Lucy's Locale: Too often. . .I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.

Tuesday and Wednesday were long long long long travel days from Avignon (very southern France) to Caen (in the Normandy area to the far north of France). On Thursday I visited Le Mont St. Michel, which is an architectural wonder. It is a city on an island surrounded by sand and water with only one accessible road to it. This town is very very small, and because it is so touristy, there are only 25 permanent residents of this town, and 17 of them are monks and nuns who live and maintain the medieval monastery that covers the top of the island town’s hill. Friday was the most profound day for me thus far. I visited the largest German and American Military Cemeteries honoring those who died in the Normandy invasion, and I was humbled by the haunting beauty of these places. My eyes could not help but well up as I passed line after line of grave markers, and tears freely fell in the German Cemetery when I cam across two head stones placed directly side by side (instead of having grass in between them) because this meant that the soldiers had been brothers. The American Military Cemetery housed the graves of two of the Ryan brothers that the movie Saving Private Ryan is based on. On Saturday we also visited the Pointe Du Hoc, which is the stretch of cliffs on the Normandy coast in between the Omaha and Utah beaches that had to be scaled by Allied forces, and resulted in the death of almost all of the soldiers assigned to this tactical area of the invasion. It is hard to walk on this stretch of cliffs because there are so many bomb craters, and what is left of the bunkers has been preserved and left the way it was after the invasion. I was humbled to my very soul to stand where so much had been lost and won and history had been made. On Saturday I visited the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, which consists only of a 70 meter long medieval tapestry depicting the conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy. It was beautiful and incredibly fascinating. As of today I am back in Paris until I fly home on June 2nd, and then I can (hopefully) share all of my stories and adventures with you in person some time this summer!!!!