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• SomeGuy
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Birthday
• 1983-08-05
Gender
•
Male
Location
• Vancouver, BC
Member Since
• 2003-08-02
Occupation
• Writer; Part-Time Hero
Real Name
• James
Personal
Achievements
• Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far
Anime Fan Since
• Winter 2001
Favorite Anime
• Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure)
Goals
• Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300
Hobbies
• Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general
Talents
• Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory
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Wednesday, June 6, 2007
From Bayeux and Back
I was in Bayeux the past couple days. Had a hotel room in the attic of a bar/restaurant of nice people. Lotta English-speaking tourists in Bayeux this time of year . . . not surprised, really. before that, I hit up Juno Beach and the Juno Beach centre (run by Canadians, no less) Anyways, I'm gonna breeze through what I saw while I was there so I can get to the meat of today:
-Juno Beach Centre (excellent war museum)
-Bayeux Tapestry (very cool)
-Bayeux Museum of the Battle of Normandy (ultra-cool)
-Day tour of Normandy on a mini-bus:
---Arromanches/ Mulberry Harbour remnants
---German Battery at Longue Sur Mer
---US Military Cemetary at Omaha Beach
---Omaha Beach
---Pont Du Hoc (REALLY cool place with broken bunkers and craters!)
Anyways . . . so yes, today was the D-Day anniversary. Obviously there were dozens upon dozens of memorial services all over the place. I, of course, only had one I really needed to be at this trip: Juno Beach.
Got there about noon, talked to the Juno Beach Centre people a little (the one girl remembered me from my visit on Sunday), then I walked up and down a couple kilometers of the beach for a couple hours. Feet got sandy, hair got windswept, feet got a little wet . . . but it was nice. To be where they were 63 years ago, to stand on the derelict, spraypaint-covered bunker and the remnants of bunker foundations still on the beach . . . it's definitely something cool.
At 3pm the memorial started. It was pretty straight forward save the fact that you could tell a LOT of Canadians were in the audience (language, accents, pins, flags on backpacks, backpacks from The North Face or Mountain Equipment Coop). Other than that . . . it was windy as all hell! Norman wind for ya . . . the flags on the flagpoles were completely horizontal all day, their metal fasteners clanging like some sort of urban percussion band. So yeah, we got cold. But then at the end we got to the song, and we felt a little better for a little while (until we realised we were singing it in two different languages simultaneously . . . oh, funny funny).
At some point a veteran and his friend commented on the cold wind. I leaned over and asked him, "how would you say today's wind compares to 63 years ago?" he replied, "well I wasn't really thinking about the wind at the time!" Laughs.
Turned out he was a British Artillery soldier who landed at Juno with the Canadians. I chatted with him a bit more, mostly about where I was from, where I've been so far, how good it is for me to have an interest in all this stuff . . . well, I never got his name, but I got a picture with him. Great guy.
Then I came back to Caen and ate a crappy, overpriced Japanese dinner run by people who spoke either French or Mandarin. Yeahhhh . . . tomorrow shall be a baguette and water day . . .
I'm still alive, I had some conversations with people so I feel better in that respect, and I'm doing well. I still can't wait to get to Holland, but yeah. I'll manage.
Like always, everyone take care of each other!
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