Caen! (9.16.10)

We drove to Caen today! It took a little less than 4 hours. Caen is a complete 180 from Paris. People here were actually nice and made an effort to help us. We checked into our hotel and then had time for lunch. The hotel was super nice, especially in comparison to the hostel. The shower was the coolest one I've seen and the best part....I wouldn't have to wear shower shoes or keep turning it on every 10 seconds.

Malia & I pulled ourselves away from the comfortable beds long enough to get lunch at a local hotspot. Since we had no clue what anything was, we decided to go with the recommendation of our waiter. We knew it was something with pork! It turned out to be a type of goulash maybe, served with french fries. And the best part, it was hot, not bread, and tasted amazing!! It actually was reasonable priced too! Less than 8 euros. I knew from that moment that I would love this place haha.

After lunch, the program took us to a Caen-Normandy Memorial Center for History. It was a really interesting museum. It progressed from WWI on. There was a lot of neat information I didn't know, also a lot of sad info.

Here are some of the things I learned at the museum:

• Between 5.1-5.8 million Jews died; 1.5-2 million of them were killed by firing squads. 
• In Western Europe between 6-11% of Jewish children survived. Sadly, there were regions in Central and Eastern where not a single Jewish child survived. 
• It is estimated that somewhere between 50-60 million people died in WWII. 
• Civilian casualties were very high in the war. They estimate 30 million of the total 55 million deaths were civilians. 
• It is really difficult for me to even grasp just how large that number is. I really can't even fathom just how many people that is. Going to a museum and seeing things like that it really makes you appreciate life and how much those before us have done for us!!

On the walk back to the hostel, we saw a castle from the 1000's. Amazing that any part of it was still standing!! Walking through the town, it reminded me of the country, but with everything still central. It was so pretty, an old town. I really like it there!

Malia, Trevor, Chris, Dominic, and I ended up having Pizza Hut for supper. I know what you're thinking, but it was cheap and smelled so good. Chris and I split a pizza and breadsticks. The breadsticks weren't like we know breadsticks. They were more like a calzone with tons of cheese inside, served with BBQ dipping sauce. It was actually very good!! I do love BBQ though :) The pizza was still a bit of a surprise, because we weren't sure exactly what we were getting. Fortunately, it was amazing too!! I think it was just the whole experience that reminded me of home and made it so good. After walking around town for a while, Malia & I retired to our room. We got 4 hours of free Internet by agreeing to allow the French government to monitor our usage for 1 year. We have no idea if that was just in France or everywhere. But hey, at least it was free Internet!