Roseyland

Never before have so many known so little about so much.

I saw the line above in this article by Daniel Gross. It’s a play on a Winston Churchill quote, and I think it describes the current health care debate perfectly. A few weeks ago I was definitely in the “knows so little” category, and I probably still am, but I have made an attempt to learn more. I know that I am strongly in favor of health care reform. I discussed health care a while ago in this post, but let me summarize my general beliefs:

• Insurance companies should not be allowed to discriminate based on the health of individuals. There should be a nationalized set of standards/regulations that govern all health care sold in the United States. This does mean that health care cost is spread out over people with varying degrees of health. I am fine with this.
• Everyone who can afford health insurance should be required to purchase it.
• Caps on maximum benefits paid by insurance companies should be eliminated.
• A basic level of health care should be provided to those who can’t afford it.
• Health insurance should be decoupled from employment.

I don’t believe that we should completely reinvent the wheel. We need to adjust our health insurance business model to better align profits with benefits to society. We can not continue with a system that denies care to those who need it most and allows so many people to go bankrupt due to medical expenses. This only hurts us all whether we realize it or not.

Right about the time people started hysterically screaming about death panels, I figured that I should try to understand just what was in the currently proposed health care bills. I did some Googling, and I found the article Your Handy Health Care Cheat Sheet by Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post. This article is a great summary of the proposed health care bills. Let me summarize the summary, the health care bills currently before congress include:

• A national health insurance exchange or market place where different health care plans can be easily compared. Initially this will only be for people who do not get health care through their employers. Insurance companies are not required to put their plans on the exchange, and individuals are not required to buy on the exchange. However, anyone getting a subsidy to purchase health care can only use it on the exchange (I think). All insurance plans, whether they are on the exchange or not, will have to abide by the same regulations, such as not discriminating based on an individual’s health. For a better description of what the health care exchange might look like, check out the New York Times article A Health Insurance Exchange: The Fine Print by Anne Underwood.
• Individuals who can afford it will be required to purchase health insurance or pay a fine/tax.
• Subsidies will be provided to those who can not afford health insurance.
• Some of the bills include a public plan on the health insurance exchange and some do not. This is the most controversial item.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with the bills before congress. They mesh well with my beliefs except for the decoupling of health insurance from employment, but I could see that happening in the future if the exchanged was opened up to everyone. I’ve been back and forth on the public plan a million times. On one hand it is a good way to ensure that that all insurance plans on the exchange meet basic standards. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s completely necessary and we could always add it later. If I had to choose, I would prefer a public option, but I think it would be dumb to let this point prevent the passage of meaningful health care reform.

So what about the alternative plans? I did some searching, and the first alternative plan I came across was The Patients’ Choice Act. I read the summary, and it sounded like a decent plan to me, but then I read this analysis of the act. Apparently, the Patients’ Choice Act doesn’t require insurance companies to participate in the the health insurance exchanges that it sets up, but it only regulates the insurance plans that do participate, which makes the exchanges pretty much pointless and provides no protections for people with preexisting conditions. It looks like this plan is a lot of talk and little action. I’m going to count this as a big FAIL.

The more interesting alternative is the idea of high deductible insurance mixed with some type of health savings plan. In these plans, individuals pay for the first few thousand dollars of their health care before insurance kicks in. Often times employers that offer these plans also make contributions to their employees health savings plans to cover some of the out of pocket cost. The idea is that since individuals are spending their own money, they will make more fiscally responsible health care decisions, which will drive down cost. At the same time, individuals still have insurance for protection from large unexpected health care expenses. A big proponent of these plans is John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare, which I consider a must read. So go read it. Other good articles advocating for these types of plans are How American Health Care Killed My Father by David Goldhill and How to Fix the Health-Care “Wedge” by Arthur B. Laffer.

There is a lot to like about these plans. I definitely know people who treat their employer provided health insurance as some type of all you can eat health care buffet. When you don’t pay the bills, there isn’t much incentive to spend responsibly. However, I ultimately feel that these plans fall short. For one, the most fiscally responsible health care decision is not necessarily the most healthy health care decision. Another issue is that, to my knowledge, no other country has tried these types of plans on a large scale, so we don’t really know how well they will work in the real world. I think some version of these plans could be work, but most of the people advocating for these plans are also asking for much less government regulation. Meaning that people with preexisting conditions will have no protections. In his op-ed, John Mackey says:

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

To be honest, I almost agree with John Mackey. I don’t really believe in intrinsic human rights, but health care isn’t about human rights. It’s about infrastructure. We have a habit of taking things like public education, national defense, transportation networks, communication networks, etc… for granted, but it’s this infrastructure that provides a stabilizing force for our communities and holds our society together. Health care should be a part of this infrastructure. It isn’t about giving anyone some sort of “entitlement”, it’s about ensuring that nobody is held down by forces out of their control. There is too much lost potential in this country, and we are all paying the price.

