Rowan University Discovers Europe

Today was a beautiful day, to put it simply. The day started out chilly and overcast as we headed out to the beaches of Normandy. We began our day by visiting the Gold Beach and headed over to the American Cemetery early to guarantee ourselves good seats. The ceremony was beyond words, with officers and soldiers from American’s, British’s , and French’s armed forces, including a brief air show by the U.S. Air Force. Afterwards, we departed step for step alongside a handful of French soldiers (you know how we love men in uniform), and visited Omaha Beach. We were able to stand on the same exact spot where D-Day occurred on June 6^th 1944, not to mention where the movie “Saving Private Ryan” was filmed. Directly afterwards, we visited a monument depicting all of our fallen soldiers, as well as crawling through an actual German bunker. The feelings were bittersweet, but after walking through two separate museums, and speaking to two separate survivors of D-Day (Madame Pineau and Monsieur Lecoeur), it has left us all feeling amazing, we honestly never felt this proud to be Americans. The mayor of Sainte-Mere Eglise welcomed us in the town hall and made a point to express how fond the people of Normandy are of Americans because of our actions involved in World War II and the liberation that occurred. “You are always welcome, please share this when you go home with your families” was translated with the help of Dr. Lemaire. The day ended with a delicious meal and a good glass of wine at our new hotel and it looks like it is going to be an early night to prepare for another 6 a.m. wake-up call.Shout outs:Kasey: Mom I miss you, I wish you could have been here today, you would have been in total awe.

Bonjour USA,

 Today was a beautiful day in the northwestern part of France. We left Paris around 8 to head to the Palace of Versailles. The view driving up was stunning as we saw the gold trimmed gates of the palace. We entered the palace and went on an audio guided tour through the main rooms of the palace, learning the history of Versailles and King Louis XIV in the process. The lavish hall of mirrors and royal sleeping chambers were breathtaking. Outside we went to the 2,000 acre palace gardens to see the fountains which are only turned on during the weekend. Seeing Versailles in person was so surreal and absolutely beautiful.

After leaving the palace we drove down the Seine River towards Le Havre. On the way to Le Havre, Dr. Lemaire taught a lesson over the walkie talkie about the land use of France as you leave Paris. We learned that the area we were in was too cold to grow grapes to produce quality wine. Instead grains such as rye and wheat are grown in the lower, flatter parts of the river valley. For lunch we tried the French fast food restaurant called Quick. It was a different experience for us since we are Americans and we have plenty of opportunities to eat burgers and fries.

After lunch we continued our journey along the river visiting the old Le Havre harbor basin named after military architect Vauban and the recent basins. We discussed Le Havre strategical importance and the geology of the stones that were used for the pavement who is the son of the owners. I met him during my fall semester at Rowan. It was a nice time catching up and dinner was delicious. A gelato, a quick shopping excursion, and a quaint walk through beautiful Honfleur was a great way to end the night.

Melanie and George

Bonjour!

It is 9 p.m. and we just got back to our hotel from an extremely long day of walking around Paris. We are staying in the city but far from the Seine River. We started our day at the Louvre Museum where our booking was for 9:30 a.m. Our English speaking guide showed us all of the major pieces of art in the museum. One of the most famous paintings we saw was the Mona Lisa. It is a lot smaller in real life than we expected and we weren’t allowed to use the flash when taking pictures because of the risk or wear and tear on the paintings. Some other major attractions we visited was Notre Dame, the archaeological museum underneath (which contained the old Roman port found by accident while expanding an underground parking lot), the Eiffel Tower (yes! we got to go to the top), and the Moulin Rouge (we stopped for pictures accompanied by Dr. Lemaire).

We could not visit the Sainte Chapelle because the attendants were on strike!

We miss the vans a lot, and all this walking will have us in bed early tonight.

We took the metro everywhere today, and it was an experience but some places smelled like pee! We packed in like sardines sometimes and it got really overheated. The food has been good but all this bread is killing us! We have been practicing our French and have been using it with the locals. They are good sports and work with us to improve our French. We head to Versailles in the morning and while we will be leaving Paris for the last time, it will be nice to continue our journey! Au revoir!

Lauren, Lindsey, and Tina.

Note from Dr. L. about “all of this bread is killing us”

Menus participants had today:

Breakfast: choice of baguette, whole wheat bread, chocolate bread, corn flakes, yogurt, cheese, fruit compote, jam (apricot, strawberry, orange, Nutella, honey, butter), hot chocolate, tea, coffee, milk, apple juice, and orange juice.

