Normandy

Today I hit the road to see the French countryside and visit some historic sights, and wanting to avoid rush hour I was determined to leave early. The late night before meant it was a little less early than originally intended, but not too bad. I had planned to take an airport bus to the car rental place, and observed what I can only imagine was a French phenomenon: a crowd of passengers built up, a bus arrived, the driver got off the bus (pit stop?) and proceeded to not come out. A bus pulled behind his, and the same thing happened. By this time, the crowd grew larger. So when the third bus pulled up it was a bit of a squeeze trying to get on, especially with my huge backpack, but I was determined and succeeded—mainly because the driver was willing to let me stand in the very front (as long as I rotated a little when my backpack was blocking his view of the road). In this cozy fashion we made our way to Orly and I picked up my rental car. Unfortunately, I can fake many things but driving stick shift isn’t one of them (yet) so I had to pay significantly more for an automatic transmission. It turned out to be a Honda Accord, which compared to the other cars there looked massive. I was a little nervous with the tight curves of the parking garage, but soon found myself on the freeways of Paris and in the gridlock of rush hour traffic. I was south of the city center and was travelling north, but due to a missed exit got to spend a bit more time in stop and go traffic that I would’ve liked. Still, it was helpful to have that time to become comfortable with the car and driving in France generally. They drive on the same side of the road as the US, but the signs are totally different and it’s an unfamiliar place. Thankfully all those years of driving the Autopia cars at Disneyland meant the signs looked familiar, but that didn’t mean I knew what they meant. Driving with the best of intentions and sense I could muster, eventually I got away from Paris and into the countryside.

My first stop was Rouen, whose cathedral was painted several times by Monet. I had entered the cathedral as my driving destination but forgot that medieval churches weren’t built with parking lots or even roads by them, so I ended driving around a bit to find the parking areas in a town that designed their streets a few centuries before cars were a factor. At one point the street was so narrow I thought they wouldn’t permit cars at all, but it did give me more exposure to the city than I would’ve had otherwise. I became charmed by all the medieval architecture that was so different from the spacious and uniform apartments of Paris and ended up wandering around a bit longer than planned on foot. The cathedral’s signs were all in French, but apparently this place had the dubious distinction to be where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. On a lighter note, I later learned the right tower of the cathedral is called “the butter tower” because it was rumored that the funds came from people paying indulgences to avoid giving up butter for Lent. I had to laugh at the idea that enough people were so passionate about their pastries that it could have funded this. Only the French!

Rouen cathedral, with its "butter tower" (right side)

One of the many medieval streets in Rouen

Clock tower in Roeun

Rouen was worth it, but the extra time and the unplanned traffic around Paris meant I had less time in the places I wanted rest of the day and had to skip any extra stops along the way. Still, the rolling green hills and first signs of spring were lovely as I made my way to the beaches of Normandy. I learned after he passed away that one of my great uncles landed at Utah Beach on D-Day, so this entire trip sprung from the idea of seeing it to honor him and the 75th anniversary this year. I first stopped at Omaha Beach, seeing a monument and the remains of some Nazi bunkers adjacent to the American Military Cemetery. The emotional response I had there was stronger than I expected, and it stayed with me as I walked through the cemetery. It is exquisitely maintained, and I’m told that’s by the French people in gratitude for their sacrifice. All of these graves were from the Battle of Normandy, which like Punchbowl in Hawai’i included maps explaining the events. Behind the area with the maps was the “Garden of the Missing”, a wall with the names of those whose bodies were never found. A few have since been identified and have dots next to their names, but again the number is overwhelming.

American cemetery in Normandy

Mosaic ceiling in the chapel depicting soldiers leaving for the beaches, and France cradling a dead soldier (the sides you can't see show battleships)

One of the maps explaining the Battle of Normandy

Monument at Omaha Beach

 Attempting to take all that in, I next drove to Utah Beach. The roads here are small and the villages even more so; I can only imagine what this area is like around June 6th every year. Everywhere I saw the hedge rows this area is known for, which was one of the reasons this area saw such prolonged fighting during the liberation. Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, the area that includes Utah Beach, has made it a point to tell the story of what happened there, and their museum is excellent for its size. I could’ve easily spent another hour or two if there had been time, but as it was soaked in what I could before closing.

Entrance to the D-Day Museum.

This B-26 was painted to recreate one of the bombers that flew over Utah Beach on D-Day, and the hanger was built to resemble the temporary ones the Allies built after the invasion.

Some of the models in the museum were built by locals.

Inside the museum

These dresses were made and worn by French girls after D-Day.

This rubber map had amazing detail—down the individual trees and hedges! This detail mattered in the campaign.

