Sunday, November 11 – The beginning of the end.

From the moment that I woke up, there was a hint of the day’s eventual end. Laura was leaving to go home. And though my time alone will be brief, it still stings to say goodbye. Also, I just don’t like the logistics of traveling.

With that said, Laura and I headed out to check out Caen today. First, we had to talk with the concierge about me getting to my ferry tomorrow. Things could be interesting even with my 37 euro taxi. I’m so pissed that it will be that expensive and that the claimed ferry shuttle doesn’t actually exist. Whatever. After dealing with that, Laura and I walked toward the city center in search of breakfast. We found the best European market I’ve ever experienced. Hustling, bustling, huge, and no crap. We had crepes. We had croissants. We ogled the other food.

From there we decided we would go check out Williams the Conqueror’s abbey. Apparently, he fell in love with his cousin. In order to marry with the Pope’s blessing, the two each had to construct a gigantic abbey. William’s abbey is now the Hotel de Ville for Caen. On the way to the abbey we took a wrong turn and ended up at the preparations for some kind of ceremony. Turns out there was a huge memorial service for Armistice day. We waited around for it to begin and watched some of it before leaving for the abbey.

After that we just walked around Caen. We returned to the hotel room to recharge and grab Laura’s stuff before lunch. Unfortunately, we couldn’t have a sit-down affair because of Laura’s train, so we grabbed some heavily buttered baguette sandwiches and walked around. Finally it was time for Laura to leave. It was definitely a hard one. Neither of us knows when we’ll see the other again. Its just so crazy.

I walked back to the hotel to get the rental car to return it. I filled it with gas and left the piece. I took some time to relax and recharge in the hotel room before heading out for dinner. I went to the same place that Laura and I did the first night. Since I want to get to bed early for my early start tomorrow, I was the first one to come through the door at 7:15 pm. Crazy French, with their 11pm dinners! I had a wonderful quiche, a huge (geante) salad, and the awesome rice pudding again. And that was that.

I’m very tired and not looking forward to the logistics of traveling tomorrow. At least I’ll have over 5 uninterrupted hours on the ferry to chill out. Hopefully the seas are relatively calm. As long as my taxi comes on time in the morning, I should make it to Oxford…eventually. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to update the blog again. It might not even be until I’m back home. Rest assured that I’m thinking about all of you.