Lunch:  Appetizer: Salad (shredded carrot, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, corn)      

Main dish: fish with white wine sauce + rice OR  grilled chicken, FF, salad OR Spaghetti + tomato sauce

                Dessert: chocolate mousse or ice cream or fruit salad

Dinner: Vegetarian omelet +  FF               OR          Chicken with FF and salad

Dessert: fruit salad or chocolate pudding or rice pudding.

Of course baguette is available in a basket on the table BUT YOU DON’T HAVE TO EAT IT!

This morning we left our hotel in Dizy for Paris, after a car ride of about two and a half hours (most of it spent in a traffic jam) we reached the beautiful city. We quickly checked in to our hotel and set out for lunch. It was then that we experienced our first ride on the metro. It was quite the adventure. We had a lovely lunch at “Chez Papa” where unfortunately Richard chipped a tooth. Luckily the owner knew a dentist around the corner and so he and Dr. Lemaire set out to get his tooth fixed. Emily decided to nap on the table while we waited and our waiter, Siel, thought it would be funny to take some photos. Once Emily awoke from her slumber, Siel presented everyone with a bottle of champagne. Since the tooth mishap set us back in our schedule a bit, the Champs Elysees and Arc the Triomphe we were going to see were bumped to tomorrow and we were given time to roam in the vicinity of Place du Tertre in Montmartre. It had painters, performers, and vendors. After our free time we set out for dinner. We ate in a small restaurant on the Left Bank and the food was delicious. After dinner we headed to the Seine River for a night boat tour. We got to see 38 monuments at night including the Eiffel Tower. After such a long day, we were eager to get back to the hotel and sleep.

Hannah, Emily, Traci, and Jenn.

Bonjour!

After saying goodbye to our new friends in Cugnon, Belgium, we headed to the Orval Abbey. This abbey is famous for its production of beer and cheese. There are only 10 monks who reside at the abbey. A few of us in the group had the opportunity to go inside the church (which is not usually open during visits). It was an amazing feeling being able to go inside. It was very peaceful! After our visit to the abbey, we stopped at a cathedral in the village of Avioth with a population of 300. It was very beautiful!

After that, we visited a grain farm. They are sixth-generation farmers and extremely pleasant people. They are currently facing many issues. Their farm has not received rain for three months and irrigation is illegal, so they project they will only harvest about 50% of what they harvested last year.

To finish our day, we went to Taittinger to tour the champagne cellar and taste the champagne. The cellars are made of chalk and limestone. The champagne-making process takes at least 3 years. One part of the process, called “riddling” involves a worker turning a bottle one-quarter inch every day in order to setle out the yeast. One riddler can turn up to 48,000 bottles per day. After we tasted the champagne we went to our new hotel in Dizy just half an hour from Reims.

Hi all,

I am Richard. Today I spent the day behind the wheel though the girls fell asleep most of the time, I know they had a great time when they were outside the van enjoying Dr. Lemaire adventures. I really enjoyed our lunch at Leo’s Restaurant in Bastogne. (I had the meatballs). Hi Dad.

Larae and Katie:

Today we started the day with a scrumptious breakfast at our hotel, Hotel des Roches in Cugnon, Belgium. We then made our way to Bouillion where we went into the Bouillion castle built in the 11th century! It was huge, surrounded by the Semois River, and a beautiful town. At the end of our tour, we watched the birds of prey show. Though the birds were way too close for comfort, the owl was cute. After the castle we went to lunch (see Richard’s paragraph). We stayed in Bastogne and went to an exhibit called “I was 20 in 1945 in Bastogne”, all about World War II. It was amazing to see the American artifacts that they had. We also went to the American Memorial Monument called the Mardasson on a hill overlooking Bastogne. It was cool to see Americans represented in Belgium.

Our last stop was at a sheep farm in Jehonville. We were treated with sheep milk and dairy products from sheep: blue cheese, Gouda cheese, Brie, yogurt. Blue cheese and yogurt were our favorite. We also fed and pet the sheep. Ba-ha-ha-aaa!

Fun fact: The owner of the farm began with only 8 sheep 12 years ago and now has 270 sheep.

Our departure from Philadelphia was delayed because of a fuel gauge problem on our plane. Usairways decided to replace the gauge (a good idea for our safety but a bad one for our schedule!). We left at 11:30 p.m. instead of 8:30 and arrived in Frankfurt at 1:15 p.m. where the temperature was 68 degrees. Our vehicles are 2 black nine seats Mercedes vans and one gray Ford van seating 6. They are very spacious. We did not have much traffic driving to Belgium and made a quick stop for lunch along the German autobahn.
Dr. L.

The weather forecast for this coming Sunday seems to be good for our departure. I hope that you are having fun packing light for our trip and that you keep in mind the maximum dimension of your “carry-on” luggage: 13.5 X 20.5 X 9.

Dr. Lemaire