June 6

Cassandre woke me up for the last time, and I showered, packed my backpack, and ate -- cake and marbled cake. Yum. With fruit juice. Then Cassandre gave me all her contact info and also candy. :-D We then walked to the train station after I had said goodbye to her family.
When we arrived at the station, everyone was there except Pierrot, Melissa, and Madame. All the families were there, and we were all hugging and saying goodbye, handing out papers with our contact information, and saying, again, on se reverra. But this time, we weren't crying as much...
When everyone was there, we walked over to the platform and then got on the train, waving goodbye to our friends until we couldn't anymore.
The train went to Amiens, where we went to a small cafe right outside of the station to eat breakfast -- since I had already eaten I didn't get anything. Then we took a train to Rouen. On the way, I listened to Weep Not for the Memories, which is a Celtic song that I really like -- a very sad song that somehow convinces one not to cry, just to remember. I also talked to the other girls, read, and wrote in my journal.

When we arrived in Rouen, we left our bags at the station and took the metro to the Cathedral. Notre-Dame de Rouen is smaller than Notre-Dame d'Amiens but larger than Notre-Dame de Paris -- and yes, they are all called Notre Dame. The Rouen cathedral is very detailed, but most of my pictures came out a bit blurry.
All of us were taking turns pulling Madame's small bag through the city and carrying it across the cobblestones.

We walked to the place where Joan of Arc was burned by way of the Rue du Grand Horloge -- the road of the big clock, essentially. The big clock is indeed large (such a surprise) and blue and gold. We saw a small D-Day parade, and then we arrived at the flower bed that honors Joan of Arc. We bought sandwiches from a street vender, and I got, as always, a ham and butter sandwich. Then we went back to the train station, where I noticed some very strange modern art made of fluorescent lights...

We then took the train to Caen. In Caen, we took the tram and the bus to the Memorial, which is a WWII museum. There, we met two British soldiers who were on the Normandy beaches on D-Day 65 years ago. We talked to them and took photos. Then we bought our tickets and watched a very interesting film. It actually began with two films which were run side by side -- one American and one German, from just before D-Day to the events of D-Day. Then the film proceeded to show a map marking which territories were under the control of divisions, and the film showed pictures of major battles and slowly altered the map as areas were taken by the Allies. Not many spoken words were involved, but they weren't necessary.

After taking almost ten minutes to find the exhibit about WWII (we kept running into the one about the Cold War...), Madame told us girls to go in, that she had seen it at least eight times and wanted to look through the large gift shop. Melissa took maybe twenty minutes int he exhibit, but all of the rest of us took far longer. It was interesting and talked about somethings that I think don't really get emphasized in the U.S., or at the very least I've never given much thought to. I wasn't reading all the descriptions of items (some I just wasn't very interested in), but everything else I did read. Cate and Jeanne were reading every single word there was to read. Stephanie was taking pictures and reading some of the stuff. Stephanie took around forty minutes, then Cate, Jeanne, and I were the only ones left. We met up in the last room, and Cate came over to me and said, "How much longer do you think we have?"
"What time is it?"
She told me the time, and I started calculating in my head. Get to the station 10 minutes before the train should leave, especially since we had bags. Maybe make that 15. It would take us 30 minutes to get back to the station by bus and tram, and it would take us 5-10 minutes to get our backs from where we had put them in the museum and then get out to the bus stop. At the very least we needed to leave 45 minutes before our train left. And it was about 50 minutes until our train. So even though we had not seen everything we wanted to see, Cate and I immediately got Jeanne and went upstairs, Jeanne and I quickly bought postcards in the gift shop, and then we were out of there. Melissa, Stephanie, and Madame had already gotten the luggage.
Despite our speed in exiting the museum, as we neared the station we realized we were not going to make the train. We found a pizzeria near the station and went there to eat. The restaurant was nearly empty -- it was earlier than most French eat supper -- and there was plenty of room for our luggage. The cook/waiter was very nice, and Madame found out that he was Algerian so they talked about the Maghreb. All of us but Cate got the Regina -- cheese, ham, mushrooms -- though two people got it without mushrooms. I've forgotten what Cate ordered, though it was something I would never touch.
We took the train to Lisieux just after 8:00, and then we took a taxi to the hotel. Melissa, Stephanie, and I took the taxi to the hotel, then it went back for Cate, Jeanne, and Madame. When Melissa, Stephanie, and I arrived at the hotel, we checked in and got to choose between two rooms -- 107 and 203. We chose 107. We got into the room, dropped everything...Stephanie showered. Then we went upstairs to room 203 (the one Madame, Cate, and Jeanne were sharing) to comment on Madame's blog. We talked for a very long time, but it was fun, and it was after midnight when Stephanie, Melissa, and I went back to our room. Melissa showered, and I watched TV with Stephanie. She fell asleep before her sister finished showering. Then Melissa and I talked a little bit, and eventually we went to sleep...