Swimming Pools

Some updates on what I've been up to lately (then explanation on title):

I spent Saturday visiting this little town called Obernai!
First thing in the morning me and Claire have a little tradition that before we go on a trip, we stop at this little bakery on our street for coffee and a pastry. (Sad to report I didn't like the almond marizpan filled croissant I got - wasn't aware of the sugar filling in the middle and it was only subpar.) With pastries in hand we took the tram to the train station where we bought our 3.20$ each way tickets! How crazy is it that one of my ticket and my breakfast were basically equal price!?

Obernai didn't have anything specific to see, but we bummed around and found lots. We found a sweet play park, some crepes for lunch, and walked on (or near?) the old city wall, and I found a little hidden nature spot!
HYPE! GOOD DAY! Here's cute pictures of us being cute!

Crew fresh off the train (minus Kaelan)

A bunch of touristy nerds enjoying being nerdy:)

Found a hunk 

City walls make for good picture spots

Outside the old wall

Nature spot! Behind the outermost wall and down a ditch

THIS IS THE KITTY I FOUND! I FED IT COOKIES! I PET IT! I NEARLY TOOK IT HOME!

MHM get in ma belly!! (Actually the cheese was really too much and I only ate half But SHH DON'T TELL THE CHEF I LIED AND SAID IT WAS GREAT)

I'm the fool on the left, Natasha is the fool on the right, Momma Claire is supervising. 

Cute wall, cute trees, cuties 

On to the meat and potatoes of this blog:  What has the last week in the life of Emma looked like? Well....

Swimming Pools (click those blue words)

Really identifying with Kendrick right now. Saturday night we went out to party in Kelh, Germany (the city that is the Riverview to my Moncton). We've heard since basically day one about how crazy the German night clubs are and let me tell you, we were NOT disappointed! I'll take more pictures next time I go, but this place was beyond cool. There was a red carpet that we walked in on, and then when you got inside the whole place was full of red and purple glow lights. A few notable things are that the music was 10/10 excellent, the DJ literally did not play one bad song, and everything blended from song to song and time just melted away. Another thing I remember thinking is how gorgeous all the staff were! To get an idea of what I mean, think about what it would be like if Hollister opened a bar.

smoke and disco ball and very happy Emma

One other thing, we took to shuttle to the Gold Club, which comes home at the earliest at 4 am. I took a page out of Uncle James's Vegas advice book and hit the vodka redbulls in anticipation of my late / early parting needs. Between the caffeine and the vodka I was buzzin, and the music was so none of us could hear for a good 15 minutes after we left. But the whole thing was so fun! They had sparklers and confetti and fog and it was like living in a magic party snowglobe.

We're going back to the Gold Club this weekend and I am already hyped about it! I promise I'll try do better with pictures next time (no guarantees). 

Went to bed at 6 am Sunday, lol proceeded to do dick all the whole day.

Which brings me to the start of this week:

Monday - I don't think we drank?

Tuesday - Me and Natasha finished the vodka redbulls and people watched in the quad

Wednesday - Apparently Wednesday is Irish Pub night in my hallway?! (*not sure on the authenticity of "Irish") Elizabeth and Natasha came over, we missed the pub since we turned the wrong way and by the time we turned around the crew was leaving. So we went out to the Living Room where we found an out of touch DJ and some drunk 15 year olds, promptly hid in their bathroom discussing better options, ended up striking out and going home. 

Thursday (today) - Going to go out to this place the Mount A kids from last year said was good, also have tickets for free drinks

Friday - Going to drink wine in the park (it's Friday tradition, we can't not)

Saturday - Going back to Gold Club 

Sunday - recovering and facetiming y'all

Sorry, liver. 

Bloggin away

Dear fans,

So all, I'm trying my best to blog, it's tricky though. Because I think that the stories that make for the best blogs are little daily anecdotes I think of when I'm out having fun. However, if I'm out having fun, I've got no desire to stop, drop, and blog. BUT I'M TRYING TO GET BETTER! So, in the interest of all of you and future me getting to look back at these memories, here goes (again).

Little things that I think are worth gabbing about:

-Strasbourg is super super pretty. Going for walks here is honestly never boring because there's just so much to see, and so many tiny roads. I could walk to Starbucks (where I am now) everyday for a month and not take the same path. But even if I do have to walk the same roads, people watching here is really fun! Not in a creepy way, everyone here just has different mannerisms, and dresses differently than home. And if those aren't enough to keep my eyes busy the architecture here is so pretty and detailed that there's always lots to look at.

