After traveling on foot to St. Malo and eating our crepes, my friends and I began to tour the town with program director Claudine Giacchetti. Just as in Angers, France, the restaurants and stores were on the first story, topped by apartments overlooking the street. Crepes and cider were in every restaurant as the town’s specialty. James Cox, Will Adams and I stopped at a small restaurant and enjoyed cider and a waffle. After St. Malo, we boarded our replacement bus and headed to Mont St. Michel.
Mont St. Michel is a historic island in Normandy with some memorable features. Our guide showed us the cathedral on the inside, and outside we enjoyed an amazing view of another island, as well as some quicksand. A term that James Cox used in France for special moments and things, was "rockstar," and a "rockstar" moment definitely happened in Mont St. Michel. When it started raining hard, 10 young children on a field trip gathered under Cox’s extremely large umbrella and began speaking French to him, while smiling and laughing.
After leaving, Giacchetti took us to Normandy so we could gain perspective of France’s war history. British and American troops invaded Normandy to liberate France from Germany during World War II’s D-Day. At the memorial for the slain Allied D-Day soldiers, we encountered 3,000 graves, including those of unidentified soldiers.
The great part about the excursions was that our morning departure allowing us to arrive in Angers in time to enjoy the nightlife. Foch Boulevard was the Times Square of Angers: a long street with an abundance of restaurants, bars and stores. La Boucherie, a Steakhouse restaurant that featured Rose on tap, was a place we frequented thanks to Cox.
Further down Foch was an Italian restaurant that was a favorite of mine. After attending a symphony along with Willie Wright, Cox, Elizabeth Ramey, and Corrin Feagins on Foch, Cox, Ramey, Feagins and I went to the Italian restaurant and ordered flamb’eacute;. The waitress skillfully lit our crepes on fire.
But Angers was more than just Foch. On one unforgettable night, Wright and I waited at home for Cox to arrive there before going out. Our host mom was asleep, but not for long. Apparently, while on the phone with my mother, I was too loud, and my host mom asked me to be quieter. Meanwhile she walked into the living room, stunned to discover Wright asleep on the couch. It got better when James rang the doorbell. When Wright picked up the phone to talk to Cox, our mom was still speaking to him, so he was unable to talk to both her and Cox.
After Wright didn’t speak and hung up, a confused Cox rang the deafening bell again. "Now I am really awake," she angrily declared to Wright. We threw on our shoes and left hastily, eventually walking to a part of town on the other side of the Maine River. We foolishly paid 10 Euros to get in a club around 3:30, even though it closed at 4.
In addition to discovering new places and experiences, we discovered more about ourselves while living in France. Find out how next Tuesday.
