Mont Saint-Michel

Bonjour, hardcore blog fans!

Just came back from an amazing Rotary weekend with my district - and 160 other exchangers! I love these weekends. Being with all my friends from all over the world, meeting new ones, being able to talk in whatever language I want (I learnt some Spanish and Malay, and taught one of the two words of Chinese that I know), and seeing incredible monuments like the Mont Saint-Michel makes it all worthwhile.

District 1720!

We left in 3 minibuses from Tours, it took about 3 and a half hours to get to Normandy. We stopped at the beach (the backyard of our youth hostel, actually) for lunch - even though it was a Northern beach and therefore gross, it wasn't so bad! There was a rainbow, but that just meant it rained all day.

The beach in front of our youth hostel - RAINBOW!

After lunch we went visited the museum about the landings beach, where the English made their harbours in Normandy to help the French in WW2.
It would have been more interesting if I wasn't laughing my head off and being completely terrified (at the same time) because of our tour guide - she was French, but she had an English accent (she did the whole tour in English because barely any of the newies speak French) which was so sugary sweet and posh it was even Englisher than the Queen! Scary, actually. I took a video, but I don't know if it'll work...

The landings beach in Normandy - the big black thing in one of the bits
of steel that made up the giant floating jetty back in the day

After the museum, we went to the American Cemetery - it's pretty well-known and it meant a lot to the Americans that were there. They even got to stand to attention in the reserved part of the flag circle to watch the flag-lowering ceremony for the day (conducted by an American). And there was an American veteran of the 2nd world war there!

Bit out of place in the American cemetery...

The flag-lowering cemetery

I'd heard about this cemetery, with all the white crosses - there were SO MANY. It's sad how much people died in WW2, and these were only the Americans, there were many more as well as them.

 After the cemetery we went back to the youth hostel and had dinner and a welcome-to-the-Rotary-weekend dance party!
Saturday morning saw us back on our minibuses to drive 2 hours to Mont Saint-Michel, where we met the other exchangers and started our BILLON HOUR WALK.

Mont Saint-Michel

 The plan was to bypass the entry to the actual Mont Saint-Michel and walk around it, to see a little island/giant rock. It was a 4 or 5 hour walk through mud and knee-deep water with a fairly strong current... I had to take off my ankle brace to do the walk - probably the best physio I could possibly do!

MUD!

Fighting our way through quicksand and waves, we took a billion photos with each other and it was also cool to just walk amongst different groups of peoples and talk. But it was freezing cold and tiring - Rotary does this on purpose so we're too tired to stay up late! But they never succeed, fortunately, we manage to stay awake...

The amazing rock...

The thing about the coast in Brittany/Normandy is that the tide comes in, 6 hours later it comes out, 6 hours later is comes in again. So there wasn't too much water where we walked, but if we'd waited for a few hours we'd have had to SWIM.

All the exchangers walking towards the rock with the Mont Saint-Michel in the background

That night we had a big dinner (all 180 students plus all the Rotarians!) where all the exchangers from each country stood out the front and sang their national anthem. The Australians went first, to set a good example. Even the people who were the only representatives from their country had to sing on their own! I'm REALLY glad I wasn't one of them, but they were all great.

Then we had a dance party and stayed up really late gossiping!

Advance Australia Fair - and then Aussie Aussie Aussie, OY OY OY!

 Sunday morning we got to actually go INTO the Mont Saint-Michel. Everything is a hill and practically every street is covered with tourist shops and little cafes, it's so...QUAINT! So French, actually.

Inside the Mont Saint-Michel

The main castle bit

Looking out from over the top

There were a LOT of stairs, the whole thing is built on a massive hill sticking out of the water.

Front of the church

Inside the church (one of many, but this is the main chapel I think)

Before the bus ride back, had to get a photo with the sign...

Had lunch at the same restaurant as dinner the night before, with all the exchangers and Rotarians. Then it was back in the minibuses to get home!

The drive home (that's a windmill in the distance)

All up, an awesome weekend. I go on Eurotour (the bus trip around Europe) next week for 12 days so that should be even better!