One of the coolest parts of the museum was this area, showing footage from the invasion and campaign on two screens while projecting on the map where the footage was shot.

Thankfully the sun sets a little later up here, so I could wait until the museum closed to visit the beach itself. It appeared the tide was out, as it would’ve been during the first part of the landing, giving a sense of what they had to traverse that day before reaching the steep dunes. Today there are very few original traces of what happened there, and without the monuments it’d be easy to forget.

Dunes at Utah Beach

Low tide at Utah Beach, looking toward the dunes. It makes you appreciate how much beach they had to cross before confronting the dunes.

Before leaving the area, I stopped in the town square of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont to see the church, and discovered they'd placed signs around the square telling the story of events that happened there.

Church in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont; its tower is the tallest thing for miles and made it a strategic location.

Photo of the first mass observed after D-Day.

One of the interpretive signs in the town square.

The town's WW1 monument; the Nazis had taken the statue down, and the Allied troops restored it after the invasion. 

As the sun was setting, I continued to drive through lovely countryside, passing signs for cities that would sound familiar as I learned more about the Battle of Normandy. It was dark by the time I arrived in the village where I’d be staying, but my AirBnB hostess graciously welcomed me. It was a typical stone longhouse of the region and they had converted one side into a rental with all the modern gadgets. Her taste in decor had some simple feminine touches and was lovely. By that point I was weary emotionally from what I’d seen and physically from the early morning and all the driving, but was glad to be so close to my next day’s destination.

A Five-Minute Talk

Determined to not repeat yesterday’s mistakes, I left early and biked to the Symposium. Along the way I bought a pastry for breakfast, which I enjoyed while waiting in the security line that I had missed by arriving so late the day before. It also appeared another event was happening down the hall and their registration was part of the hold-up, but I still managed to arrive early which gave me a more confident start to the day. Before I knew it, it was time for our session: the last of the day on the last day of the general sessions. I was the first panelist and my nerves helped me shave off a few seconds as I spoke faster than my practice. But finishing first also meant I could be more focused on the remarks of my fellow panelists, who were from diverse organizations and were really interesting to listen to. This was followed by Q&A, and it was nice to be in a position where I didn’t have to be embarrassed to not know the answers. I jotted down the questions to ask my colleagues when I got back to DC and with that, the event wrapped up.

Celebrating a successful presentation and wanting to work off the nerves, I wanted to bike to a pastry shop. One of the attendees lived in that neighborhood and gave some vague advice but a very helpful word I hadn’t learned on previous trips: Boulangerie. Armed with that, I wandered a bit before finding a bit of a perfection in a passion fruit torte.

One of my new favorite words in French!

And then I attempted to do the most cliché thing I could think of, in part inspired by a comment my younger brother had made right before my flight: I ate a baguette at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Or at least part of it; the rest would be part of breakfast the next day.

Cliché and delicious. 

Then it was back on the bike for a tour of the area, stopping at a few Boulangerie I passed along the way to practice my new-found vocabulary.

What's more vibrant, my coat or the bike?

Back at the hotel, I started to pack for the next phase of my trip and wrap up the work emails for a few days. Both resulted in a late dinner which was very Parisian, but terrible for bedtime. This time, I decided to let the internet provide a recommendation and the winner was a few blocks away but worth it. I ordered the Onion Soup, which would’ve been a meal in itself, but added the most amazing mashed potatoes as an additional dish. They were creamy, garlicy, and a larger portion than I thought was possible in this city of skinny people and dainty things. 

They just call in Onion Soup in France—so good!

I was so delicious I wanted to keep eating, but between the soup and all the pastries I’d enjoyed that afternoon I simply had to surrender before finishing it. Stuffed and tired, I shuffled back to the hotel and showered before the final packing and crashing for a few hours of sleep.

Symposium Day 1

The morning left me a little flustered after a series of comic errors: underestimating how long I’d take to get ready, overestimating my ability to breeze through the bike rental interface when I was flustered by running late, and not knowing that UNESCO has two buildings. I naively had my Uber driver deliver me to the wrong one, and then had to wander a few blocks to find the real place. The headquarters had interesting architecture, like it was trying to represent all of civilization through time with mid-century modern flair. At first it was a little overwhelming to join a meeting already in progress and not know anyone. I tried slipping in the back, but wouldn’t you know the room had circular seating?

Meeting room at UNESCO headquarters.