One of the many cathedrals, this one is the my favourite!

Picture from my neighbourhood's market!

Random buildings - all of the city center is built like this, I love it!

-FOOD: TO BE HONEST, not as great as I was expecting. The French are champion of fluffy pastries, hands down I'll give them that. However, they really can't compete with anything nanny would make at home. Plain ol' good foods are definitely missing, and there is a gross lack of my favourite food group, potatoes, around here. Claire just told me she's in the mood for some nice homemade bread and baked bean with fishcakes, and nothing sounds better right now. I know everyone misses familiar foods, but even French versions of comfort food are still too fancy to count in my mind. 

One of the worst meas I think I've ever had. Croque monsieur- two tiny soggy thin white sandwich bread pieces, really strong cheese, wet sauce on top of the sandwhich and inside the bread. Would describe this as a moist meal - bluhk.  Had an alright slice of ham in it which I picked out. Featuring here is the worst beer ever, a nice duo.  

If your beer is named Monaco and looks this, send it back. Trust me you do not want to try this cream soda/ beer monsterocity.

A damn fine piece of apple tarte, 10/10 would return to Colmar to eat at the bakery this came from.

SIMPLE IS BEST I MADE THIS IN MY MICROWAVE AND LOVED IT

-FOOD - THE BREAD - DESERVING OF ITS OWN CATEGORY: pretty shit, usually hard as a rock and not filling at all and whole wheat/ multi grain are not easy to find. I'm sure the French are all severely constipated from the 0 grams of fiber they get consume by gnawing on 1 euro baguettes. 

-THE NOT FRENCH FOOD IS THE BEST FOOD I'VE HAD IN FRANCE.  Awe, sad but true. Here's a picture of the best sushi I've ever eaten, and some absolutely stellar German food.

Heavanly! Everything about this was just done so perfectly, it made me love sushi even more than I already did!

Always been big fan of German food and now I live next door to Germany!! Hip hip hooooray!!!

My love for German foods knows no bounds.

-FOOD - ALCOHOL: Though not technically a food, it does contain calories so I'll put 'er in. On the plus side it's very possible to find some decent wine for 1 euro per bottle, amen hallelujah and thank you jesus the world is a good place! a quart of vodka cost 7 euros, not too shabby either, but I've been too nervous to drink hard liquor here lest I get drunk and then die / get kidnapped and sold into prostition a la Taken. Regional beer here is very fruity, which I think makes it not great, but if you're into that kinda thing, you would be set.

This cost me a euro and 21 "euro cents", it tasted good but for that price it didn't even need to. 

-My fridge has a strange smell to it. It always has, I cleaned all the shelves off with bleach wipes, so that is giving me a little comfort. I'm considering removing the cheeses to see if that helps, Yikes.

I put flowers on my fridge to pretend that it doesn't stink LOL!

-People here party until 4 or 5 am, literally every day of the week. I think I've finally found people who out party me!

Kids in a wine soaked candy shop

- School is not hard and is only so so interesting

- Currently in the middle of planning and budgeting trips! Used all my money for November already and forgot to leave room for groceries.....But I'm going to Amsterdam and Barcelona!!!

-I very possibly may be without a phone when this SIM card if I don't talk myself into spending the money on a new top up, but since I can find better ways to spend 30 euros a month..... (no food or phone but lots of travel, these are good decisions right??? Hope your proud mom and papa, I'm budgeting!?)

-

Uncomfortable truthes

After being here for a few weeks, a few things about life here in France are becoming less new and shiny and more shall we say, glaringly obvious. 

For one, just like our professor Christina warned us, classes here are starting to get a little boring and I want to skip them to travel. Also, the eco-minded French don't believe in air conditioning. Fine - I was never a big fan of going from a nice sunny day into a classroom or store that feels like a meat locker. However, the weather here is disgusting. Most of my classes are on the second floor of our building, where the temperature is approximately 1 000 degrees. Even outdoors isn't very nice, since there's no wind in France, which sounds comical. But, Strasbourg sits in a valley, and there literally is no wind. Like I said when I was little, the wind is not my friend, but this weather almost has me wishing for some LOL! To sum up the weather so far; it's hot, and sticky, and smells like dump sometimes. I've been sweating round the clock here, probably really sucks to sit beside me when I've forgotten to put my deodorant on haha!


