when the war is over got to start again (Caen)

and so we did. We left the First World War behind and jumped forward a few years - too few really - and started on the Second World War. Normandy has a particular place in history because this is where the D-Day landings occurred.

The Memorial Caen-Normandie
It was an amazing living museum, and is a centre for history and peace. It was a collection of artefacts from the war, commentary and news real footage. Although there was a special display that focused on Normandy and the D-Day invasion, the main exhibition followed the beginning of the war through to the Nuremburg Trails.

While it was informative (even if Australia didn't get a mention, so I'm not sure why our flag was flying outside), it lacked that personal touch that Andy Thompson provided for us on the Western Front battlefields. We are going to get to the beaches, if it ever stops raining, so maybe we'll pick up a tour there that will do that for us.

Tourists
We have been very careful to attempt to speak to the locals in French before asking if they parlez-vous Anglais? And as a result, we feel, the people have been lovely and welcoming, even when our French and their English is un peu. Not so everyone we met on the Western Front tour, and they had found people to be unaccommodating.

I even went to the boulangerie all be myself this morning and ordered our croissants and a couple of pain du chocolat in my pathetic French. I'm sure the man was smirking at me, but that's cool. I did it.

Today at the Memorial the ticket-seller dude asked if we were American? Mon Dieu!! How embarrassing. And Jayne even had her French-Australian flag of friendship on her lapel. No, Australian we replied. We paid and then he asked, would you like your audio guide in English or American! WTF! How long has American been a language?

And, we spent nearly 5 hours at the Memorial today. In that time we were overtaken by a couple of bus tour groups. It seems that if it doesn't speak to them they can't be bothered reading the information. And, no, these weren't generation Y, they were baby boomers.

The Ugliest Tourist Of The Day Award (UTOTDA) goes to the insensitive clown who answered his mobile and had a conversation while newsreel footage of holocaust victims was played on the screen.

Wine
You know, I really expected better from the French with regard to their wine. Apart from the fact that I broke our first cork screw. Shoddy workmanship, but my skill still managed to extract the cork. The cork screw at our place in Caen has, so far, destroyed two corks. The first crumbled in the bottle and resulted in the wine being filtered through a handkerchief. The second crumbled too, but I managed to prise the cork form the bottle, no decanting required. I will purchase a new cork screw tomorrow, but I fear the problem is that (a) their wines are not screw caps and (b) regardless of this they stand the botttles on the shelf so that the corks dry out.

That aside, around 5 Euro can get you a very nice bottle to have with dinner. So while buying the requisites for our first really home cooked meal tonight, we also picked up the happy hour supplies. Nice. And dinner? Fresh fetticine with chicken in a basil and tomato sauce. Mmmmm.

A demain.