Day 56 - Caen / Courseulles

*** Remembrance Day ***

We got up at 7 and rushed to get our stuff packed, clean up the rooms abit after last night, stick our bags into a spare room, and get to the bus station for 8am to catch the bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer where Juno beach is. We got to the station with lots of time to spare so that we didn´t miss the bus like the train yesterday.

We didn´t miss it.

Instead it just didn´t come.

We didn´t realize that November 11th is a national holiday in France marking the end of the 1st World War, rather than as a day of remembrance for the two World Wars like in Canada. So nothing was open at all adn the buses were all running on Sunday schedules which meant that the first bus to Courseulles-sur-Mer wasn´t leaving until 11:30am and the only ones coming back were at 4:30 or 7, but our train back to Paris was at 7, so we´d have to take the earlier one. so we sat around for 3 hours, had a coffee, and checked with the tourism office to make sure the schedule for today was what we thought it was (we´d been there the day before but they failed to inform us of the holiday....thanks...very helpful....idiots). The lady told me that the bud didn´t stop at the regular place at 11:30, so we went where she told me to go, but when i asked at the coffeeshops around where she said it would be they all told me that no buses stop there.

Great! For sure we´d just wasted 2 days to go to Juno Beach and then not actually get to go out there.

Luckily, Fate decided to side with us this time and the bus did actually show up where the lady said it would be. One the bus we met 3 other people our age from BC and one other from Montreal, all of a sudden making us a group of 9 Canadians.

We got to our bus stop (Champs-des-Oiseaux) at about 12:15 and got to Juno Beach about 15 minutes later. The Juno Beach Center was closed from 1-2, so we spent the next hour and a half walking around Juno Beach Park each on our own trying to imagine what had happened right there on that beach 61 years ago. It was pretty moving. The beach still had a few bunkers and pillboxes left over from D-Day and there were a bunch of plaques and monuments at different places telling stories of what happened there on June 6th, 1944. It was so hard to begin to imagine the horror of what that day must have been like, but made me definately proud to be Canadian and thankful that myself and my generation will likely never have to live through a time like that.

At 2 o´clock we all went up to the Center and did a one hour tour of the museum. The museum was really well done adn was made for the Canadian veterans under their supervision and took us through the whole history of Canada in WW2. They had these special pull-outs with the stories of each of the Victoria Cross recipients and i found and read the story behind why Aubrey Cousens from Porquis Junction (basically Iroquois Falls) earned his Victoria Cross.

At 3 o´clock we went outside for the Remembrance Day ceremony put on by the Juno Beach Center near the beach. There were probably about 150 people there for the 45 minute ceremony. There were no Canadian veterans there, but they had half a dozen French veterans carry the colours and different people from the Courseulles community placed wreathes around the statue outside the center. They had a grade school class from a local public school sing both national anthems and a young girl recited Flanders Fields. The center always has 3 Canadian university students working at the Center and they each said a short speech in both French and English about what being Canadian means to them. The most kind´ve ´special´part was during the two minutes of silence. Here we were, on Juno Beach, observing the two minutes of silence with the waves crashing onto the beach less than 100 meters away. Very moving.

After the ceremony we stayed around for another 30 minutes or so and then hurried to catch our bus back to Caen where we picked up our bags at the hotel, caught a quick bite to eat, and then caught our train back to Paris at 7:30.

We said goodbye to Aaron and the girls when we got back to Paris and met up with Gabrielle and Laticia who were waiting for us back at the station. Gabrielle is a friend of Rob´s girlfriend, Marissa, from back when she did an exchange to France in high school and then last summer Gabrielle and Laticia spent the summer at Marissa´s parents place while Laticia worked at Marissa´s father´s company (or something like that anyways). So anyways, Rob had been in touch with them and they invited us to spend Friday and Saturday night at their place. They were even awesome enough to get us tickets to the international football (soccer) match between France and Germany at the Stade de France in Paris Saturday night.

So we met up with them and then took the bus back to their place. They live in a small one room apartment. Definately not a Canadian apartment. The place is about 12 feet by 15 with a small washroom. They have a raised bed in one corner with a desk underneath, a small kitchen on one side of the room, and a futon next to the desk with a small coffee table and a small tv and stand. Us being there definately was invading their space, so very nice of them to have us at their place.

They´re both French and speak descent English, but get along much better in French, so i got lots and lots of practice with my Francais. When we got in and settled Gabrielle was showing me on a map where we were in Paris and when i started to figure out where we were i asked him if there was a Chineese place around the corner. Turns out there is. Turns out we were less than a block from the Aloha hostel and 100 feet from the Chineese place where we ate two nights in a row before going to Caen. Since we took the bus there though instead of the Metro, we didn´t recognize where we were. Crazy that in all of Paris they just happen to live in the same neighborhood that we´ve been the whole time in Paris.

We sat up talking for awhile then went to bed around 1am. Me and Rob shared the futon and slept together for the 2nd night in a row. He´s getting used to my snuggling and doesn´t fight back (as much) anymore...which is nice.