Second uncomfortable truth is significantly more distressing than some gross weather. So, you know how maybe you read the news and you hear about places - Europe, the states - who really don't want to have more Muslim people move to their country? WELL, I've always thought that was horribly discriminatory. Until now. Let me explain. It's not the women and children that I wish weren't here, it's the men. Not a lie, day to day I encounter more men from the Middle East than people from France it seems. Not that that's bad  because these people aren't white, but it's bad because these men treat me and every other woman who walks near them like dirt, or their property. 

If I we're physically strong enough to beat up every man who's catcalled and yelled at me or my friends on the streets, I would. I get so mad I could just throttle them. When somebody looks at you like I piece of meat, it's absolutely enraging. But being mad isn't half as bad as being scared. I know for a fact from the way I am approached, spoken to and looked that if the opportunity arose, I would be in serious trouble. Since last time I checked I can't hold my own against a fully grown man, it's important to always have a buddy, and be hyper aware of where you are and who's around. I'm sure that for most of these men they are accustomed to treating women the way they can in their home countries,and they don't give their actions a second thought. But cultural sensitivity be dammed, if I could surround myself with normal people who grew up with western values I would. Not to say there aren't plenty of white men who are pigs, there are. But I was surprised to learn that a lot the tales about how Muslim men treat women - any woman by the way - aren't unfounded. Shout out to my walk home buddy Claire McNally, the nice guys in our hallway, and all you wonderful, normal guys back home, and to my dad, wish you were here Papa. 

THE END - NO MORE UNCOMFORTABLE THINGS SO FAR 

Parks and Parties

So our first week of class is done, which in reality was only Wednesday and Thursday this week! But so far I'm taking French grammar, French culture, history of French gastronomy, history of the French revolutions, history of French documentary films, emotive vocabulary learned through films, film analysis, French literature to films and hopefully a French sociology class!

Friday afternoon we went to the park de l'orangerie which was gorgeous!! It's this giant botanical garden/ park space about 10 minutes from our residence, and it also has a small zoo!
We didn't do too much except hang around and enjoy the park. Then we all split up for supper. Supper, about that. I seemed to have formed a small addiction to Mr. Noodles. It started last weekend when I ate 4 packs of them. And ever since, all I want is more of those delicious salty MSG laden noodles. So for supper Friday I caved and went out and bought another pack of my noodles / crack cocaine snack. They were sooooo satisfying. Unfortunately, my digestive system is significantly less pleased with my meal choices lately :(...
ANYWAYS the five of us reunited to try to find the party for the international kids. Me and Claire missed our tram stop, and ended up on the wrong side of town and it took us an hour and a half to make the 20 minute transit to Elizabeth and Natasha's residence. But we finally reunited with everyone!
We got to the bar the event was at at 1 am. And it was definitely not bumpin. We ran into some boys from my residence who told us that everyone was out for their smoke break, classic France lol. Me and Natasha were super in the mood to dance, so we just went for it. There was an empty stage above the dance floor that we hoped up on. We were dancing like nobody was watching - until people started to cheer ! We thought that was hilarious, and we pulled out our craziest dance moves. After a little while, the party was happening significantly more, and we were still dancing like we owned the place lol. We stayed until we got bored of the boys that we had been flirting with. Then our crew (Claire, Elizabeth, Kaelan, Natasha and I) made our way back through the old city to their residence.
There was a spooky moment when we were pretty sure a guy was following us that I was so grateful we were travelling in a pack of five of us. Since it was late and we were reallly far, Claire and I took an uber home (shoutout to Tantan!). I felt super gross, so I decided to take a (slightly tipsy) shower before conquing out. Best decision ever! I felt significant less disgusting after and then immediately fell asleep. 
More updates on Colmar to come later!

Settling In Part 1 -Deleted Scenes

All right so the first few days in Strasbourg were busy but not quite as busy as my last few have been. A quick recap:
When on the TGV from Paris to hear and it hit 317 km/h!! I wish I could travel that fast all the time!

