Back, back, awayyyyy back

We're back.

Actually, we've been here for a week now, but it's just not quite like other visits.

We are staying in the "second apartment" of our friends Martin and Annie. Their apartment is next door, and it's a good thing it is.

Because we are staying in a French/German construction project of uncertain, but apparently permanent, duration.

We were here in February of 2006, and they showed us the apartment. It would have been easily recognized by Rousseau or his contemporaries -- I don't think much had been done since it was built to house junior cadets of Napoleon's army. One large room of 350 square feet, it didn't have a bathroom, just a toilet in a closet next to a small kitchen -- and two fireplaces with chimneys, which are forbidden to be used in modern Paris -- indeed, in modern France, fireplaces in apartments are interdit.

We have since seen photographs of the process of restoration -- removing the 200-year old oak flooring to see the huge beams underneath, with little basins of space between. That was all cleaned up and filled with gravel, then subflooring put down, then matting, and finally, in the new kitchen, slate tiles.

In other places, the flooring has been returned to its location, some of it refinished, other, not yet.

The kitchen is brand-new, and has a very interesting sink of almost black matte-finished metal with a sort of rubberized coating. Never seen anything like it before.

All German appliances (Martin is from northern Germany, and is reasonably certain the French have not built anything that works since the Eiffel Tower), including a dishwasher and washer/dryer (in a single unit about half the size of American laundry equipment).

Just one small catch.

No water.

Also, no bathroom fixtures. They were ordered three years ago, but the bathroom sink arrived in Paris in several more pieces than it was supposed to be, so a new one had to be ordered, and custom made. It didn't arrive in time for the plumbers to come (from Germany), and horrible weather in December and January kept everyone off the roads anyway, and so there is no water.

Fortunately, we know the landlord, AND the neighbors. So, we take our dishes next door to be washed, and our clothes, and, our selves.

Last week, Martin drove us to Normandy. It was a fascinating, and deeply moving experience.

On earlier trips, Kelli and I have visited the cemeteries at Nettuno (Anzio), Italy, and also at Monte Cassino, Italy. I indulge my passion for history on every trip here.

But I had never made it to Omaha Beach. Tried several times, but it's really a difficult trip without a car.

Because nothing ever happens on time in Paris, we didn't leave until after 11:0, and it's about a 2.5 hour drive to Normandy. We arrived in Bayeux around 1:30.

Many fascinating things about Bayeux. It's best known for the Bayeux Tapestry, telling the saga of William the Conqueror, who made Britain what it is today -- French, but unwilling to acknowledge it. William was a Norman (hence, "Normandy"), and he defeated his cousin, who usurped the throne of England, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

The cathedral in Bayeux had its cornerstone laid in 1047. It is 963 years old, and rather chilly inside. Very gothic.

Beautiful stained glass windows, most of them a lot newer than the 11th century.

The tapestry simply requires that you Google it, or look it up on Wikipedia. It's amazing -- a piece of linen some 70 meters, or about 225 feet, long. On that is pictured William's story, from the death of the prior king, including his having appointed William the heir to the throne, through the usurpation, the preparation with the Archbishop of Bayeux, Otto, to fight in England, to the crossing, the battle itself, and William's accession to the throne. All of this in embroidery (wool) on the linen background, broken into about 40 scenes.

It was brought out and displayed to the public twice a year, a history lesson. The panels were each done by different craftsmen and stitched together into a single tapestry. The original, now more than 900 years old, is displayed in a long oval gallery, accompanied by recorded information in many languages. If you know about the Bayeux Tapestry, you're amazed. If you don't, you're speechless at what you see. It takes about 20 minutes to walk the length of the tapestry, which is behind glass but only a couple of feet away, so our view is undoubtedly much better than that of the Bayeusennes for whom it was originally made.

More interesting things about Bayeux: There are no boulangers in the old part of town. Or ATM machines. It took us a long time, later in the evening, to find either.

The few bistros near the cathedral all had signs painted onto their front windows, on the street. Each said, in English, some variation of this phrase: "We gratefully welcome our liberators back to Normandy."

From there we headed to "the beach". Time did not permit us to see all that there was to see -- we went straight to Colleville, and to Issigny-sur-Mer.

Between them, below Colleville, lies Omaha Beach -- one of five beaches stormed on June 6, 1944.

I just was not ready for what I saw.

For openers, a rainbow over the sea.

A drive down a draw -- the "cliffs" there at Red Dog Sector are not very high, or steep -- perhaps 75 feet is all -- but the drive takes one past a small museum.

In front of the museum is an American tank. If you've ever seen a 1970s vintage Cadillac, you might remember that they were sometimes described as "like driving a tank". Until I saw a Sherman tank, I did not realize how close to the truth that saying was.

The Sherman did not appear to be much larger than a modern delivery van.

The landing craft on display appeared to be made of plywood, was flat-bottomed (to let it get as close to shore as possible), and looked unstable as hell on dry land. It looked like a modern bass boat, but perhaps 10 feet longer and 5 wider. More than two dozen men were in each.