I think a lot of people are wondering why we need any reform at all. Most of us, me included, have excellent health care under the current system, so why change? For the answer to this question, I would refer you to the article The Most Outrageous U.S. Lies About Global Healthcare in Foreign Policy magazine. Here is an excerpt from the article:

There is one yardstick by which U.S. health care distinguishes itself: cost. The United States spends more — in total dollars, percentage of GDP, and per capita — than every other country on Earth.

On virtually every other broad metric, the claim that U.S. health care stands for global excellence is demonstrably false. The United States doesn’t take a top spot in either the World Health Organization or nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund rankings. The American health-care system is not best in terms of coverage, access, patient safety, efficiency, or cost-effectiveness. It does not produce the best outcomes for diseases such as cancer, heart disease, or diabetes; for the elderly, the middle-aged, or the young; or in terms of life expectancy, rates of chronic diseases, or obesity.

Which countries do come out on top? Often — France, Switzerland, Britain, Canada, and Japan. On the World Health Organization’s list, the United States comes out 37th.

We spend the most, and we come out 37th. I find this a little embarrassing and I’d like it fixed.

Admittedly, after reading all this, it still isn’t clear to me what the magic solution is. Of course there is no magic solution, and no system will ever be perfect. I do however find comfort in the fact that Switzerland and the Netherlands have recently moved to a health care system a lot like what is being considered by our congress. I also hear that Japan has a similar system. I’m not saying that we should just follow some other country, but these are countries with similar economies and standards of living. I think we would benefit from a few lessons learned by them.

If you were wondering what my thoughts on health care are, now you know. I think it’s abundantly clear that we need reform, and serious reform, not just a little window washing. I’m also very supportive of the plans currently before congress. They aren’t simple or easy solutions, but they are well thought out and backed up by the experiences of other industrialized countries. I hope that we don’t let political ideologies or just plan craziness stand in the way of taking a significant and much needed step forward.

Other things I wanted to include in this post but didn’t include:

• This American’s Experience of Britain’s Healthcare System <– This is a great blog post, you should read it.
• This summary of health care systems around the world at Electoral-Vote.com
• The book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care <– I haven’t read this book, but I saw the author interviewed on BBC America World News, and it sounds very interesting.
• This cartoon video gives a good and fun to watch description of why we need health care reform. It proposes a more government run solution than I think is practical for the US, but it still makes some good points.

In my heaven, there is a special room where you can punch Glenn Beck in the face. It’s very popular. The room is fairly simple. It contains Glenn Beck and a button. When you press the button, Glenn Beck says something like, “I’m not saying Obama is racist, I’m just saying he has a deep-seated hatred of white people”. Then you punch him in the face. After you punch Glenn Beck, he falls to the ground and has a sudden moment of realization where he truly feels the consequences his words and actions have on other people. When you press the button again, he jumps right back up and says something else stupid, and you can restart the whole process. To be honest, it isn’t the “real” Glenn Beck. It’s just a very realistic simulation. The “real” Glenn Beck isn’t allowed in my heaven. Not even as a punching bag.

A quick disclaimer. We here at Roseyland do not advocate punching anyone or violence of any form. We’ve never punched anyone in real life and we don’t think you should either. We are just trying to be funny, and the thought of Glenn Beck getting punched in the face is hillarious. But don’t do it.

Here in the United States we are in the middle of a raging debate on the future of health care in our country. This is where half of the country sees major flaws in our current systems an tries to fix them, and the other half tells old people they are going to be euthanized. Apparently some people see such radical ideas as decoupling healthcare from employment and making it possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get healthcare as the first steps toward the total annihilation of all good.

The craziness of the healthcare debate has sent my mind off in a million different directions, but the thought I keep coming back to is: What motivates people like Glenn Beck and his followers? I wish I could just say that they are all stupid, and to be honest, that is part of the answer, but it’s not the whole answer. I think the sad reality is that we are all addicts. We are addicted to feeling good. Unfortunately, feeling good does not equal doing good. Do you watch Penn & Teller’s show Bullshit on Showtime? You should. Penn & Teller did a great show on world peace that you can watch here –> (part1, part2, part3). Yeah, you probably didn’t watch it, but if you had, you would have seen Penn & Teller make a convincing argument that many anti-war organizations like Code Pink accomplish nothing more than providing extracurricular activities for crazy people. In other words, they are all about feeling good, and little about doing good. This same statement can be said of any number of activist groups for any number of causes on both ends of the political spectrum. Ultimately, Glenn Beck’s followers are no different than the hippies of Code Pink.