Our Airbnb in Strasbourg was much more comfortable than the one in Paris was. Mom Papa shared the Airbnb with the lady who owned it, named ordeal. The deal was super super friendly, and her ability to speak English about the same as moms French so a little bit of communication barrier but between me and Papa and a lot of hand gestures of smiles and nods everyone got on just fine.  By this point in time they become pretty apparent that mom was actually sick and not just with a little bit of heat stroke so we comes across who send a doctor to our apartment gave him some meds and hopefully she was on the mend. But then the next few days are a little bit of a blur of visiting the city going to IKEA to get room supplies handing over large sums of money to my residence that I thought I had already paid and meeting up with our professor and the other students. Most stressful part about all this by far is the beauty of going to school in French of maybe having a little bit of trouble with the language up for meeting new people none of that. The stressful part by far was learning how to get all of this French paperwork done. And it wasn't hard because it's hard because the French, the inventors of bureaucracy, art so damn picky about how every little thing needs to be filled in it and where it needs to go and who has to see it if you has to sign it as details that I really am not good at keeping track of nor do I enjoyed it. Thankfully I got all the paperwork done, almost, at the beginning of the week and now all I have to do is go fix a mistake I made it and bring it back to her secretary and hopefully all will be well.

So anyways my room that I get settled in and I didn't like where was so I asked really really nicely if I could please move up to a nice corner room on the fourth floor with curtains and they let me hallelujah. Here's some pictures of the room!

Hi! Hope you get a laugh out of my morning oatmeal bowl in the sink!

Desk are complete with flowers in wine and water bottle vases that were both snatched from the garbage  - reduce, reuse, recycle lol

Teddy!!!

A little fridge and kettle action

Settling in Part 2 - First Weekend

With the paperwork onslaught mostly behind me I feel like I can finally start exploring around town and having some fun. Alsace a special region in France  because originally it was in an independent territory and it has flip-flopped between being controlled by the Germans and the French for the last several hundred years. Everything from their food to their architecture is a mix of one or the other. So far I’ve gone on three “field trips” to Germany! Strasbourg has this city really close to it called Kehl which is analogous to Moncton being beside Riverview. Kelh has lots of cool attractions including cheaper groceries and tasty German restaurants. One thing that I really hate to say is that French is that although individual people can be friendly for sure and helpful once you ask, the stereotype of the French being a little bit snotty when you first meet isn’t unfounded. Another true stereotype is that France stinks especially in the cities (but maybe that has to do with everyone smoking cigarettes like they’re going out of fashion - which they don’t appear to be by the way.)

FRIDAY

We finished all the paperwork that Christine could help us with. The five of us canadiennes then proceeded to get a little bit drunk at our local park. Backstory though, one the girls boyfriend dumped her when she first got here so wine was needed and we were done most of our work so more wine was needed. We went to our local discount grocery store and paid €1.56 for bottle of wine!!! On our way to the park that we thought we could find, we noticed that we might've bought wine with the cork in it and here we were each with a bottle of wine and no corkscrew! I looked at my bottle and it had this little wire twist ties around the cork which I thought was pretty strange but didn't give a second thought to. I twisted the twist tie and all the sudden pop goes the cord and it flies across the intersection of the road we were walking beside! Champagne was fizzing all over down my arm and my hand onto the sidewalk. I’ve only opened one bottle of champagne my life before and it didn't really occur to me that I was about to open my second. The five of us were yelling and laughing all the way to the park, while I carried and drank out of my open champagne bottle. Nobody gave us a second look! Well a few did, but mostly nobody cared about my wine.  

Once we get to the park the entrance we were going to use was  was closed so we went up to the gate to examine the map and see how else to get in. Some guy from the street came up to us and offered to point us in the right direction.  We said sur. So this guy abandons his friend who he was about to get into the car with and walks about 40 feet ahead of us along the sidewalk all the way until the next entrance into the park. We thought it was pretty weird to go out of your way to show us here and then walk but strangely far distance from the group that you just offered to show where to go. Anyways, we said thanks to the guy and on a whim I asked him if he knew any good night clubs in the area. He told us that basically all of the French kids and go over to Kehl to party at their nightclubs which he described as being super fun. I've heard before about how crazy German clubs are so I was super excited when he said that Tyga and Chris Brown had just been to the club he mentioned called Kiss Club. None of us could understand this guy’s English so I asked if he could write it down and I gave my phone with the notepad open and he wrote down Kiss Club who is his phone number and said to give me a text if we had any trouble getting there, score one for les canadiennes lol!

We ended up spending a nice quiet afternoon getting buzzed in the park we all hung out in the evening and tried our to best to find a decent student bar. Long story short we didn’t find one. The five of us wanted around downtown Strasbourg until about three in the morning and then went home since we had to be up early to catch a train the next morning

SATURDAY 

Going up the steps of the old casino

The tourist train!

