Normandy

Mr. MacKinnon dutifully fills out his journal, Mr. Fairley peers out the window with great interest, and Mr. Bridge... well, he's had a long day.
Don't stand under that guy - Bayeux Cathedral.
In the Caen Memorial.
In front of the Joan of Arc Chapel in Rouen.
Annika Penner guides our group at Juno Beach, on an uncharacteristically (for Juno Beach) nice day.
Mmmm... surprise beverages.
Outside the ramparts of Mont. St. Michel.
One of the crypts in Mont. St. Michel.
Fun time in Rouen.
Scavenger hunters prepare for battle on Mont. St. Michel.
Why is that guy on the right in so many pictures?

Our stay at the Family Home was wonderful – Katia, Madam Lefevre’s main assistant in running the hostel, was our hostess for our two nights, and she has been learning English (in Normandy, NOBODY speaks English). When Mrs. Buckthorp asked her for a special French recipe for crepes, she obliged, and then made them for our dessert! (Well, actually just for the adults’ dessert. The kids got cream puffs). Here’s the “secret” recipe for amazing crepes:
Crepes for 4 Peoples
250 g farine
500ml milk
2 eggs
1 little spoon of salt
½ bottle of beer (not sure what you’re supposed to do with the other ½ bottle?)
Bon Appetit
During our time in Normandy, we visited Mont. St. Michel, where the two St. Michels on the trip, Mike B and the other Mike B, led their team to victory and the extra gelato that goes with it; we toured the Caen Memorial, a multimedia/artefact laden museum about the causes, incidents, and results of the Second World War; we met up with Mme. Penner’s daughter who was our guide at Juno Beach (she just recently started working at the centre, and did a great job of explaining Canada’s role on D Day to us as we stood there on the beach where it actually happened); we saw and heard the story of the Bayeux Tapestry, that 1000 year old embroidered comic strip detailing William the Bastard’s change of name to William the Conqueror; and we toured Joan of Arc’s last mortal home, Rouen, the capital of Normandy, and the place where she was deemed a witch and a heretic and burned to death by her own people. That seems like a lot even to me, and I’m used to this. But nothing was rushed; we spent a good amount of time in each place, and the only complaint I think was that shops are closed on Sunday in Europe, and some of the girls looked mighty disappointed as we walked down the main shopping street in Rouen’s old town past closed store after closed store. It gave us more time for more time for positive things, like visiting the plague cemetery (with hand sanitizer of course) and hanging out in front of the Joan of Arc Chapel with the two local drunken comedians. Their jokes were hilarious, to each other. And they were in French only.