There is nothing wrong with feeling good, the problem is we confuse feeling good with being right. Lots of things can make you feel good. Drugs and alcohol can make you feel good. Being on team can make you feel good. Being popular and loved can make you feel good. Having your emotions stirred can make you feel good. Sex can make you feel good. Religion can make you feel good. Unfortunately, none of these things will make you right. If you want to be right, you need balanced solutions determined by significant amounts of analytical study and critical thinking. I’ll admit that rational thought doesn’t have the same thrill as evangelical mob mentality, but it does far more good and leads to real progress. People like Glenn Beck are drugs that offer easy ways to avoid our problems and feel morally superior doing it, but we all know that drugs don’t solve anything. They only create more problems. Just say no.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Okay, so I told you that the trip was over, but it’s not quite over, I mean we are still in France. We took a taxi to the Charles De Gaulle airport 4 hours before our flight. I thought that this would be way too much time, but I had no idea what the airport would be like, and I figured better safe than sorry. Turns out 4 hours was just about right. Here is the American Airlines check-in area, and this is just for the New York and Chicago flights. It took over an hour to get through the check-in line and about 45 minutes to get through security after that. Not the most fun I have ever had. I’ve never seen an airport as chaotic as Charles De Gaulle. I went through LaGuardia at Thanksgiving once, and it was crazy, but not this crazy.

Here is a view of the gate area after we got through security. I took this from an elevated cafe area where I had one last Pain au Chocolate before leaving France. I don’t think I have mentioned pain au chocolates yet. They are basically a croissant with dark chocolate baked in. I was a big fan, they were chocolaty, but not overly sweet. Pain au Chocolate is pronounced (Pahn-ah-shoc-ah-lot), it’s very fun to say.

The flight was long, we left Paris around noon and arrived in Chicago at about 2:30pm (which was really like 9:30pm). There isn’t much to say about the flight except that 777s are way more fun than 767s. If at all possible, you want to travel on a plane with personal video screens. In Chicago, I only had 1 and half hours to get though customs, re-check my bag, and go through security again in the domestic terminal. That was just enough time. It took me one hour to get to my next gate, but I made it. When I finally arrived back at my condo, the cat celebrated my arrival by meowing at the top of his lungs for a good 30 minutes. I think he was a little pissed. I stayed home the next day, and he pretty much never left my side. Poor guy. Here are most of the touristy trinkets I bought on my trip. I bought French wine at Harrods in England (that makes sense), a mini London double decker bus, a mini Eiffel tower, and then I threw in my left over money, Oyster card, and Avenue Q program. I still have the money. I figure I can use it when I go back.

I have about a million things left that I want to say, but I can’t keep blogging about my 9 day trip forever. Instead, I’ll just cram everything that is left into this one post. First, a video of naked women on the streets of Paris. Someone in my Twitter stream posted a link to this video right after I got back. Perfect timing. I love this video because it really feels like paris to me, the architecture, the language, the naked women. Actually I didn’t see any naked women in Paris. I must have done something wrong. Regardless, I’m totally addicted to this song now. I have it on my iPhone and the iPod in my car. Check it out, there is no actual nudity in this video, but it might not be work safe. Try to watch it in HD if you can.

If you are like me, you want to know how much all of this cost. I’m a little worried that it is uncool to talk about money like this, but this is the information I always want and can never find, because nobody will just come out and say how much they spent. Lucky for you, we don’t have decency standards here at Roseyland. I was going to give a detailed line by line cost analysis, but it got to be too complicated with me paying for some things and my aunt others, and exchange rates, etc… The bottom line is that this trip cost about $4000 per person. Here are the cost of some of the items per person:

• Plane tickets - $1000
• Hotels - $1000 (per person)
• Train ticket from London to Paris - $175
• Windsor, Stonehenge, and Bath day trip - $130
• Normandy D-day day trip - $300

If you add up the numbers above, you are probably wondering what I spent the last $1400 on. Good question. We didn’t really do anything lavish or expensive. All I can say is that between food, taxis, metro rides, and entrance to various attractions, it all adds up. I took $400 in Euros and Pounds with me, and I easily spent most of it. I also used my credit card a lot. If I had it to do over again, I would probably use more cash and avoid the foreign transaction fees on my credit card. If you are a Bank of America customer, you can use your ATM card at Barclays ATMs in England and BNP Paribas in France without paying any fees. Of course you still have to hope that Bank of America gives you a decent exchange rate. Also, you can’t use American credit cards at self service kiosk in Europe, because American credit cards don’t use the chip and pin system that European credit cards use.