On Saturday we got up early to catch the train to Baden-Baden which took us about an hour and a half to get to. We went with our professor Christina and her adorable Romanian mother. In Baden-Baden we saw so many things. We ate lunch at this place in town and just people watch the whole time we were there and it was so fun. One thing I didn’t know is that Baden Baden is a resort town if ever there was one. Us and our bookbags might have been a shade out of place between the Porsche is the Mercedes S class cars, the women with their little dogs in their purses, and the new rich Chinese who seem to be buying furniture and watches that could put us through school. While people watching I had spaetzle with mushroom sauce for lunch and it was both the worst spaetzle I have ever had (boiled and then panfried, uhm no thanks) and the most delicious mushroom sauce that I think could exist - it was full of nice chunky mushrooms. I could have easily easily skipped the thermal pools and swim in the mushroom sauce instead.

Streets and people of Baden Baden

After lunch we found our way to the thermal spring spas that are supposedly super mineral rich and will cure you of any ailments and have healing magic powers. We were all game for some healing magic powers so we spent €16 to spend the afternoon going from warm to cold to hot to bubbly pools of fancy water. After that it gets a little interesting.

This spa had a sauna which I am all over, as anyone who knows how much I like the heat could probably guess. However, over across the pond here or at the very least at the spot we went, going into the sauna is a thing that should be done without clothes. Ahaha! Who knew!! I’m not particularly uncomfortable in the nude, given the opportunity I think I'd go to a nude beach for sure, but I was a little thrown off by the tall muscular and handsome German staff asking me exactly why I was still wearing a bathing suit. I told him I wanted to go to the sauna and had no idea what the protocol was for a sauna there. So nice handsome fully clothed guy that he was, he walked me to the ladies change room and told me that I could take myself and my towel right in. Honestly I thought it was a really liberating and nice and positive experience. I only saw one other lady when I was there, but generally speaking nobody gives a crap what you look like and once it's kind of OK and people are really respectful of your body and your space and I thought that saunaing in the nude it was a pretty nice time because honestly who wants damp sticky bathing suits?

Entrance to the thermal spa

After our time is up at the spa we took her to the nearest mountain. You're so high up and we get to watch the paragliders taking off it was absolutely gorgeous up there.A group of wedding guests behind this was popping champagne, and after our traumatic champagne experience on Friday afternoon we all definitely have champagne popping PTSD and couldn't stop jumping every time a new bottle was opened up behind us.

Supposed to be a picture of a ruined castle on the mountain - having some technical difficulties seeing the whole frame but here are the trees instead :p

Watching the paragliders

We took our time getting back to the train station, met up with Christina and her mom and had a very sleepy train ride back to Strasburg. We've been planning on going out and partying but we were all so so way that we just went to bed instead. I spent all day Sunday in bed and it was glorious. Sunday at around 5 o'clock when it was time to get out of bed Claire and I went into the Starbucks here and paid gasp - six euros for a pumpkin spice latte! Probably not worth it or the best way to spend my money but I had a good time and we got cute seats by the window so all in all I would call it a good end to the first weekend in Strasbourg.

Panorama of the mountain top!!!!!!

Poverty Rant

Last night, papa and I walked by a father sitting on the sidewalk, his two little girls were with him. Refugees, I thought. This is what that refugee crisis I read about on the news looks like for real.

Speechless. For once, I am speechless. I want to run open armed to them, pick them all up, and hug-carry them all the way home (to my home, their home, it didn't matter just home), feed them and then believe that from then on their lives would be back to normal. Instead, I looked away and kept walking to the cafe we were going to for a late night snack. I kept replaying the image of them in my head. I am still picturing it, them. The bone thin father's searching eyes, sunken face, big cup for spare change in a hand coming out of a tattered black shirt. The girls were maybe 5 and 7. One was under a pink coat the other a blanket. They slept on an foam mattress pad that would be out of place anywhere but a dumpster.

What if they were me and my papa? That man looked at his daughters the same way my papa looks at me.

I felt sick, I drank a big glass of wine to dull everything swirling in my head and heart and gut. I barely touched the food. Since last night, every time I pass a homeless person, or another maybe migrant family on the street that family jumps into my mind's eye.

Failing to do anything made me feel guilty and bad and dirty.

Tonight I was berating myself after supper for not giving food to the man who asked for our leftovers (not money folks,  this man had asked for the our actual scraps) I came home and asked myself how could I have just done nothing. I hadn't even touched my plate and didn't like my meal, we had extra bread in our breadbasket. It would have cost nothing and I sat at a cafe table and choked back tears instead.

