We began our research on rental cars. Did you know that automatic transitions are as rare as peanut butter here in Paris? Everyone drives manual. We had the option of automatic, but it was an extra 100 euros and only came in the form of a NICE Mercedes. No thank you. None of us can drive a stick shift. I called James and he knew how. Score. He does warn us about a few things. He has an expired Canadian license, so if we happened to get pulled over, there might be some problems. Hmmm. We thought we should do it anyway and put our faith in ole James.
The morning started off rough. Right when we left the building, I remembered that my phone was in my apartment. I said, "Oh well, it's not like I am going to call anyone while we are on the road." We took the metro to Montparnasse, one of the most nightmarish stations in the city. We make it to the Hertz place a little late and James wasn't there. I then realize that I didn't email him the exact address of the office. I start flashing to pictures of his calling me in a panic, lost in the area and having no idea how to get there. SHOOOT, why didn't I just get my phone when I was just downstairs from it? The girls started to get really quiet while I was debating whether to go all the way back to my place to get my phone. After about 15 minutes of running around looking for James, I made the executive decision to do it. I ran, I ran, I ran all the way in the station and off the train, up the stairs, to my building, up my stairs. I grab my phone. No missed calls. I called James. He was with Sam and Melissa at the office. He just ran a little late. There I was running back down the stairs, out of my building, through the metro, panting on the train, back through Montparnasse, and finally back at Hertz with my phone in hand. I am sure most of Paris saw a strange chick in a white dress flying by in a panic that morning.
We got the car. We were upgraded to a C class since they were out of the B class. Woohooo, a nice little Peugeot. Our home for a day. Before we got started James announced that he was starting a new company and we were his first clients. His company name? It is JimmyV's Highly Illegal Renegade France Tours. In order to keep the name for his company legit, he will never renew his license. Getting out of the parking garage reminded me of one of those Hot Wheels race track/parking garage toys for boys. The car was mini and the ramp was like going up a toilet bowl. James had quite too much fun going up the loopty loops in the parking garage. Little did we know that this was only the beginning of his love for going in circles. We were soon to discover round-a-bouts. I was the navigator and the girls were the audience in the backseat. This was actually before we left the parking garage. I was my crash course in French mapquesting.
Everything went pretty smoothly getting out of Paris. We told stories and laughed pretty much the entire way. We just enjoyed the spontaneity of the day. I had packed three ham and cheese sandwiches for me and the Canadian, but the girls didn't have anything, so we planned to stop at a store to get sandwich stuff. By the time we arrived in the Normandy area, we were starving. We couldn't wait for a store. James stopped at this one place with "Moules and frites". I almost got sick to think that this might be our only option. I had just finished telling them my story about moules in Greece. Never will I eat it. He said it might be the only place to eat. We took our chances and said to keeeeeep on going Bro. We finally found this little small-town breakfast place.
When we walked in, I felt as if we walked into a stranger's kitchen. Everyone was talking to each other and it looked like a normal home with a big kitchen. They were very kind to us and made us feel at home. I am glad James speaks French or else, us girls might be in some trouble. That wasn't on our list of advantages for taking a roadtrip with a stranger. However, it offset the fact that he had an expired license. We all drooled at the thought of having omlets. The menus were quite entertaining as well. There was a little ClipArt omlet holding a big fork with a really mean grimace on his face. I guess that meant they served a mean omlet, which is what we all wanted. It was all so delicious.
James was still hungry, so he cracked open one of the ham and cheese sandwiches as well as an apple. This was the beginning of our understanding of his appetite. We were able to find Omaha Beach with ease. Eh hmm, I was the navigator, remember? There weren't many people at all which made us able to walk through and read everything without being pushed and shoved and uncomfortable because of the body odor and heat. The cemetary was breath-taking. It was so gorgeous and well maintained, as well as honoring to all that were killed in battle.
The visitors center was so informative. You could stay in there for hours and read. We saw a video that interviewed family members of those that were killed in the war. It was amazing to hear about their lives and how honored they were to be apart of changing the course of history. I still can't believe how young most of them were. Now that I am older, I realize they these boys were just little kids our there fighting for their country. It was a cool experience to be in there. There is a feeling you get by being there that you can't experience any other way. I am so glad I went. I hope to do more reading on the war to fully understand it all.
Afterwards we walked down on to Omaha Beach. It's so strange to think that this peaceful beach was once the launchpad of a war's end. It's where so many were killed and where so many have horrible memories. It's a place that we all could be thankful for, because this the place that history was made.
While walking on the beach James said, "Hey guys, it's kind of early right now, so why don't we go ahead and go to Le Mont Saint Michel? It's only two hours away. Then we could grab dinner there." Us girls are up for anything. We were worried that he would be too tired at work the next day. This was not a concern for him. We figured why not, right? The latest we could get back would be 1:00am. Hmm, not too bad. We wanted to get a picture of the Allied Forces on the beach before we left, three Americans and a Canadian. We found a Frenchman on the beach that was so kind to take our picture. Please excuse my pseudo comb-over and Sammies closed eyes.
Sam caught the essence of what I am about when I have my camera in my hands.
