Hello, I’m Breanna. I’m 1 of the 3 class of ‘25 students on this trip, and the first one to blog! Being one of the youngest students on this trip and having never traveled internationally creates a lot of new experiences. I have no idea what to expect, but I really love it. Traveling is so much fun. However, as I write this blog post on a train to Paris where my luggage is in my leg space, I am really reconsidering how fun travel really is. Eh, either way, I’m so happy to be on this program and to be able to see parts of the world I haven’t seen before.

“Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy,” except not as it was about 6 in the morning (Ke$ha). We had a 6:30 am (sharp!) coach ride to the pier where we had to catch the ferry. That meant a 6am breakfast and we were all excited to enjoy the lovely 6am not-hot-food breakfast. Maybe. If we weren’t asleep in the food. But that’s okay. We all made it on the coach. Maybe. I’m sure we did. It was only like a 15-minute ride to the station anyway. 

“Let’s go to the beach-each! Let’s go get a wave…” on through customs (Nicki Minaj). Which we did. There were no problems, although some of us did look suspicious, I guess? Carrying only a phone, passport, and wallet in a hoodie is suspicious? Or at least suspicious enough to get a little basically full body pat down, but after the pat down I was free to board a bus to take me to the ferry, and then it was up 5ish ramps to the boat and the luggage storage room. From the luggage storage room we went to our lounge. We got our own private lounge for the group!

“Today I don’t feel like doing anything. I just wanna lay in my…” chair (Bruno Mars). After we got led into the lounge and settled down in the chairs, the reality of waking up at 6am hit. At least for some people. While waiting for the ship to take off everyone in the group decided to chill. Some people slept, some decided to play card games, and others decided to be on their phones. Personally, I decided to start a crochet project. 

“’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play, and the haters gonna..” sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, because they really were sleeping (Taylor Swift). Play we did, well didish. We mostly just explored the ship and found food. Although some of us played trivia. Not me personally, but I did find some people in our program who were doing great. At least they were the first time we found them. Not so much the second time we came back around. Either way, it was a time full of watery views, chilly wind, and mediocre food. In all, it was a pretty good ferry ride, especially for my very first one not on a river, and more than an hour.

“You’re insecure, don’t know what for. You’re turning heads when you walk through the do-o-or…” of the hotel we are staying at because you’re in a group of about 27 people (One Direction). Which is exactly what happened. A big group of tired hungry young adults tends to do that. We were all ready to get to our room, plop down our bags and head off into the world to find some food. Except we were hit with the reality of a pretty French hotel. No elevators. Which is fine if you have only a duffle bag. Most of us did not. Thus after we all got our key cards you could hear the thump, thump, thump as people made their way up to their rooms. After we got all settled in, or more like just threw our luggage in our rooms, it was food time – or was it? No, it was cat time! There was a hotel cat that just wandered around outside and let us pet it. It was such a nice simple thing that made this hotel the top hotel we have stayed at during this whole program! Although, after the interruption of the cat, it was food time. Somehow a large portion of our program landed in the same place to get food. Don’t get me wrong, it was really good food, although I’m still not 100% sure what the meat I ate was. All I know is that it was spinning in a log shape, needed to be shaved, and tasted so good. I ended up having it twice during our time here. It was soooo good and filling.

Thursday, July 28

Bayeux

“Boom clap, the sound of my heart. The beat goes on and on and on and on and” that had to be at least some of the thoughts the soldiers that were present during D-day had (Charlie XCX). The day after we got off the ferry we visited a couple of meaningful places for our lessons about D-day. There was a lot of memory stored in those places. The majority of them were solemn. The first place we went was the German bunkers on the high ground which were eventually taken by the allies. There the Germans had tanks that were focused on taking out ships at sea. Next, we visited the D-day landing museum which was really cool. It had models of one of the artificial harbor showing what it was used for. The artificial harbors were harbors that were built to be a quick and easy set up when the allies couldn’t gain control of the German harbors close to where they landed. After the museum we got lunch and went back to the coach.

“Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. But here’s my number, so” lets go, maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen). Go we did. The next stop on the our day tour was to one of the beaches that the American soldiers landed on. Overlooking the beach was an experience. Especially because when you looked down the beach just a little bit there was a hotel and boat yard. Where so much death took place it is now a beach for people to enjoy, and I don’t know how to feel about it. After the beach was the American cemetery for those who fought on D-day. The sea of white crosses, all facing the United States put in perspective the amount of people who died on D-day. Our last stop was another set of German bunkers. This location was full of holes left over from the bombings from seas and the air from the war. In all this really left a lot to reflect on. Being in the location where this happened is very different from being in the United States where you don’t even learn about half the things that were talked about.

In all this week has been an experience. There has been a lot to think about and reflect on. There has also been a lot of fun. Especially fun has been hanging out with the people who are here. I really do enjoy traveling and seeing history where it happened. It really puts a spin on things that were taught to me in high school. Either way, there exists a lot of history here, and I’m glad to be on this trip. Breanna out.