And then I had this thought: Why is it this affecting me so much more than it doesback home? How many tears have I shed bouncing happily by the homeless Santa in Robinson court? Are the hungry less hungry and the homeless housed?

No. But I become used to it. Homeless Santa is a jolly guy, the kids all eat supper and everyone is fine because of those charities downtown, and the drunks are just drunks so don't shed a tear right? Or is it right?

The shock is what’s getting me.

Remember when you were first old enough to fully comprehend poverty? I do, I remeber being shocked and saddened by local poverty back then. When I learned that the world is not fair, and that I am lucky. I am not a better more morally sound person, I am not smarter, not more worthy of eating supper and sleeping somewhere safe, but that I am fortunate to have the family, opportunities and blessings that have come my way.

Writing this blog won't put that family in a home or give that man three meals a day. But maybe it will help you and I look at the world with fresh eyes. Averting my eyes then spending the next two days crying about it doesn't help anyone. What's the solution? The answer is it's an impossible problem to solve. A utopian world where we are all safe and sound would be perfect. But that isn't anybody’s reality. Instead, I guess the only thing to do is whatever we can, and for me to try to remember, don't only be sympathetic when I'm shocked by the poverty in Paris, because it is just as real on the streets of our hometown.

Day in Normandy

We got up early, took the train to a town called Bayeaux, met our tour guide, and visited the D DAY BEACHES. Our tour guide Francois was the best. He was extremely knowledgeable and so enthusiastic, you could really tell that he cared about teaching us the area and details of what went down (other than the obvious, D Day happened here). A few things he taught us that I didn't know  was that after D Day, it took until the middle of August to fully liberate Normandy from the Germans. He showed us a garden in an abbey where a German Panzer unit executed 20 Canadians in secret whose remains weren't even found until after the war when the family who lived there moved back. He taught us about the German's use of slave labour (Jewish people, prisoners of war) to build their defenses along the Atlantic Wall, which ran from the French-Spanish border all the way up the Norwegian coast. He showed us the first house to be liberated by (Canadian!!) soldiers coming up from the beaches. The house is still there, still lived in, and it is now named Canada House, in honour of the Canadian soldiers who came 72 years prior. He explained how much it meant to the French and that they remember very clearly and are still thankful that we Canadians volunteered to come fight (read, not conscripted, he said that meant so much to them) from almost the very moment (one week later) than war erupted in Europe, And it's true, we visited half a dozen small towns that afternoon, and each one had a Canadian flag flying. The most touching part of what Francois taught us was how he impressed on us the importance that the French place on remembering the war,  Day, and the Allied troops who fought on the beaches, fields and streets that we walked on. He explained about his grandmother would cry and shake during thunder storms when he was little and would visit, because the thunder was as loud as the planes that used to bomb. He also explained about the main city in Lower Normandy, Caen, was 80% wiped out from bombing. He said that after the war, the French rebuilt using the same bricks so that everything would look as close as possible to before the war tore their towns to bits.

The most moving part of the day by far though was visiting the Juno Beach center. It was all good and basically just a nice museum until the last part, where it hit you right in the feels. They played this little 15 minute movie about young Canadian men that went to fight. The way the movie was made was film taken during the war, with narrators reading real letters these men would have written home. And they weren't nice letters, it was about how scared, lonely, cold they were, how brave they were trying to be. The videos were chronological, and then when the film from D Day played, it showed the miserable weather they landed in and the fighting and the bombs and you heard these men, boys, within a few years of my age, fighting and shouting, and dying. The movie ended in fading from an old black and white video of the beach to one from now in colour, saying "When you walk the beaches, don't forget that they did too", and with print on the screen that said "they walk among us". Talk about a moving scene. I went out for a walk on the beach right after to reflect on all that I had learned and saw that day, and sobbed. Visiting was such a powerful and meaningful and emotional experience that I feel so grateful to have had.

​That's it for now folk, it's 8 am, I've been up since 5, I'm going to get dressed and go talk to the front desk lady and get breakfast and see mom and papa at their apartment and hopefully knock my to do list out of the park so that I can stop stressing about all these little shitty details.

Canada house today

Canada House in 1944

Canadian flag painted on the parking of the cemetery we visited

Pictures of the young men who were murdered by the SS in the abbey now known as le jardin des canadians 

Sign explaining how the execution of Canadian prisoners came to light after the war