Every seat had a microphone and a headphone, and along one wall were the translation booths for all the UN languages. Lucky for me, the Symposium was in English. The remarks were interesting, if not always relevant to my work, but as the day went on I started to meet people and found them all to be quite friendly. It was helpful to practice explaining my organization and to see what ideas or wording might resonate with them based on the remarks that day. At the conclusion of the sessions we headed to the top floor for a reception with a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower, and dainty hors d'oeuvres I could barely recognize. I dutifully tried most of them, but they excelled at pastries so that became the balance of my meal. Exhausted from a day of socializing and questioning the choice to wear heels, I eventually used sunset as an excuse to talk with a handful of others waiting on the breezy balcony for the Tower to light up. It was worth the wait!

UNESCO headquarters–the Symposium was in one of these sunken rooms.

View from the rooftop.

Ecole Militaire and the Eiffel Tower

After a few minutes of photographs and admiring the lights, I hobbled downstairs and took a cab back to the hotel, where I stayed up far too late tweaking my presentation. In addition to wanting to make the changes I’d thought of during the day, I also had to pare down the content. Each panelist was given five minutes, and I wanted to respect everyone’s time. The problem is that I wanted to talk about multiple projects, and the day I flew out I did a run-through that clocked in at over eight minutes. I learned that trying to be concise with the same amount of content is hard, but a worthwhile exercise.

Walking in Paris

I wasn't the one they invited, but my colleague knew the it was too close to his wife's due date to risk it, so he graciously asked if I’d be interested to be a panelist to a meeting in Paris. Oui! I was thrilled at the opportunity, and soon found myself diving deeper into my colleague's projects to do them justice. AtlantOS is a 4-year EU-funded project for greater coordination of ocean observation data (everything from buoys to satellites) among all the countries around the Atlantic Basin. The AtlantOS Symposium was a chance for those involved to report back, and for them to learn how different sectors (including non-profits like mine) use this data in our work. And so I found myself on a flight to Paris, arriving the afternoon before to adjust, prep, and of course sightsee a little before the event. I discovered the Rick Steves podcasts, which included a walking tour of central Paris and the insight that Louis XIV wanted Paris to be “a place dedicated to pleasure.” I also tried to practice smiling less for the Symposium, as an expat in one of the podcasts explained that Parisians think Americans smile too much, which they subconsciously associate with not being as smart. A little hard when you’re on vacation and eating crepes! 

I am so grateful the walking tour podcast started at Notre Dame, as I had no idea that just two weeks later there would be a terrible fire. I had visited Notre Dame before, but the commentary helped me see a few new details.

entrance to Notre Dame

This "point zero" marker in front of Notre Dame shows it is literally and symbolically the center of Paris. Thanks, Rick Steves podcast!

Detail of the stone carving and intricate ironwork on the doors at the entrance to Notre Dame. That's Saint Denis holding his head.

Inside Notre Dame

Back of Notre Dame for a better look at the flying buttresses. You can also see the scaffolding for the renovation and the spire. 

Crepe break! How could I resist Nutella and bananas?

The walking tour brought me to Pont Neuf just as the sun was setting, and I walked to “the lover’s bridge” to see the locks. They had clearly removed most of them, as I guess it wasn’t designed to hold the weight, but were fighting an uphill battle against tourists wanting to leave their mark.

Looking back at Pont Neuf

Lovers Bridge

For dinner, I asked my hotel for a recommendation and they suggested a place next door that had a fun Art Nouveau theme and the classic clichés in waiter uniforms, paper tops to the tables, etc. and a menu I could barely understand. I asked the waiter for his help and recommendations on what to order, and he suggested a traditional cabbage dish from the Alsace region. Had I known my French geography a little better, I wouldn’t have been as surprised when I saw this as my traditional French dinner:

Traditional Alsace cabbage dish--turns out that region is on the border with Germany. 

Enjoying the ambiance.

I think my German grandmothers would approve! It was delicious, if not what I had envisioned.

Cambridge Workshop, Bonfire Night, and Biking around London

I thought my first trip to England would be my one and only visit and have been grateful that each subsequent trip has proven that wrong. I eagerly accepted the chance to participate in a workshop in Cambridge, in part because of the topic but also because the location allowed a few extra days to play tourist. My first day in London was inspired by two opposites: the royal wedding, and the centenary of the Armistice ending WWI. Just before my trip I learned about a company called Stasher (like Airbnb for luggage) that allowed me to go straight from Heathrow to Hyde Park without worrying about what to do with my bags for the day. Depositing them at a nearby restaurant, I had time to stroll a bit while waiting for Kensington Palace to open. The sunken gardens adjacent to the palace were gorgeous, and it was hard to believe they’d coaxed some of those flowers to bloom in November.

