Day 1 - Ça y est - We made it!
We made it safe and sound. Apparently there was some excitement at the airport just prior to our arrival, but we made it safe and sound.
We made it safe and sound. Apparently there was some excitement at the airport just prior to our arrival, but we made it safe and sound.
Believe it or not our flights were very nice. The service on Continental was the kind of service most of us haven't seen for 10 or more years. We had a long layover in Newark, but that gave us some time to get a bite to eat and plenty of water to drink.
The flight to Paris was fast and fun. Everybody had their own personal entertainment system. Several of the students took advantage of the flight to warm up their French skills. Andrew C. were two stellar examples of this Andrew B. Andrew C., Andrew B., Kathryn A., and Nancy D. were our first four students to go most of the day using French almost exclusively.
After the airport, we boarded the bus (which was a long hike from the terminal due to the morning excitement) and headed to Normandie. We stopped at Giverny: the gardens and home of Claude Monet. Beth L. was the first student to report on her research. She found out that Monet had lived at Giverny for over 40 years. He was known as one of the founders of the impressionist movement. He did a lot of paintings of flowers, turkeys, girls, haystacks, waterlillys, a Japanese bridge and other subjects.
We stopped at a rest stop - not what you think - for lunch. From there we headed deeper into Normandie - straight to Caen to see the chateau of Guillaume le Conquerant. Juila W. shared her information on the city. Caen was the ducal seat of normandie and one of Guillaume's favorite cities. The chateau that we visited is one of the largest fortifications in Europe. We toured the musée de Normandie and learned a lot about the history of the land and it's people, going back thousands of years.
We had our first group meal. We sat down at 7:00 and left the table just after 9:00. Everyone is very tired and most of the students are already asleep.
Tomorrow we will visit the Mémorial, a museum to peace, the D-Day beaches, the American Cemetary and then it will be off to Brittany.
I'll try to get our group picture posted tomorrow.