Hey everybody! Sorry that it's taken so long to get to you, but we've been going practically non-stop since we stepped on the plane and I've just now gotten some free time. I only get Internet access for 20 minutes until the hotel server kicks me out so I'll try to be brief. The flight was fun and filled with excitement and Tanner yelling Bonjourno in a thick Southern accent amidst a multitude of French speakers. When we landed, we promptly had to wait several hours for every one to recieve their baggage from baggage claim. After a four hour bus ride through the most uninteresting, run down part of Paris and some beautiful French countryside, we arrived at our hotel in Bayeux on the coast near the Normandy beaches. One of the guys on our trip compared the quiet country setting of Western France to his homeland of Southern Virginia, but I don't consider that a bad thing. It's very peaceful out here and there's such a tremendous amount of history, and we've all tried our best to power through the jetlag and take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to see as much as possible. On our first night several of us went to a pub in town to socialize and write in our journals over some quality brews. While the majority of us behaved ourselves, one in our company proved unable to hold his two beers and started opening up to the whole restaurant as loudly as possible.... Sooooo we're not going back there anytime soon. Today we hopped on the bus for a truly surreal day full of history and I got to put my new camera to use. I took so many that I ran out of battery halfway through our daytrip so I'm going to steal some pictures of the later sites from my classmates! We started at the German military cemetery which was as eerie as it was beautiful. Next, we braved intense winds to explore the Allied invasion beaches at Point Du Hoc and the famous Omaha Beach. many remnants of the fortifications and battle remained, and it was surreal imagining all of the brave souls who gave their lives on the very soil I stood on today. We wrapped up with the museum and cemetery devoted to the U.S. military who gave their lives, embodied by nearly 9000 graves and accompanying monuments. Well this is the only computer in the lobby and m classmates are nipping at my heels to email their families so I'll leave you guys off here. I love and miss you all so much and I'll try to talk to you again soon!