It was time for chocolate, especially if we had another roadtrip ahead of us. Sam and Melissa said it was time for ice cream. We were on a mission for that as well as souvenirs. We saw a sign that said souvenirs so we followed us. It took us back to the beach front to this little shop. They had chocolate, but not many souvenirs. More like a giant inflatable whale and a Pirates of the Caribbean poster. Not the kind of souvenirs my friends were looking for. However, the ice cream made everything better. On our way out there was some sort of water crisis between Sam and James, so Melissa and I sat back and watched. James finally got his bottle of water and some Hollywood gum. Later we found out that the magic was all in the packaging and that the Hollywood gum was a glorified piece of rubber.
While on the road, we found another little museum type place. Not really "official" looking, but it looked as though they would have a souvenir or two. I stayed outside to take pics while the others went in to find out that there were no souvenirs. Strike three.
On the road again. I had to read a French map to get us through beach towns and small roads. There were a few times that James had to take the map away, but this was only motivation for me to "get it right" the next time. By this time in the day we had gone around approximately 54 round-a-bouts. These might seem like fun, but after a while, just like anything, it gets old. James loved them. Around and around we went. Wooohoooo. This is what our conversation looked like while navigating:
*We are driving and come upon a round-a-bout*
James: Which one? Which one?
Connie: Uh, wait, I don't see the right town.
James: We are going around again, which one?
Connie: I DON'T SEE IT!
James: Uh.
Connie: Oh yeah, there.
*After three times around the round-a-bouts, we were on the right track*
Basically as often as we have stop signs in America, that's how often they have round-a-bouts. Well we have some good ole laughs on the way. There was one "OH NO" moment I had that no one knew about until later. I was sitting in the car and took a deep breath while stretching. All of a sudden I felt cold air on my side. My dress split. The zipper had busted. Oh no oh no oh no! I didn't have anything to cover it up with except for my jean jacket which didn't go down far enough. I thought about writing a note and passing it to Sam, but then I knew that she would laugh and show it to Melissa, which would cause us all to laugh...then James would feel uncomfortable and not know why we were laughing. I threw that idea out the window. I decided to just carry my large tote on the left side of my body for the rest of the night.After all that drama, we finally come upon a view of our destination.
James said that they host 20,000 visitors a day, but this seemed to be the perfect time to go, since the sun was going down and it was almost high tide. During low tide, the shore is empty, just sand. During high tide the water starts coming in and fills it up. We were lucky enough to see it all happen. The little town was so quaint. There were little shops and restaurants all on the inside. We walked through them and them up the stairs to the top of the abbey. We even stopped into a church to see a mass.
When high tide was coming, James was like a kid. We so badly wanted our enthusiasm to match his, but there was no way. Instead, we just stayed down on the lower level and watched him climb the stairs to get a better view. Once some of the crowd left, we made our way up to see it all.
We walked around the village to find a place to eat. James was looking for a pendant since he wasn't able to get one when he was there a few weeks ago. He found THE perfect one and was fixated on it the rest of the trip. We found it very pretty, yes we did James, good job.
We found a cool little restaurant that over looked the water. Sam, Melissa, and I got the same meal. It started out with the most delish(slang) entree of cucumber, carrot, zucchini, and tomato salad with vinaigrette dressing. For the meal it was porc with potato puree with brown gravy. Oh and the heaven sent chocolate mousse to top it off. We were happy campers for sure. We made our way back through the village. The sight of the abbey was amazing. 
We got to the car, started it up, saw the clock and freaked out. It was midnight already! We still had a four or five hour drive ahead of us. James knew that he would need some serious caffeine. He said we could sleep, but I think we all knew we had to take the whole trip in and stick it out for the team. It was a great trip back. We laughed most of the way, but about three hours into the trip we were really tired. No one talked, we just sat there, listening to French talk radio. James began flipping through the channels and hit a song that apparently struck a chord with all of us - Counting Crows..."Mr. Jones and me...." You wouldn't believe what happened to the car. The whole four of us woke up and sang at the top of our lungs. For some reason, that song woke us up and gave us more energy than chocolate and a large amount of Coca Light. After that, the laughing began again. While Sam, Melissa, and I were bonding we heard James laugh. We asked what was so funny and he said we sounded like three old ladies the way we talked. That's funny, huh? We know we are cool and we are soooo funny. Who knew three Texas girls (one is Arkansan, but an honorary Texan) could be such a hoot?We finally made it back around 4:30am and fill the car up with gas and head towards my building. We get almost half a mile away and we see about 6 policemen pulling every car over that they see. There was one other car, then us. We were all panicked. We got SO far in the trip without getting pulled over. The police asked James for his paperwork. He asked if he wanted the papers for the car or his license. They wanted his license. I will say that there were many prayers from three girls going up at that time. I think we were all holding our breath. Meanwhile the guy in the car in front of us was pulled out of his car and had to open his trunk. Finally the police said we could go. Whew. James was worried, we were all worried. Oh man, that was some major stress. However, we got back safely and have a ton of memories from the day. James was a real trooper to put up with us and our old lady tendencies. James, you're the BEST! Good Luck with JimmyV's Highly Illegal Renegade France Tours. We hope we set the bar high as clients. Maybe we should be hired out as "roadtrippers"...with a motto that goes something like "We'll tell the stories, you just sit back and laugh."
Oh yeah, when I got back, I took a picture of my dress. It was pretty bad. See, this stuff just happens to me. Never a dull moment.
What a day, what a day!
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