A question I have been asked a few times is, “Which did you like better? London or Paris?”. Ugh, this is pretty much impossible to answer. Paris felt a lot more chaotic to me. In my first few hours in city, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like it. Partly this was because of the pushy immigrants trying to sell me things and partly because I had grown attached to London. Paris definitely grew on me though, it’s an absolutely beautiful city. Paris feels more exotic than London, and having been to Paris makes me feel like I have truly been to Europe. That being said, I feel like London has a greater breadth of things to do. For example, I loved going to a show in London’s West End, which isn’t really they type of thing you can do in Paris. I want to say something like Paris has amazing things to see, and London has amazing things to do. Does that make sense? If I had to choose between London and Paris, I would reluctantly choose London. I feel guilty saying it, but mostly this is because I speak English, and speaking the language opens the door to a lot of experiences you might not be able to appreciate otherwise. I recommend seeing both cities though, and while you are at it, see the rest of Europe too.

I am an obsessive compulsive planner. I’d hate to go all the way to Europe and forget to see something important, so I had itineraries planned out with a number of different contingency plans. In the process of planning this trip, I came across a few good tools that I want to give a shout out to. The best tool by far is Tripadvisor.com, Tripadvisor has list of attractions, restaurants, and hotels, which are all rated and commented on by fellow travelers. Tripadvisor also has very active forums, where you can ask just about any question and get a useful answer. In addition, Tripadvisor owns FlipKey.com, which is a site that will help you find vacation rental apartments all over the world. If I ever go back to London or Paris, I will definitely look into renting one of these apartments. They usually have a minimum nights stay, but if you are staying long enough, they are comparable in cost to a hotel. If you are going with a group of people, an apartment can be significantly cheeper than a hotel, and a lot more comfortable/fun in my opinion. The nice thing about the FlipKey site is that the apartments are reviewed and many are professionally managed, so you feel like you know what you are getting into.

I’m not a big fan of travel books, but for this trip I purchased the Frommer’s London and Paris Day by Day books. I really liked these books because they contained sample iteneraies you can follow to get the most out of a small number of days in a city. I didn’t use any of these itineraries directly, but I found them helpful for making my own itineraries. These books also helped me prioritize different attractions and they gave me an idea of how much time I could expect to spend at them. One last thing, at Barnes & Nobel or Boarders, they sell these laminated Streetwise maps of different cities around the world. They fold up nicely, and it is really nice to have a map before you arrive, so that you are ready to go when you do.

I tried to learn a little French before this trip, and I even got a 6 month subscription to Rosetta Stone. For the most part, I like the Rosetta Stone method of teaching, and I was able to read French okay while I was in Paris. After I got back from my trip, I discovered Livemocha.com. Livemocha has free online classes for a bunch of languages, and I’ve actually been using them to keep working on my French. I think I like Livemocha better than Rosetta Stone, which is odd, because Livemocha is free. Livemocha also has a social networking aspect to it, and you can pay $12.95 for a travel crash course. I wish I had known about this before my trip, because a travel focused language course would have been a lot better for me than a general language course. Oh well, next time. If you are really serious about learning French, you might want to check out the Alliance Francaise which has a local St. Louis chapter. The Alliance Francaise offers a number of real life French courses, which are reasonably priced.

Okay, this is getting way to long, so here are my last bits of advice. I took over 1300 pictures, so make sure you have a big enough memory card. Also, have an extra camera battery to carry around with you. It would suck to have your camera battery run out half way through the day. Some people tried to talk me out of taking my computer on the trip, because some customs agents can get nosey or the computer could be stolen. I think this is silly though. Nobody ever even tried to look at my computer. I would make sure that you have a backup before you leave, and don’t have anything of a questionable nature on your computer (or camera, or cell phone, etc…). You might even want to encrypt your hard drive incase your computer is stolen. Also, make sure you have enough power adaptors before you leave, they have funny plugs in foreign countries, and of course make sure that you can plug your various electronics into a 220V socket.

I loved traveling to Europe, and I hope to go again soon. If I could go anywhere next, I would go to Italy. I even have the guide book already. Who wants to come with me?

You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is our last day in Paris, and the last day of the trip. Our only officially planned activity on this day was a wine tasting lunch, so we took it a little easy and tried to fit in some odds and ends. The wine tasting was at noon near the Louvre, so my plan was to start near the Musee de l’Armee to see Napolean’s tomb, and then walk by the Place de la Concorde through the Jardin des Tuileries to the wine tasting lunch. Here is a picture of Invalides which contains the Musee de l’Armee (museum of France’s armed forces) and Napoleon’s tomb. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to get to Napoleon’s tomb, so we just walked around courtyard in the building and moved on.   