Kensington Palace--the statue of Queen Victoria was designed by her daughter

Sunken gardens adjacent to Kensington Palace

Once inside the palace, I started with an exhibit of Princess Diana’s fashion and had a funny moment in the room just before it. While admiring some pictures on the wall I’d noticed a closet labelled “Prince of Denmark Closet”. I’m a novice at British history but not geography so this confused/intrigued me. Asking the guy on duty in the room, he explained that this room was in the wing favored by an old Prince who was from Denmark whose name was George, and the label was to help the staff locate it. Apparently, it used to be called “Prince George’s Closet” but after Will and Kate named their son that, people kept trying to pry it open in the hopes of seeing what the little prince kept in his closet. He went on to explain that some visitors like to try all the knobs, with the scary result that some of them were unlocked doors leading to the current royal living quarters (he went on to explain that security has improved). The dresses were beautiful and such a reflection of the time, with one of my favorites created for a visit to Saudi Arabia.

These certainly captured the time

This is THE dress she wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House

This dress was made for a state visit to Saudi Arabia (also, check out the shoulder pads and sequins on the dress behind it).

Other wings of the palace helped tell the story of what court life was like in different eras of the monarchy, with court etiquette in the 1700s making me grateful we don’t live by those same rules. The Victoria and Albert wing was probably my favorite because I was more familiar with their story, but it was all interesting and worth the time.

This painting over the mantle is connected to a weather vane on the roof so the dial moves with the wind. Note that the size of Great Britain was...exaggerated relative to France.

The King's Gallery

Mantua court dress--the flat front was to show off the opulent fabric

One of Queen Victoria's dresses--I didn't realize she was so short!

Prince Albert designed some of these pieces for Victoria; the tiara on the right could also be worn as a necklace!

Wandering through Hyde Park afterward, I could tell my feet were going to be exhausted when I started to notice the rental bikes like I’d used in New York and Paris. Sure enough, for 2 pounds a day I could bike around central London. Sold! The first leg was the most stressful, as I inadvertently played chicken with fellow cyclists because I couldn’t tell which country they were from, but I still managed to enjoy pedaling past Buckingham Palace on my way to St. Paul’s. I missed the chance to climb its bell tower by a mere 15 minutes and consoled myself with a Remembrance Day poppy. Ditching the bike, I strolled across the Millennium Bridge for its great views and picked up a bike on the other side to ride to the Imperial War Museum.

Looking back over the Millennium Bridge at St. Paul's

The outside had part of an art installation created for the centennial called “The Weeping Window.” Each of the ceramic poppies represented a British or Commonwealth solider killed during WW1; the original installation had been at the Tower of London and some of the poppies were sold for charity, others were part of an additional display at the other IWM. Even so, the number I saw was beautiful and sobering. 

"Weeping Window" at the Imperial War Museum

Their WW1 exhibit was great but also made it clear just how complicated the war was, and it seemed the two factors that really contributed to its end were the Russian Revolution and the famine in Germany. Seeing the German advertisements for food-like substitutes, for the first time I realized that my grandfather would’ve been a child during that time and would have experienced the famine. It made me grateful for the relative peace and prosperity I enjoy today.

During the Great War, the British selected a tree stump in the battelfield, built this exact replica of it that opened to a hollow inside, and in the middle of the night replaced it so they could hide spies inside it.

By this time my jetlag, hunger, information overload, etc. all kicked in and I was ready to call it a day. I made my way to my bags and headed to Euston Station to catch a train to the suburb of Leighton Buzzard. I’ve navigated train stations before and this one was even in my native language, but for some reason the constantly updating sign baffled me, and it was by sheer luck that I discovered the train I needed was leaving any second from a specific platform. I bolted with my bags and made it onto the last car, squeezing in with everyone else for far too long before a stop allowed us to spread out. It was in this condition that I was greeted by old friends in Leighton Buzzard who were gracious enough to host me. It was so good to see them and catch up, but a late night after such a long day was draining and while I made it through church, Sunday afternoon was spent hibernating before a delicious roast dinner and board games. To top it off, my friends graciously drove me to Cambridge. The hotel was lovely and I was soon out for the count.

The workshop was a short walk away from the hotel at the David Attenborough Center, a new complex in central Cambridge shared by several conservation NGOs. It’s a beautiful space inside, but my favorite feature by far was their green wall, featuring plants from around the world and rainfed from a system on their roof. I was also impressed/baffled to discover in the lunchroom that everyone actually cleaned up after themselves and did their dishes. It’s a small thing, but our office has yet to master that skill. The workshop itself was great. I had a chance to put faces with emails, catch up with old colleagues, hear the stories behind the data I’d mapped, and chime in from my own experience.

Group shot of the workshop participants with my favorite green wall in the background.