The beach itself was next, and I was stunned at how flat and shallow the water was (we could have walked 100 yards off shore and still had our heads out of the water, had we no concern for our comfort), how wide the beach was from headland to headland, nearly four miles, and how shallow the beach was -- even at a receding tide, at Omaha, only about 50 yards of sand before the first rise where the shoreline road lies.

The cliffs were probably 250 yards away. The pillboxes still there made it clear that anyone trying to land on the shore had to come 500 yards, about 1/3 of a mile, wide open and exposed. And, of course, they had to get off the landing craft well offshore, because that flat and shallow beach allowed the German army to place metal barriers in the sea to prevent landing craft from getting close.

It's amazing to me than anyone survived long enough to stand on dry land. It was only due to the sheer volume of attackers that they were not all slain in the sand. Accounts of the day say that the ocean "ran the color of blood" from the thousands of casualties. The beach was mined, and also under constant mortar fire, as well as heavy artillery, plus the machine gunners.

And in the midst of this, trying to imagine the panic, the smoke, the noise, while accompanied only by silence, I noticed two new buildings close to the beach.

The D-Day Hotel, and the Omaha Beach Snack Shop.

Each is within 100 yards of the huge sandstone monument to the 101st airborne, which landed behind enemy lines (and was scattered to the four winds) the night of June 5.

At first, I was brought up short by this modern construction, and these buildings devoted to earning money on this sacred ground where so many American, British, Canadian and German boys died.

But I turned around and walked back toward the beach, and I became aware of the fact that I was smiling broadly, and as I figured that out, I broke into an almost lunatic grin.

Because those buildings belong on that beach.

Because THAT is EXACTLY what we were fighting for -- for the right of local people to build a snack shop and a hotel.

To restore normalcy. To restore sanity. To make the world safe for whatever -- even commercial silliness.

It's just right.

We then went to the cemetry. It's exactly as you see it in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. One thing that Steven Spielberg missed, though, is that in the third row of crosses, very close to the center aisle where the flagpoles are, is a cross for a soldier from Virginia who died June 6. His name was George H. Washington.

A small vignette from our cemetery visit: as we were walking the path along the top of the bluff, with the beach occasionally in sight, a man and his two daughters approached, returning from the cemetery. The little girls looked to be maybe 7 and 10. They were each carrying, and waving, American flags.

I was going to ask them, when we passed, if they had lost a family member in the invasion, but as they drew close, I realized I didn't know how to ask.

You see, they were French.

And I resolved, then and there, to never again smile or be silent when fellow Americans slight the French, or suggest they are "ungrateful that we saved their bacon". Just try to imagine Americans even finding French flags to wave as they leave a Revolutionary War battlefield. The French don't owe us gratitude, we just paid them back for helping us win our independence -- but they are, nevertheless, grateful, and even admiring, of America, for the sacrifice, and for the strong sense of patriotism that we have -- something they envy.

WE had a nice meal in Bayeux after dark -- we finally found the banks, all lined up side-by-side on one street, with the restaurants and bakeries nearby. On our way out, we drove past the double-life sized statue of Dwight Eisenhower that greets everyone who enters Bayeux from the highway.

The next evening we had dinner with our dear friends Pierre and Cathrine. Pierre is the managing editor of the company that pulishes all the law books in France, and his father was a teacher and diplomat during the war.

His father was, in fact, the dean of a school of political science in Paris during the war. He knew that "something" was to happen in early June of 1944, but was not told until the 5th that it would be the next day. He took his wife and children out of Paris for their safety, to his summer home.

In Normandy.

On the beach.

About 10 miles north of the invasion site. Even the French thought it was to happen at Pas de Calais, so complete was the subterfuge Eisenhower pulled off.

Pierre's mother told him growing up about that day, that the sky was "dark with airplanes turning home to England right over the house, to refuel and get more bombs or paratroops." They didn't hear the assault on the beach, but they were about as close as one would want to be.

Saturday we got up bright and early to go to a painting exhibition across town. Of course, when we got there, we were informed it did not open for 2 more hours. Again, we had trouble finding a boulanger for a sandwich. The down economy has forced many, many businesses to close here also.

We went to the Marais, and saw a magnificent exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary (about 3 weeks ago) of the great 1910 flood that inundated much of central Paris.

When we were finished, we walked by L'As du Fallafel, but Saturday daytime is still the sabbath, so they were closed until sundown.

We went to the Hotel de Ville about 3 pm to see a photographic exhibition, stood in line for 1.5 hours and moved 50 feet -- they only allow people in when others leave -- so eventually we had to leave to buy some flowers and go to see Pierre and Catherine.

All for now -- packing to take the Eurostar to London for our first-ever visit to England. I've been studying English for about 55 years now, I hope I can speak it well enough to communicate there. I'm not optimistic.