On the way to the Place de la Concorde, I got this picture of the Eiffel tower. I love the way the Eiffel tower just pops up everywhere in Paris, it almost looks more impressive from a distance than up close.

While we were walking, we came across this marching band. Bastille Day was only few days away, so I am assuming that they had something to do with the Bastille Day festivities.

This is the Pont Alexandre III. The building in the background is the Grand Palais, which is a big glass roofed exhibition hall. We looked inside, but it appeared to be empty.

Here is the Place de la Concorde with the Luxor Oblisk. The Oblisk is originally from Egypt, and it is older than the city of Paris itself. I am assuming that the stands with the French flag canopy were built for Bastille Day. I wonder if this is where Sarkozy views the Bastille Day parade.

Here is the Fontaine des Mers in the Place de la Concorde.

Here is the Jardin des Tuileries, which is a garden/park that connects the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre. I believe it is also the site of a former palace, or something like that.

I liked this ferris wheel next to the Jardin des Tuileries. It’s not the London Eye, but it fits in well with the surroundings.

Our wine tasting lunch was in a wine cellar below a building across from the Louvre. This is the courtyard in that building. I thought it was cool, so I took it’s picture. I wish I had a picture of the steps down to the cellar. They were stone and twisty. It felt like we were going into a medieval dungeon.

Here is a picture of the wine cellar where we had our wine tasting lunch. In case you are wondering, we did the O Chateau wine and cheese tasting lunch. We tasted 5 wines (1 bubbly, 2 white, and 2 red) and we were also served a variety cheeses, meats, and bread. The sommelier told us a lot about the wine and the different wine producing regions of France. I don’t remember much of what he said, because well, there was a plate of cheese in front of me. One of the coolest parts of this tasting was that the other people in our group were from all over the world, but the tasting was in English, so they all spoke english. It was cool to be around such a geographically diverse group of people and be able to understand what they were saying. The wine itself was pretty good. I was hoping for life changingly great, but that might have been setting the bar a little too high. I almost hate to admit it, but to date the best glass of wine I have ever had was at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. The tasting did reaffirm that I like a good Bordeaux, so you know… if you are thinking of getting me a present.

After the wine tasting lunch, we headed to the Musee d’Orsay. This is another art museum like the Louvre, but with slightly newer (but not modern) art and it is not as huge as the Louvre. Here is a picture of the main hall in the Musee d’Orsay. I thought it was very impressive. Apparently, the building used to be a train station.

I like this polar bear. He would look good in my living room. I wonder how much he cost.

After the Musee d’Orsay, we had about 90 minutes left until the museums closed, so we hurried back to Invalides to see if we could find Napoleon’s tomb. It turns out that the entrance to Napoleon’s tomb is not inside the Musee de l’Armee, but it is inside this building, which we did not walk far enough to see earlier in the day.

I think this is Napoleon’s tomb, but I’m not sure. You see, there is another smaller tomb off to the side with Napoleon’s name on it, but this looks more like Napoleon’s tomb to me, so who knows. Maybe you do, if so, please leave a comment.

This alter was inside the building with Napoleon’s tomb. Very ornate.

After Napoleon’s tomb, we had some time to kill. I wanted to see the Eiffel tower with it’s lights on, which wouldn’t happen for another 4 hours, so we headed to the Champs-Elysees to have dinner and do some window shopping. Here is another shot of the Eiffel tower and the Seine river. You really need to see this in person, pictures just don’t do it justice.

Here is the Arc de Triomphe from the Champs-Elysees. Notice the Cartier store on the right.

There were a lot of automobile company stores on the Champs-Elysees. I don’t think they sold actual cars, but you could go inside and look at the different car models, which was cool. This is the Renault store.

Finally, we made it to the Parc du Champs de Mars to watch the lighting of the Eiffel tower. They turn the lights on at sunset, and in the summer, the sunset is very late in Paris. This night, the sunset was at 9:53 PM, and it didn’t really get dark until about 10:30. I think this is because most of continental Europe is on the same time zone, which puts France significantly to the west in it’s time zone. Longitudinally, France should really be in the same time zone as the United Kingdom. I like it light later though, so I’m not complaining. Now back to the lighting of the Eiffel tower, I swear I had seen pictures on TV of the Eiffel tower at night where it is covered in these sparkly camera flash like lights. I expected these lights to come on at sunset, but they did not, the tower just became illuminated with regular old interior lighting. I was confused, because a lot of people had gathered to watch the tower, and when the lights came on, they didn’t react, they just sat there like nothing had happened. I thought that maybe the sparkly lights would come on soon, but minutes went by and nothing happened. I wasn’t willing to wait forever, so at 10:00 PM, we got up to leave, and then boom! The sparkly lights came on. Apparently the sparkly lights only run for 5 minutes every hour after dark. Something about being green. Here is a video I took with my camera of the sparkly lights and the scene of people gathered to watch in the Parc du Champs de Mars.

