The Home Stretch

Well, it's almost that time. Time for me to pack up, say good-bye to my international friends, and head back to Canada. I'd say it's more sweet than bitter.

I've made quite a few great friends during my sojourn in Europe. People from America, England, Spain, France, Germany, Poland, Finland, Czech Republic, Greece, Russia, Slovania, Turkey, India, China, Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Mexico, and Jamaica. That's a lot of countries.

There's a lot I can talk about on here about my experience, but I'd rather talk in person. I would just like to say that I've completely enjoyed my experience in Dijon. Despite the many flaws that we (Canadians and Americans) have found in France, we have had a lot of fun.

Now back to "studying" for my three exams that I have on Monday and Tuesday.

Normandy

Last night a few of us arrived back in Dijon from a 2 1/2 day trip to the beaches of Normandy.

We were staying in Bayeux, a small town just a few kilometres from the coast. It was actually the first town to be liberated after D-Day. We had booked a hotel there, but upon arriving, the owner said that the website we used to book wasn't theirs (apparently they don't even have a website). Fortunately, we found a hostel that was right in the middle of town that was just as cheap.

On Saturday, we went for a tour of Omaha beach. This included going to the actual beach itself, which was quite amazing. The tide was low, so we had the opportunity to go down onto the [wet] sand see what the allies saw when they were storming the beach, except without the Nazis. There are pictures of this, but I forgot my SD card so they're all on another person's camera...I'll get them and put them up on Facebook shortly.

We also saw a couple museums, which were cool but not nearly as exhilerating as seeing the beach itself. There were huge craters from the bombs, as well as the abandoned Nazi bunkers.

Moving on, right now I am less than 35 days from coming home. It's very exciting to think about. I've got 3 more trips coming up (Loire Valley, Marseille, and Barcelona) so the time will fly by. I'll keep this blog updated as I continue to go on trips!

-Steve

Halfway

So this weekend marks the half-way point in my time in Dijon. With about 7 weeks left, I'm very excited to come home and see everyone!

I've got the next two weekends planned for traveling, as well. Tomorrow, I'll be visiting Paris with Rannon for the day (there's a great return-ticket deal for 15 euros). Next weekend, a few of us are taking a train to the beaches of Normandy for a couple days. There, we plan on taking a tour of the beaches (Omaha, Juno, etc.) and the museums as well.

For the rest of my time here, we have a trip to Loire Valley in late March (organized by the school) and our own trip to Barcelona around April 11-14. Unfortunately, despite our Eurorail passes, we still have to pay $80-90 CDN each way...so it'll be a little expensive, but it'll be fun.

There's your update! Love you all.

Steve

Pictures

I tried to put my pictures into this blog, but there's a 4-picture limit. So, I uploaded them all to my web album. You can see the album here:

Click here for my pictures

Hope you enjoy them! Let me know what you think.

Love Steve

New Blog

As you know, this is my new blog. I did this because of a program I downloaded called Picasa (thanks Dad!) that allows me to publish photos from my computer straight to my blog. This is very convenient. Not to mention the fact that this blog is part of my Gmail account!

So you should expect some photos from my recent trip on here fairly soon...stay tuned...