‘Accidental?’ I hear you say. I see the raised eyebrows, the furrowed faces, the slightly parted mouths of incredulity. But yes. For weeks beforehand, I had been readily anticipating a cirque du soleil-style extravaganza; tightropes, fire-eating...heck, maybe even a cheval or two. And well, I did see a blindfolded rope-walker and many acrobatics, but I equally witnessed a joint-cracking contortionist, a corset-clad woman walking over a topless man’s body whilst wearing stilettos (ouch) and a nude man pulling red handkerchiefs from various censored areas. As one friend delighted in telling me; ‘it’s all about the small print Ella’. Still, it was an experience, and ‘one for the blog’, a catchphrase which has now been coined by almost all my fellow assistants.
In fact, this weekend has yielded several ‘for the blog’ as the Disneyland crew headed for a hilarious Caen getaway. In two days, we squeezed in a remarkable amount of sightseeing, and an equally remarkable amount of pine-tree infused throat sweets which one member of the group unwittingly purchased whilst on the hunt for a plain bag of mints.
Among our visits were Bayeux Cathedral, the ancient Caen château, and many tram journeys. I take back all I’ve previously said about the unnecessary nature of Le Havre’s road-works...trams ARE cool and I now realise it WILL be worth it (ignoring the fact I won’t even be in France by then). We also saw the astonishing Omaha Beach, the American D-Day landing place which has been turned into an incredibly moving memorial. Walking among the 9,000 graves was a truly emotional and humbling experience, particularly as so many of them are nameless, inscribed just with ‘Here Lies a Comrade in Arms, Known Only to God’.
In comparison to Haute-Normandie (where Le Havre is), Basse-Normandie seems so friendly, most probably because they’re much more used to the presence of ‘us anglophones’...I’m not sure your typical Kentish family would select Le Havre as their holiday destination of choice. From the smiling waiters to the jovial taxi drivers who even asked if we’d prefer to speak in French or English, everyone greeted us with warmth and ‘Je vous en prie madame’s. Well, everyone apart from Francis, the bald hotel manager in Bayeux who yelled at me to ‘fermez la porte’ after grudgingly answering my query for directions to the Bayeux tapestry, deciding not to warn us of its annual closure, of which I’m positive he was fully aware....Note to self: never complain about such incidents of rudeness in a tiny village; the taxi driver WILL turn around proclaiming ‘Ahh, Francis! I’ll tell him you weren’t happy!’ Awkward.
Apparently, this January ‘fermeture annuelle’ is common amongst tourist hotspots, a revelation which also hindered our visit to the much raved about Caen D-Day Memorial Museum. Disappointing, to say the least.
But let’s stay focussed on the positives, shall we? Saturday night proved itself to be the best French nightlife I’ve experienced yet (and that’s including the time I met a man genuinely convinced he was Snoop-Dogg). Despite the distinctly un-catchy name, club ‘Le What’s Café’ proved a real success. For one thing, no-one was wearing a parka, and for another, we actually knew (and could dance to) the music, a real novelty when you live in a city where every other song is police-hatin’, curse-bellowin’ rap and you begin to feel like you’ve been dropped in the middle of a scene from La Haine.
So, le prochain voyage? Next weekend I will be heading for a weekend in Paris with Southampton’s one and only FrenSoc, and after that, who knows. Stay tuned for ‘ladz on tour part 3’, coming soon to a blogspot near you.
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