The Beaches of Normandy

I just got back from a camping trip in Ouistreham, a small town on the north coast of France.  I will now present to you a few of my impressions.

1.  Highway tolls are through the roof!!  It was absolutely ridiculous.  On the way up (for a trip of three hours) there were four toll booths asking for 2,50Euro, 3,00Euro, 5,50Euro, and 3,50Euro respectively*, and on the way back, just for getting back into the city there was an 8Euro toll!!!  But, I must say, the tollbooths are super efficient, you just stick your credit/debit card in a slot, it takes your money in about two seconds, and shoots your card back out.

2.  French camping = set up tents on a grassy area of a trailer park.

There was a snail sleeping with me
like this one.  This is not the same
snail.  This is the snail that hitched
a ride home with me in my pack.

3.  I slept outside under the stars for the first night, though everyone warned me that it was a bad idea and that I would get sick.  One well-meaning young man asked me if I had ever slept on the ground outside before.  I said yes.  Then he qualified his question further:  "In France?"  Um, nope.  Then he told me I would get sick.  What, does French soil have odd germs?  Are we medieval (or maybe victorian, maybe both), here, that we believe night air is bad for you?  Maybe sleeping outside would have been a bad idea for a wimpy person or someone with a wimpy sleeping bag.  If you squirm at the thought of adorable little snails crawling into bed with you, you may not want to sleep on the ground outside.  I do not qualify for any of these descriptions, so I slept outside.  And I'm not sick!  The night air was perfectly fine and refreshing, including the slight misting I got around 5:30 in the morning.  The only downside was the fact that I woke up with the dawn, which was super early and way before anyone else thought of moving.  So I tried sleeping some more and came up with some super weird dreams:

Dream A:  I woke up on the camping trip next to Heath Ledger.  He was, apparently, the only other camper brave enough to sleep under the stars with me, and also we were a thing, and I went to kiss him but he said he had bad breath and held me instead.  This is my first celebrity-crush dream ever.  I didn't know I had a crush on Heath.  I also didn't know that he played the Joker in Dark Knight.  That kind of freaks me out, big time.

Mmmm.

Dream B:  I woke up the next day on the camping trip, and Mike Ramsey was there (my best friend from college).  Some lady that my dreamself knew was camping a trailer near us with her four (or so) children.  She asked me if I could watch her baby, and I was happy to, but somehow it turned into her wanting me to watch all of her children for the whole day!  I felt very put upon and very pressured.  I finally told her that I couldn't do it; I was on a church camping trip with my friends and the point was to have fun and spend time with my friends.  She got so mad at me and told me that if I didn't watch her kids all day she was going to spread it around that I was a horrible nanny and babysitter and no one would hire me anymore.  I was very stressed and confided in Mike, who was very supportive.  This was one of my dreams in which I can't quite open my eyes all the way; I have these every once in a while.  It's like my eyelids are weighted down with lead and sunlight hurts my eyes, so the only glimpses of the world I can manage are through my eyelashes and very bright-looking.  With herculean effort I can pry them open for a minute or two, but then they slam shut.  Needless to say, it is very frustrating and stressful.  

I have hunches about the meaning of these dreams.  A has to do with a crush I had on one of the boys I had just met, among other things.  B has to do with my frustration with a really defensive Drama department chair at a university which will remain nameless.  Among other things.  ;)

4.  I found some scallop shells with holes in them at the beach!  They will become talismans for my pilgrimage.

5.  French young adults are no more food connoisseurs than I am.  Breakfast was cheapo white bread with Nutella, along with some apples and peaches.  Lunch was a bit better, with half a baguette for everyone, lunch meats and pâtés, and a delicious potato salad with pickles, ham, eggs, and tomatoes in it.  mmm.  Dinner was boiled potatoes, pre-skewered chicken, and merguez sausage, which is sooo tasty and Sophie loves it too.  I think that semi-innate, ultra-discerning French taste is just a myth that perhaps applies to the children of rich people with a lot of time and money.

Mmmm.

6.  There are some people who are fun to talk to when one is learning a language, and there are some who are only frustrating to converse with.  They talk way too fast, use big words, and when you ask them to repeat something or say that you don't understand, they just say it in English.  And they seem to try to avoid talking to you, as if it is just too much work to deal with your lack of language.  Which, I have to admit, it kind of is.  But lots of people took the time and effort!  I was able to have some really cool conversations with some wonderfully patient and apparently interested people.  It made me feel good.  So, please remember these things next time you are around someone learning English.  Patience and perseverance and love.

7.  I bore my testimony (very briefly) in Fast&Testimony meeting** at church today!  In French!  I had an internal struggle before I decided to get up:  do I want to bear my testimony only to practice my French?  to show off my French?  to gain the admiration of my peers for my French?  for my faith?  I knew that French people aren't big on professing admiration, so if I did impress anyone, I wasn't likely to hear about it.  Whatever my motivation was, I wasn't really sure, but I felt that glow of the spirit in my heart that urged me to go, and I haven't felt that in a while, so I went.  It was really short, perhaps three or four sentences, but I love remembering the basics.  All I really knew how to say was that I knew the church was true, the Jesus lives (though I think I said that wrong), and that the gospel makes me happy.  And really, that's all there is to it!

After I sat down the leadership sitting on the stand kept giving me warm smiles.  It may have been some amusement on their part because I wasn't wearing any shoes, a fact that they could see close up when I stood at the pulpit***.  I was right, though, no one acknowledged my testimony to me except an American girl; it is part of American Mormon culture to encourage displays of faith by thanking people for them, so that's why the lack of acknowledgement sticks out to me.  A bit later, though, one of my new friends, one of the really patient ones, told me a story from his mission in order to tell me that he could tell my testimony was sincere.  That meant a lot to me.

8.  Hardly anyone could believe that I'm 26, going on 27.  (OH MY IT IS ALMOST HERE!!!)  And in introducing myself to people this weekend, I suddenly felt like I have earned every one of my 27 years.  Like I have wrung all I can out of them.  Like I have learned all I can from them.  Like I have lots of accomplishments because I have used my years well.  It is a satisfying feeling.  One guy, the same friend from anecdote #7, told me I have the gift of eternal youth.  That is good, because even though some important milestones in my life haven't yet seen fit to appear, when they do I will still be looking and acting like it's not too late.  I'll be able to spend my thirties and forties in my twenties, since I've spent my twenties in my teens!

*I'm kind of making those up, since I don't remember exactly, but that's about right! 

**For those who don't know what I'm talking about:  In the Mormon church, the meeting of the first Sunday of every month is dedicated to members of the congregation who want to say something about their faith.  "Bearing testimony" is like witnessing to everyone what you believe, which can increase unity in a congregation, help a listening individual, and/or strengthen your own faith in what you are saying.  Speaking words out loud can give them power.
***My toms were soaking wet from all the rain this weekend.  They were freezing my feet into blocks of ice, so I just went shoe-less in the church.