The European Nomad: Work then Play

The day started off with drama. Elise's dad dropped off paint and tools last Wednesday morning. After we worked, we put the tools back where we found them. Elise's dad came the next day, saw the stuff in the same place he left it, and got mad because he thought the tools hadn't been touched and we hadn't been working. Needless to say, dad and I were pretty annoyed by that seeing as we had put a good six to eight hours into the stupid yard. We put another six in today so they'd better just be grateful. Elise's dad is the only one that is able to work on the yard, and it would have taken twice as much time with only one guy which means that we saved him 24 hours of work, and we did it all for free. So they can just shut it. :)

We got done around 4:00 pm, and we went up to Julloville to see the beach. Dad called La Salladaire "Le Sepulcher," so his French is really getting good. He said, "it's hard to imagine that all my French came from Les Miserable...and a little from Phantom of the Opera." I sit in the passenger seat and stare at the maps while he drives, and then when I give him directions I purposefully pronounce the cities wrong so that he knows what I'm saying. Dad would also like everyone to know that he is moving his birthday back a day to July 14 so that it can be on Bastille Day.

The beach was pretty. We found a huge clam, still stuck together! I hope it survives the trip home so that my nephew can add it to his rock/shell collection! It's pretty awesome! The tide was out so there was a lot of beach. We walked on the beach, and then we went up on a cliff to a good viewpoint. We hiked around a little hoping to get a glimpse of Mont St Michel, but we would have had to go too far for the time we had so we just drove to the next viewpoint and got a glimpse there.

We had cottage pie for DINNER since Roger has been sick...he actually accepted a cottage pie for dinner instead of lunch. Fantastic!

We are going to Omaha Beach and other sites up near the Beaches of Normandy tomorrow. We were going to go straight to Rouen and stay the night, but decided gas would be cheaper than a hotel (surprising, I know) and will just return to La Merveille for one more night. Neither dad nor I can wait to move on to Paris! We both also love the French countryside and all the little villages we drive through on our adventures.

Vive le France!