Coincidentally, the first day of the workshop was Bonfire Night, and Cambridge hosts one of the largest free public gatherings in the UK. We joined the crowds just in time for the fireworks, which silhouetted against the old chimneys looked like a scene straight out of Mary Poppins. After the fireworks I made my way towards the bonfire, a tower of palettes that was fenced off with a decent perimeter for safety. The crowd felt dangerously packed as people tried to simultaneously move towards and away from the bonfire, when like magic everyone started queueing in alternating lines and the crowd flowed like magic to where they wanted to go. Only the British could do that, I think. The festival also included food trucks and carnival rides that at first glance looked like something you’d find at a county fair back home, but some of the vendors had novel dishes. I couldn’t resist a “chips” truck, where I ended up with Thai chili sauce and Nutella (not together) that fueled me for an evening walk around the quaint streets of the city center.

Bonfire Night fireworks display in Cambridge

The bonfire (from a safe distance)--note the man in the lower right for scale

The second night of the conference we had a break before dinner, and three of my colleagues joined me for Evensong at Kings College. One of them had been a student at Cambridge himself and it was interesting to hear what student life was like there. The setting and music were both beautiful, but alas, no photography was allowed. Afterward we made a brief stop at the Eagle Pub, a centuries-old pub where Crick and Watson announced their discovery of DNA, and WW2 RAF pilots graffitied their names into the ceiling. In a town this old, it seems every building has a remarkable history. Dinner was no exception, as we ate at a Jamie Oliver restaurant that was in a gorgeous old building and a great finale for my time in Cambridge.

Enjoying the atmosphere of the Eagle Pub with my colleagues

The next day I trained down to London and visited Kings Cross station, where they’d magically moved Platform 9 ¾ to a more convenient location with a Harry Potter-themed gift shop. While waiting in line to have my picture taken I debated which house I belonged to, at which point I realized: if I’m over-analyzing it, I’m probably Ravenclaw.

Ready for Hogwarts

Saint Pancras station

A short walk away was the British Library, where they conveniently put their treasures into a single room. Shakespeare folios next to a napkin Paul McCartney wrote lyrics on and everything in between, it was easily digestible and impressive. From there I had lunch in a unique location: the crypt at St. Martin in the Fields. The location was great, the prices were reasonable, and no one else seemed to be bothered eating on top of dead people. Fueled up, I headed next door to the National Gallery for its impressive collection and saw familiar paintings from my college classes. They had a mini tour in front of “Noli me Tangere” by Titian, and I learned that during WW2 when all the paintings were hidden away for safekeeping, they decided to boost public morale by displaying one painting at a time. This painting, for its hopeful message, was chosen as the first one to be displayed.

"Noli me Tangere" by Titian

Switching gears, I left the museum and walked to a historic landmark that was easily overlooked by most but is considered the birthplace of both epidemiology and GIS. John Snow’s mapping of a cholera epidemic connected it to the Broad Street water pump; removing the handle and the subsequent drop in cholera also proved it was a water-borne disease.

The Broad Street Pump

From there it was over to Harrod’s to sample some of their cheeses and ride the Egyptian-themed elevators up to “shoe heaven” for some impressive footwear, and their art gallery where they sold pieces by Chihuly (one of my favorite artists). In both cases, if you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can’t afford it.

One of my favorite pairs of shoes in "shoe heaven" at Harrod's..

Before taking the train back to Leighton Buzzard I stopped at a pub for bangers and mash, where I discovered the hard way how much horseradish they like to put in their mustard. And once again, I was lucky enough to run through Euston station to barely catch the train.  

Those rental bikes were key to making the most of my last morning in London, but even the best-laid plans can go awry. The first station I found had all the bikes taken and it took some wandering to find one. At my destination, I had the opposite problem and couldn’t find an open dock to return it. Once that was sorted out I had an early lunch at the V&A’s café, a beautiful space and the world’s oldest museum café.

Cafe at the V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum is like a huge and elegant attic with all sorts of collections, and in my limited time I selected a handful of objects across the museum to check out. What all my careful planning omitted was the museum’s layout. Apparently, the floors only connect to the public galleries at certain points, so my elevator “shortcut” was a time-wasting glimpse at staff areas and I wandered through a few galleries more times than I’d care to admit. Eventually their staff pointed me in the right directions and I saw what I came for with a few extra treasures in galleries along the way. I got back to the area around Paddington Station with just enough time to buy chocolate at the grocery store before catching the train to the airport. I was grateful for all I was able to see and discovering those bike rentals and the luggage storage; I hope to put it to work again on a future trip.

I cut through Hyde Park on my way to the train station and stopped for a moment to enjoy the fall "colour."