And with that, the London & Paris adventure is pretty much over. I’ll leave you with this parting shot of the illuminated Eiffel tower on a summer evening in Paris.

This is the last real vacation post, but I still have one post left about my trip. I have some bits and pieces to throw in, and I want to answer a few questions like, which is better? London or Paris? and even more fun, how much did all of this cost? You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Today is going to be a long day, but we are focused on a single subject rather than trying to jam in as many different things as possible. Today we are traveling by train to Caen to go on a D-day tour. When I was planning this trip and I decided to take the day trip to Windsor, Bath, and Stonehenge in England (see day 3), I also started looking for day trips in France. My first thought was to take a trip to some type of winery, but I quickly stubbled across a bunch of D-day tours, and that seemed a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, most of these tours were bus tours, and Normandy is about 3 and a half hours from Paris by bus. The idea of being stuck on a bus with 50 other random people in a foreign country didn’t really appeal to me. Just when I was about to give up on the idea, I found these trips on LinkParis.com. On the Link Paris trips, you take a train to Caen. The train only takes 2 hours to get to Caen and it is way more comfortable than a bus. Plus the Link Paris trips are small group tours (like 8 people) rather than the 50 people on the bus tours.

Here is a picture of the Gare St. Lazare in Paris. This is the station where we caught our train to Caen. Of everything we did on our trip, this was the scariest part for me. There was very little English in this station. All of the overhead announcements were in French and only French. Fortunately finding the train was pretty easy. It helped to follow the random scattering of Americans trying to pronounce Caen. In case you are wondering, Caen is pronounced like “caa-uhn” but all one syllable. It’s more like a grunt than a word.

We arrived in Caen and met our tour guide. At first I thought she was British, because it kind of sounded like she had a British accent. Then she explained that she studied English for 8 years in England. Poor girl, the British taught her to talk funny Actually I enjoyed her accent a lot, maybe a little too much. Moving on… I think there were 8 people on our tour. A college student and his Mom from California, two women from Canada, a married couple from Michigan (I think), and of course my Aunt and I. The college student was traveling to Barcelona soon to tour Spain for 19 days. Note to self, in my next life, take advantage of the travel opportunities in college, they don’t happen later in life. After we all met up in the Caen train station, we got in the minivan and headed to the Caen Memorial Museum. The video on the museum’s web page gives a good overview of the tour we were on, and it is narrated by our tour guide, so you can hear her accent for yourself. Here is a picture of the museum’s lobby. I love that plane.

We were given a guided tour of the museum, which gave a good overview of the whole D-day operation. One of the exhibits in the museum contained letters written home by soldiers who fought in D-day. There were letters from American, Brittish, French, and German soldiers, which was cool, but I could only read the French and German letters because they were translated into English. They just assumed that if you spoke English, you would be able to read the 60 year old handwritten letter in English. Not so much. After the museum we saw a movie with real footage from D-day and had lunch in the museum’s restuarant. I had steak and frites, but it did not come with a sauce like the steak and frites at Le Relais de Venise would have. After lunch we had time to walk around the gardens behind the museum. There were American, English, and Canadian gardens. Below is a picture of the American garden. In case you didn’t know already, on the allies side during D-day, there were mainly American, British, and Canadian troops.

Here is the front of the Caen Memorial Museum. All those flags probably mean something, but I don’t know what that thing is.

This is a picture from the Longues-sur-mer battery of the remains of the Arromanches artificial harbor. This is where the British built an artificial harbor to move equipment into France. The structures you see in the water are the remains of this harbor.

Here is a gun at Longues-sur-mer that could be used to fire on the Omaha or Gold beaches.

Here is a gun bunker that was damaged. I wish I could say that this was damaged in battle, but I think our guide said that this damage happened after D-day. Apparently the allies stored ammunition in this bunker, and one day it um… amunized.

The next stop on the tour was the American cemetery overlooking Omaha beach. Omaha beach was also called Bloody Omaha. Around 1500 americans lost their life fighting on D-day, many of them on Omaha beach. Here is the view of Omaha beach from the American cemetery.

