Mont St Michel = Hogwarts?

Alors, yesterday, I took a trip with CIDEF to the city of Saint Malo and to Mont Saint Michel. We had to be on the cars (actually autocars - which is the French word for a chartered bus) and ready to leave at 7:30am (no comments, Dr. E.!!!). Of course, being my normal self, I was running a little behind, so I had to run just a bit to get there at 7:22-ish. I was not late, as they had not left yet. However, running, even if only for a short distance, did a number on my lungs, so I couldn't breathe well and coughed quite a bit on the way to St. Malo. (Stupid Julia forgot to bring her inhaler!) I could have gone to sleep on the way, but NOOOOOOOO, I had to get a seat right beside this metal thing that rattled the whole way, even with my mp3 player on full blast. >.<
After arriving in St. Malo, Ani and I headed toward centre-ville. We stopped at a few shops, mostly ones for souvenirs for Bretagne (Brittany). We saw a few CIDEF people at this one café and grabbed a little snack. Ani bought a galette with butter and sugar and I bought this pastry thing that was sweet and a little buttery, but I can't for the life of me remember how it was pronounced or how it was spelled, so...I have no idea. It was a little bit like a palmier, but thicker (and better, as it wasn't crunchy like a palmier). Ani and I then decided we wanted to go see Nemo and all his friends (including the sharks) at the aquarium so we stopped to orient ourselves within the city. The map we had was terrible, but along the way, we found a neat WWII memorial (of which I have pictures). We made our way back to the ramparts where we thought the aquarium should be, but we never did find it. We walked up along the ramparts (while looking for it) and found a road called "rue du Chat qui Danse" which means the Cat that dances Street. Amusing and completely adorable. If I can own my own road one day, I will name it that, in French, because it's just so much prettier, duh! Ani and I found a way down from the ramparts to the beach, so we decided to walk there. We had to climb over some rocks and such, but plenty of people had done it before (a path), so we didn't have too much trouble. I was fascinated by the little tidal pools and kept taking pictures of them. At one point, I found one that still had an anemone in it that I poked a little with a small piece of driftwood, but it didn't react. Guess it was used to people like me poking it and/or animals irritating it. So we walked along the beach, climbed over rocks when needed, which happened to be quite often, and when we'd reached the point where we had actually climbed up steps to get onto the ramparts, we decided we were famished. We headed back into centre-ville and found a little café that had very decently priced galettes. I ordered a galette with fromage et jambon (ham and cheese), and I think Ani ordered the galette complète. We got a bottle of Bréton cidre to go with it, and thankfully Ani thought of me enough to order the sweet one and not the other. :) There's a saying in France that goes something like "Quand on dit une galette, on dit le cidre," which means, "When one says galette, one says cider." Basically, it means you can't eat a galette without cider and vice versa. The cider gave me an awful headache afterward, so I guess I drank it too fast? Whatever...

After eating le déjeuner (lunch), we walked around a little more in centre-ville. I bought some caramel au beurre salé (caramel made of salted butter), which tasted funny at first, but it doesn't take too long to get used to. I also bought a little tiny teacup that said "Bretagne" on it. It's so adorable! Ani and I also found a store that sold t-shirts and they had two for little girls. One said, "Je suis la Petite Sirène de St. Malo" and the other said, "Je suis la Petite Fée de St. Malo." I bought them both for Lilli because I haven't been able to find ANY little kids clothing (or my size clothing, for that matter) with French writing on them!!! So Lilli's going to be the Little Mermaid and the Little Fairy of St. Malo. :) After finishing shopping, we headed back to where we were supposed to get back onto the autocars, but had about 20 minutes so we walked back onto the beach. This time, however, we walked all the way to the water's edge. There was seaweed, kelp, and coquillages (seashells) EVERYWHERE. We kept picking up one every now and then, wishing we were actually allowed to bring them home with us to the States when we have to leave in June. Stupid international laws. lol We headed back toward the ramparts, but I decided to stop about halfway up and start writing things in the sand. I wrote a number of things, including one that said "Julia était ici 22/2/09" and I'm currently mad at Ani because it wasn't the 22nd, it was the 21st, so I have the wrong date. GRRR Ani. She wanted also to put Julia & Ani were here, but I screeched at her that if she did, then it wouldn't be grammatically correct anymore. So I took my pictures of what I had written, added Ani's name, and changed "était" to "étaient" and life was good. :) Then it was time to get back on the autocars to leave for Mont Saint Michel.




Ahhh Mont Saint Michel. Can I live there? It's so BEAUTIFUL! Of course, I had to use the restroom immediately after getting there, and I had to pay 0.40 euros to do it. I had to PAY TO USE THE RESTROOM!!!!! Jerks. We then proceeded to climb about 200 million bazillion flights of stairs and my knee had, of course, picked today to hurt. On top of that, I didn't have much water on me and I didn't have my inhaler with me, so by the time we finally reached the top, I could barely breathe. Cold air + mild asthma = hurting lungs. I was probably the happiest when we entered a little area that had a garden/small lawn type thing in the middle. The first thing I did was look at Ani, jump up and down, and say, "OMG ANI! It's just like in HARRY POTTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Ani simply responded, "Julia, only YOU would make that connection!" You can see from the pictures what I'm talking about, though, if you've ever seen any of the Harry Potter movies. It does look Hogwarts-esque. =P





The pictures of Mont Saint Michel pretty much speak for themselves of the beauty of the place. At one point, I saw light coming in through a window at a certain angle, so I was completely inspired to take a picture of myself looking up out toward the window with my hands together, looking like I'm praying. If you're religious and even you find this funny, congratulations, you have a sense of humor. :) If not...sorry, but I wasn't the only one who had this idea!! =P



I thought ahead before leaving to buy a sandwich for dinner (ham and cheese..what can I say? It's freaking awesome here!). I also bought a little model of Mont Saint Michel and found a gift for Carlene, but in case she reads this, I don't want to say what it is because it's a surprise. She is going to LOVE it, though! :) Then, the trip was pretty much over and I had no choice but to leave. Such a wonderful day, but so tiring, too. When we arrived home around 8pm, I stumbled home and wanted to crash, but given the tech person I am, I had to check my emails and Facebook. Then people wanted to talk to me on Facebook, so I didn't get into bed until nearly 10pm. I finally woke up completely today around 1:30pm. Glorious, glorious sleep.

So that was my day yesterday! Hope you likey my photos. :)

♥
jh