Hundreds of pictures and a new trip
Yeah. After ‘struggling’ in Afghanistan for over two months, I deserve a holiday, don’t you think? So today, Betsy and I are driving to Bretagne and Normandy, in France. Just a couple of days to soak up some sunshine, get some cultures and enjoys some megalithic structures along the way.
These past couple of days, I have been busy. Not so much with work, which I actually was hoping for (the work is there, but the clients aren’t as, ehm, productive), but with getting the pictures from my tour in Afghanistan online.
Early on, my card reader broke down (or more accurately, Lev somehow trashed it, didn’t you Lev ;), so these past two months must have been very hard on my readers, all two of you.
Off to Normandy
We started driving late, the main reason being that I wanted to make sure I had done all the work I could, before leaving. It wouldn’t reflect all that well on the clients if I, after being back in Holland for under a week, I would immediately run off again to some other country.
After a quick stop, and an amazing brownie, in Brussels, we went on to France, after deciding we were going to try and make it to Caen, a village in Normandy. Years ago, I had just quit working for Procter & Gamble, but I was still living in Brussels, I had a temporary roommate, a student doing an internship at P&G, who told me I just HAD to visit Caen, on a weekend trip I did with my girlfriend to Le Mont Saint Michel. We never stopped in Caen, there are only so many days in a weekend, so I wanted to see that ‘famous’ city on this slightly longer trip.
Traffic wasn’t all that bad, also because we circumvented Paris, and we arrived in Caen at a reasonable time. Only to find all, and I mean ALL, hotels to be full. Asking one girl at a hotel reception, “Yes, all hotels along the Normany coast are booked”.
That didn’t sound good. I called the youth hostel and they turned out to have some beds still available. If only we would show up before 9pm, less then half an hour away. After some racing, screeching to a halt in front of the gendarmerie to ask for directions, we found the place, arriving only five minutes late.