankful for the view of the television from his seat at the table. Valid response.

The day after Thanksgiving, my host mother cooked a turkey! So good! And we ended up having leftovers until Monday-leftovers being one of my favorite traditions of Thanksgiving :)

Saturday night was awesome! My host family invited me to go with them to a Thanksgiving dinner at a French friend's apartment who had lived in America for 15 years. I shared the delicious meal with about 10 French adults and one American woman. It was a little difficult to keep up with the advanced conversation, but it was a wonderful experience of mixed French and American eating styles. Plus, it is the only Thanksgiving dinner I will have with a view of the Eiffel Tower out the window.

Sunday was when I felt most at home. I got to celebrate Thanksgiving American-style with my American, English, Australian, Brazilian, and French friends from Hillsong Church. We all chipped in to make the meal exactly as it would have been at home. I even got two slices of delicious pumpkin pie! There were four Americans in attendance, and we each got to share our traditions with the group. I even shared the history of Thanksgiving so that everyone would understand the basics. To top off the night, after dinner we turned on the television to some American football. Y'all. I almost cried. I don't even follow the NFL teams that were playing, but just to see the tackling and hear the announcers, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of America. I miss football season!!

Yes, it was painful to be away from my family for the first time, but I ended up having an unforgettable Thanksgiving weekend in France.

La bêtise

Monday night, I made a grosse bêtise. A huge, stupid mistake. Please don't judge me after reading this.

Usually, after giving my host sister a bath, I tell my host brother that it's his turn. Then, I come back ten minutes later to REMIND him it's his turn. THEN, I physically guide him up the stairs. All that to say, it's always a process. Monday night was out of the ordinary. In the middle of my host sister's bath, my host brother came in, anxious to get in the bath (he had to have been really bored). Anyway, upon finishing up with my host sister, the bath water was low and cold so I left hot water running to fill up the tub for my host brother as I thought he was waiting.

Thirty minutes later, the former au pair had come by to pick up some things she still had stored at the house, and we were talking in the kitchen while the children were eating dinner. All of a sudden, I heard something that sounded like water running. I thought to myself, did someone just turn the water on upstairs? No, everyone who was home was in the kitchen with me. Hmm. I went to check it out.

I walked into the dining room to find a WATER FALL. Water was RUSHING from the bathroom at the top of the stairs, into the hallway, under the stair case, into the DOWNSTAIRS living room.

(the setting)

ZUT, ALORS! I had forgotten to tell my host brother that the bath was ready for him. I couldn't blame anyone. Totally my fault.

I was terrified.

First things first, I rushed upstairs to turn off the running water and unplugged the tub. I went downstairs and realized I had to find something to catch the rush of water that was falling onto the hardwood floors downstairs. By that time, everyone else had come in the living room to check out what was going on. My 7 year old host sister (she's had a birthday since I've been here) burst out into tears! Screaming crying. Who can blame her? At that point, I was questioning whether I should start crying myself. Thank God that the former au pair was there. Not only was she able to comfort the children, she also helped calm me down, and was essential in the cleaning up process. We put a cardboard box that I found in the laundry room in the living room to catch the water. She grabbed towels and started working on the downstairs, while I went to the source of the problem. My goal was to mop up the water as much as possible to stop the flow from upstairs.

After an hour of aggressive cleaning, the house was spotless. The only way you could tell anything had happened was the half-soaked couch in the living room and the disappearance of anything resembling a towel in the entire house (all had been sacrificed in the cleaning process). When the father walked in, I was sitting in the living room with a blow dryer working on the couch. Like any child, my host sister was at her dad's feet in seconds, telling him the most dramatic and incomplete version of the story you could imagine. He looked at me with fear, but once I quickly explained that we got to the water right as it started running into the living room, didn't leave wet towels for too long on the hard wood floors, and everything was now back to normal, he let out a laugh of relief and said it wasn't a big deal. What a blessing! When the mother returned, I was happy to hear that she had once done the exact same thing!

Needless to say, it was a very stressful experience, and I will NEVER leave the water running again. Yikes!

L'Île de Ré

Wow! What a vacation! Where do I start? I guess I'll just run through the 4 days from the beginning.

Saturday, October 29

We left Nanterre at noon on Sunday with a packed car. I was able to sit in the front seat because my host father was arriving a day late by train. That way, the children were able to sit in the backseat and watch the French version of "Lord of the Rings." It was a 5-hour drive, but thanks to prayers, I didn't get car sick at all! The island is connected to the mainland by a bridge, but before the bridge was built, ferries were the only way to reach the island (this is how it was when my host father started going with his family when he was a child).

The house that we stayed in is my host father's parent's home. It's the perfect size home and perfectly French/beachy. Great house! I even had my own room and bathroom!

After guiding me through the main part of town to buy a baguette for dinner, the kids claimed their activity for the vacation... "Master Chef" Play-Doh Edition. Ya know when you're on vacation, there's always a favorite activity you keep going back to with your siblings and cousins? It could be a card game, playing charades; well, for them it was making Play-Doh cakes by the dozens and asking me to judge their competitions. It was actually really fun... I got into it.

I was very well-fed throughout the vacation. That night, I feasted on shrimp, fish, rice, goat cheese on baguette bread, tomatoes, and an apple.

We then watched "Dancing avec les Stars." I'll leave that up to your imagination...

Sunday, October 30

Sunday morning, we all biked to the marina where there is a daily market. So precious. It's amazing how much they make locally-they are especially famous for the salt they make in the marsh. My host mother, the children, and I then walked along the "marais" or the marsh for a beautiful view.

the market

the port

view of the marsh

Next activity of the day was heading to the one of the most gorgeous beaches on the island, "La Conche." It was there that I touched the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time! After a yummy picknic lunch, we went to a friend's house for a café and a yummy almond cake with cream in the middle. Then, we voyaged to yet another smaller beach around sunset. I played with the kids there until it got too cold.

I was in charge of the kids that night, so that my host mother could spend some time with friends. After creating so many cakes in the Play-Doh land of make believe, we figured why not take a stab at the real thing? My eldest host sister and I set to work on a gateau chocolat. With no butter, we had to improvise, but we were heading on the right track. We put two cakes in the oven. My host sister decided it would be a good idea to check on the cakes after about ten minutes. The way she said "Jordaaan" told me things were not going as planned. Turns out I had made a little "betise" when I chose to look over the fact that the mold that we put half the batter in was PLASTIC. The mold was not only ruined, but had melted all over the oven at that point. Honestly, this was the most stupid mistake I've made while here thus far. I hope it remains that way. Side note: the other cake turned out fine. Though, we waited too long for the right occasion to eat it. It was tossed just before we left. All that for nothing. Oh well. It was more practice reading French recipes, haha!

We ended the night playing Connect 4 and watching "Shrek 3" on TV-so funny!

Monday, October 31