Part 2: The Craziness of Nighttime Travel

So, I have two stories to tell and both of them bring to mind feeling a little helpless and a little scared. Well, one of them a lot scared and the other just out of place. Both of them taught me something and both of them made me tired the next day. :)
#1 - Paris
To summarize - no place to stay, all hostels full, late at night stuck at a train station. So I decided to get on a train - any train that I thought was going to be traveling at least a couple of hours so I could catch a train back to Paris in the early morning - most start running by 5:00 or 6:00. So I went to a town on the northern coast, and slept on the train for a couple of hours. When I got there I had a couple of hours till the train left back to Paris so I decided to sleep in the waiting area, which I did. However, I didn't realize that this station, unlike some of the others I had been at, close down between the last trains and the first trains, so I almost got kicked out. But the station manager, who spoke just enough English for us to communicate, kindly let me stay and locked the doors of the waiting room so I could sleep safely. When she opened the station not long after, she moved me to her office so I could stay away from a vagabond who had just walked it off the street and whom she recognized as "not a good man." So, all in all, not a scenario I would want to repeat and yes, I should have taken Laura up on her offer of staying with her friend - but that's another story. However, I did get kissed on the cheek by a very handsome black man who spoke no English but thought I was a friend of the station manager's and greeted me with the customary French "kiss."

#2 - Caen
After my awesome day in Normandy, I was taking an overnight ferry to Portsmouth, England. My ticket said it left from Caen, so I took the train there, found out where the port was (not far from where I was), and treated myself to dinner at a creperie. I left with a total of 5 pounds and 0 euros to my name, because the restaurant had not accepted my card and I had to use all of my cash to pay for the food. So, penniless and a couple hours out from departure, I headed towards the port. Then I started seeing these signs towards Ouistriem (Car Ferry). My thought was, o cool, it must leave from the far side of the port and I'll just follow these signs. But pretty soon I was climbing a big hill beside a castle, and leaving the inhabited area of Caen, and feeling pretty unsure - the port was not this far away. I rounded a corner and my worst dream came true - a sign that read Ouistriem - 15 km. Now, had I had a whole day or a few more hours in the sunlight, that would not have bothered me so much. But I had an hour and a half to make it these 15 km, and I was really supposed to check in in 45 minutes. 15 km is like 9 miles. It was NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!! My first thought was to find a bus going that way and bribe the driver to let me on without any money - but when I got to the next stop I found the buses were not running anymore this evening. At the end of my rope (I thought) I entertained the idea of hitchhiking, and even walked with my thumb out for a quarter mile - but no cars stopped, and I was getting really scared and upset and crying because I had no way of righting this situation. Eventually I found myself lost in a part of Caen that was not meant for lost souls with big backpacks in the middle of the night, and was just crying and praying that God would keep me safe - no longer with any expectation of getting to Ouistriem.
Then along came a white van. Now, I know the reputation, fed by horror films and news reels, of white vans in dark scary streets. But when this van stopped, three French women lowered their windows and asked if I needed help, which of course was obviously the case. Through the driver's broken English I was able to communicate where I was trying to get, and they told me to get in. I have never, never, felt so relieved and thankful as I did at that moment. Those women, those pot-smoking, hippie women with the cans of Coke in the backseat, where God-sent angels to me that night. They ended up driving me the whole way, giving me a Coke to take with me and would not take the 2 euro coin I offered (all I had left). They were so kind, and generous, and took care of me in a way I seldom take care of others.
That night, safe and sound on the ferry, I think I felt like I had been delivered from a lot of things - from insecurity, from fear, but most of all from a doubt that God can do all things. ALL things - including saving me from a hopeless situation, including protecting me when I was Much Afraid (see Hinds Feet on High Places for that reference). I told a friend later that I don't think I can ever doubt God's faithfulness in the same way after that night. And though I have found myself needing a reminder lately, my life was uprooted and flipped around that night. And I wouldn't want to go back!

Part 1: Normandy & Wales

Normandy was an amazing place to visit for a day. There is so much more to see there than I had the chance to, but the two places I went were both amazing. Most of you know of my love of history, and some of you know that I have a thing for World War II history especially. I wrote my senior project paper on the American airborne forces in WWII - and so studied the D-Day landings quite a bit. The 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions landed behind Utah Beach on D-Day, and their job was to secure the 4 causeway exits from the beach since the Germans had flooded the inland area. They were separated from each other by the drop, and most of them landed far from where they were supposed to, yet they still accomplished their goals through effective leadership, great skill, and sheer determination. Reading the accounts of different paratroopers from that day gives one the feeling that they were happy to have survived the crashes and filled with a great passion to avenge those who didn't make it. They had a death grip on what mattered most in the war effort and would not let it go. I wanted to see Utah, to see Carentan and St. Marie du Mont, some of first towns they liberated, and the hedgerows that made their tasks more difficult.

There are just not words to describe the hallowed feel of that ground - all of Normandy, for me, is a sacred battlefield. Yet, life goes on - it is uncrowded and beautiful, serene and yet full of life. I was amazed to see people playing on Utah beach - making sand castles and digging for clams, riding horseback through the white water and sunbathing beneath the same rise that still held bunkers and howitzers and now held several small memorials and a museum. It was a beach like any other beach, and yet so different. In my mind I could still see the shadows of ships anchored in the harbor, as far as the eye could see; I could see through the tears in my eyes men crawling up the long shore with guns outstretched - many of them never to make it; I could see the combat ensuing all around the hill I stood on. The echoes of D-Day are still powerfully there. At first I was saddened to see the beach had become a normal beach - to play on and laze about - but then something in me shifted and I realized that the men on D-Day knew exactly what they were fighting for: freedom from tyranny and oppression, freedom from fear. And nothing stands as a greater memorial to that effort than the very image of children laughing, grandfathers teaching their grandsons how to dig for clams, new lovers out for a romantic horseride across a great wide beach, and locals taking a Saturday break to stroll along the sand. These are living testaments to the sacrifices made that day, whether they realize it or not. I know that at Omaha, which I would love to visit someday, there are larger memorials and a cemetary along the sea - but maybe both memorials are needed - both the living and the steadfast stone.

Wales was an interesting trip. Out of money and finding out late that I couldn't get to where I was supposed to by train, I ended up taking the safe way out (after two less than safe nights I felt that was best) and staying in a town on the coast that I could easily get to by train. However, it was too far south of the place I was hoping to go, so the scenery was less than exciting (though, to be fair, still pretty.) So someday I want to go back and actually see the Pembrokeshire Coast. The good news is that I did get to see Bath from the train window, and have now been in every region of England. :)