Here is a picture of the American flag over the American cemetery. This cemetery contains the graves of 9,387 American servicemen (and a few women). The American cemetery is considered American soil, although I’m not sure what that means. I think it means the United States owns the land and does not pay taxes on it. However, I’m pretty sure that if you commit a crime here, the French police will still arrest you, but I could be wrong. You probably want to ask something like, wasn’t being in this cemetery an overwhelming emotional experience? To which I must respond that if you think I’m going to share my emotions on this blog, you really don’t know me In all seriousness, we were only there for 45 minutes, and it was so visually stunning that I rushed around to make sure I got every possible picture. In other words, I didn’t really have time to process it all. I will say that it was very surreal to have such a distinctly American experience in France, and of course it was beyond humbling to think of the sacrifices made in this place by these men (and women).

This is a picture of an unknown soldier, and it might be my favorite picture from the entire trip. I hate to ruin the moment, but in this cemetery, the Christian soldiers get cross gravestones and the Jewish soldiers get star of david gravestones. Which makes sense, but the unknown soldiers all get crosses. Isn’t that a bit presumptuous? What if they are Jewish? or atheist? Okay, in war there probably aren’t many atheist, but you get my point. Oh!!!! that reminds me. As I was walking out of this cemetery, I heard a little girl ask her Dad something like, “Why does God let people fight wars and kill each other?” All I could think was, good luck with that dude. He had a pretty good answer though, something about free will and choices.

Here is another picture of the gravestones. I love the way you can see the Atlantic ocean in the background.

The cemetery is fairly big, and I felt sorry for the guy who was in the very back corner. I mean hardly anybody comes by to visit him, so I decided to take his picture and make him famous on my blog. Daniel J. Knapp, welcome to Roseyland!

Here is the reflecting pool and memorial area of the cemetery.

After the cemetery, we were taken to Omaha beach, which shockingly is no where near the city of Omaha. I tried to imagine what it would be like to see thousands of soldiers running on this beach with gunfire and motor blast everywhere, but it was hard. I mean it pretty much looks like any other beach, but colder.

Here is a picture of our tour guide (the woman). I have to admit, I had a little crush on her. First she had the whole French/British accent thing going on, but she was also a total history nerd and she obviously loved her job and meeting all the people who take the tour. It was also cool to be around a French person who wasn’t from Paris. I don’t know why, but she seemed different than a Parisian. Which I’m sure she was, but you wouldn’t think that as an american it would be noticeable. Of course this is probably all in my head, but it’s my story and I’m sticking to it

Here is the site of the first American cemetery on Omaha beach, which has since been moved to the American cemetery that we just saw.

This is la Pointe du Hoc, the sight of an army ranger assault on D-day. The army rangers had to scale these cliffs, while being shot at by the Germans, to reach the top and disable a few heavily fortified guns. It turns out the guns had been moved, but the rangers successfully took Pointe du Hoc none the less. This site is also considered american soil, but again, I’m not sure exactly what that means.   

This is the ground at Pointe du Hoc. It has been left pretty much the same since D-day. All of these craters are from allied bombing attempts to destroy the guns. Kind of makes you wish you could give them a few laser or GPS guided bombs, doesn’t it?

Here are are some of the German fortifications at Pointe du Hoc, which are all heavily damaged. While I was climbing around one of the bunkers, I came across a group of German tourist, which was kind of weird. I wonder what it’s like to be German and see something like this. I felt like they didn’t want me there, but that’s probably just my imagination.

After Pointe du Hoc, we were taken back to the Caen train station. We had some time, so my Aunt and I decided to eat at a local restaurant. This was a mini adventure in itself, because the waiter spoke virtually no English and the menu was of course only in French. I ordered the cheeseburger and my Aunt ordered fish and chips, which were the only things on the menu we could read. Before our entrees, the waiter brought us these. We started to eat it, but it didn’t taste right to me, and I became convinced that it was some type of condiment, and that we would look dumb if we ate it. So we stopped. It turned out we were supposed to eat it, and it is some form of beet juice. I don’t like beets. This was the only food I came across during our trip that I didn’t like.

I think this was my favorite day of the trip. Not only was the tour great and the D-day history amazing, but it was also great to see the French countryside. I definitely feel like I’ve experienced more of France by getting out of Paris for a day. Only one more full day left. Thank god, my feet hurt. Tomorrow we will try to see everything we haven’t yet seen in Paris. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.

Click here to read all of my London & Paris trip posts in proper order.

Welcome to day 6. You are probably a little tired of all this by now, but we still have a lot to see, so suck it up and let’s go. This is our first full day in Paris. I tried to learn a little French before going to Paris, and in the process, I started following a few Parisian Tweeters. One of the people I followed was @ParisHeather who runs the Secrets of Paris blog. Heather is an american travel writer who has lived in France for the past 11 years or so, and she also gives small group tours of Paris. On a whim, I signed us up for one of Heather’s walking tours. She gave us a quick tour of Ile de la Cite, which contains Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle, and the Conciergerie. Then we took the Batobus up and down the Seine, while Heather pointed out various landmarks, gave us tips, and told us stories about living in France/Paris. The tour ended with a walk through the St. Germain des Pres district and the Latin Quarter. I thought the tour was well worth the money. Beyond the tour itself, it was also nice to talk to an american who really knows Paris and could answer all of our silly tourist questions.

