Mont St. Michel, Saint Malo, and Other Various Discoveries

From abbey, to a hotel for the bourgeois, to a prison, and back to an abbey again, no matter what it is Mont St. Michel is by far the most impressive architectural structure I have seen in my life. The gigantic structure itself sits on a tiny island that we wouldn’t even be able to get to if the tides were too high. We managed to squeeze our way through the tiny streets and past the thousands of tourists up to the church itself.

And would anyone like to guess what was going on in the tiny streets of Mont St. Michel? How about another group of Frenchies wanting to make another statement? I’m telling you—bunch of rebels these French people. Apparently the milk producers around Mont St. Michel have some problem with the way milk is being produced so they decided they were going to throw their milk into the streets. That was fun. I feel I need to organize some sort of strike or protest while I’m here in order to absorb the full French experience.

All angry milk producers aside, Mont St. Michel was impressive, gorgeous, intimidating—choose your favorite adjective. Unfortunately, we were only there for two hours, but we still managed to book it through most of the church and a little bit of the crypts as well. I must say—whoever built their stained glass windows is incredibly uncreative. Just so we’re clear—I would never build anything that boring for such an impressive structure. Words can’t even really describe the place…pictures will have to do.
Also, this is silly, but I saw a nun while we were at Mont St. Michel and I got really excited. I know--foolish, but can you blame me? I'm only disappointed I wasn't quick enough to take a picture. Those nuns walk pretty quick, you know.

The same goes for Saint Malo. We spent four hours on the ramparts of windy, cold, salty-aired Saint Malo. This is also a pretty impressive structure. Someone who got bored a few hundred years ago decided they wanted to build a wall around their city. I’m just kidding. It used to be one of the best-fortified cities around--which came in handy in a couple of wars so I'm told, including World War Two. There are still cannons situated in a few places along the ramparts. It also protected the city from the ocean and rivers situated so near to the city. Also, Jacques Cartier lived there. He’s a pretty cool guy.

Anyways, of course I have to bring up food. I got in the snacking mood at St. Malo and decided I wanted a chocolate milkshake. Steak ‘n’ Shake has some competition. That’s all I will say.

And finally, after our exciting yet long day of field-tripping, my neighbor and I decided to take a walk through the park next to our neighborhood. We walked about two miles and ended up at this abandoned castle type thing that just happened to have an art fair going on that day. One, I was very excited to stumble upon a castle—I’m reverting back to the belief that they’re everywhere. Second, the art fair was incredible. We are going to venture out next Sunday to see if it’s a regular thing. Some of the art there was pretty amazing. Apparently, so were the dogs. My very American friend stopped and asked a very confused French gentleman if he could pet his dog (which looked exactly like the Cesar dog food dog).

I ended the trying weekend with a Skype appointment with my family. I got to see my cousin’s baby for the first time (so much hair on that baby’s head!), and I also got to see my grandparents, two of my aunts, my mom and one of my other cousins who I didn’t recognize at first due to poor video quality. Sorry Nathan! I was trying to figure out if Drew had some new facial hair…

Anyways, my family got to meet my host family and it was an interesting conversation to say the least. Nathalie was quite excited to meet everyone, even though she couldn’t exactly understand everyone (she was especially excited to see the baby!). And Emmanuel made a valiant effort to communicate in English, but I think that probably could’ve gone better. But, it was nice to see everyone and it was an entertaining couple of minutes. It was a nice way to wrap up the weekend.