A quick side track. While searching for Parisian tweeters, I also found the Katia and Kyliemac blog/podcast. Katia and Kyliemac are an Australian and a Michigander (as in person from Michigan) who live in Paris. They have a podcast about their lives as expats and also shorter podcasts with tourist tips and quirky French phrases. If you are going to Paris, I strongly reccomend checking out the Katia and Kyliemac podcast. Their podcast is also good if you want to live vicariously though people whose lives are far more interesting than yours

Okay, enough talking, here is Notre Dame.

This is the inside of Notre Dame. Most of the churches we saw on our trip had rules against taking pictures inside, and Notre Dame was no different except that everyone ignored this rule. So I did too. Besides, I don’t speak French, how am I supposed to know what a picture of a camera inside a circle with a line through it means?

Here is Notre Dame from the side.

This is the Batobus that we took with Heather up and down the Seine. It’s a fun way to get around, and a cheap way to take a Seine river cruise. They even pretend to give onboard announcements in English.

This is a street in the St. Germain des Pres district. The streets here are narrow with lots of cafes and markets. We had excellent gelato and crepes in this area. One of Heather’s best pieces of advice was to try a banana and Nutella crepe. Nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread and it goes great with bananas. I had never heard of Nutella before, but it’s actually really easy to find in american grocery stores. It’s by the peanut butter. You can also try a Nutella banana crepe at the City Coffeehouse & Creperie in Clayton. As far as I could tell, the Clayton version taste as good as the French version, but it feels weird to eat a crepe on a plate. Crepes should really be street food.

Here is a video of the inside of Sainte Chapelle. I always forget that my camera can take these videos. It’s not the greatest quality, but it is a nice way to show more than you can in a single picture. Anyways, Sainte Chapelle is a chapel with amazing stained glass windows and it is located inside the Palais de Justice. The Palais de Justice contains the the head courts of France or something like that.

We spent the afternoon at the Louvre. Which of course is the world famous art museum. I’m not a huge art fan, but I love the Louvre simply because the building is amazing. In my opinion, even if you don’t like art, you must see the Louvre if you are in Paris. Here is a picture of the area outside the Louvre, notice the glass pyramid in the background.

Here is Mary Magdalene’s tomb inside the Louvre.

Here is a hall inside the Louvre. This space was amazing.

Here is the Mona Lisa. There were only about 1000 people trying to take her picture.

Another hall in the Louvre. See the sculpture through the entryway in the distance. It’s famous. I don’t remember what it is, but lot’s of people were taking its picture. Here is a closer look from my flickr set.

I think my favorite art in the Louvre was the Egyptian art. If you know me, you shouldn’t be surprised that I liked this cat.

Here is a sphinx. This is a good example of what I think is so great about the Louvre. They don’t just throw a bunch of art into a big building, they make sure that the space complements the art inside it. It’s hard to describe, but you really should see it someday.

Here is the entrance to the Louvre under the big glass pyramid.

This was my favorite room inside the Louvre. It’s a courtyard covered by a glass roof with sculptures everywhere. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was amazing.

Here is the famous Louvre glass pyramid up close.

Another picture of the area outside the Louvre.

After the Louvre, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower. Here is a picture of the Pont Neuf and the Ile de la Cite in the Seine. I wish you could stick your head inside this picture and look around. The scenery is tres impressive.

Here is the Eiffel Tower as seen from across the Seine on the Palais de Chaillot. I would have loved to go up the Eiffel Tower, but in the summer the lines are hours long. I wasn’t willing to waste that much time. Next time I will go to Paris in the off season. From here we walked down underneath the Eiffel Tower to the park on the other side. There are a lot of those immigrants selling miniature Eiffel Towers in this area, especially on the bridge across the Seine. When we were crossing the bridge, the Police came by to do a sweep, and they all went running. It was crazy, like 100 people went running in all different directions, and they were fast. I didn’t see the police even try to catch them though, it’s like they just wanted to scare them or something.

Here is a view of the Eiffel Tower from the Parc du Champ de Mars. People like to have picnics here and they gather in this park before sunset to see the Eiffel Tower’s lights turn on.

Only two days left. Tomorrow might be my favorite day of the trip. We take the train to Caen in Normandy and tour various D-day related sights. You will love it. You can see more pictures and a few videos from my trip here.