Moments by the sea

The beach in Dieppe...

The thing about the ocean, is that it can inspire me for anything. After being by the ocean for a few minutes, I always feel as though I could write any book I could think of, and I've thought of many! 62 and counting, my friends, that's how many story ideas I've started! (Finished, well, that's a different story entirely...I've finished 11. Don't judge me.)

Lest we forget...

I got to spend some time in Dieppe, Normandie in the north of France for the past five days, and it has been a grand and fantastic experience. What with them having Canadian themed areas all over the place because the beach was where the Canadians landed during in an attempt to free the people from the Nazis, and the fact that it was the 70th anniversary of that landing while we were there, made the whole trip pretty downright fantastic. Canadian flags, flapping all over the place or patterned out in flower beds - quite the sight for a Canadian who has been away from Canada for now over a year (the 8th of July was the one year "anniversary" of sorts). We were quite ecstatic at the sight, my family and I.

My country's flag.

Aside from that piece of awesomeness, Dieppe is an altogether beautiful city, and the beach is absolutely gorgeous, when the sun decides to show itself. There's a lot of clouds there - especially while we were visiting - and it gets really windy, so that put a small bit of a damper on things, but in the end, the trip was fabulous and I enjoyed every minute of it. I'd love to go back, just to walk on the rocky beach. The water was shimmering and amazing, it seemed to stretch on forever, and if you imagine that it does keep going, on and on and on with no end, it's a pretty cool thought. At least for me.

Walks on the beach, sights of Canadian flags, going by the marina every day for five days to get to our friends house for meals, five straight days chock-full of awesomeness.

Maybe you can tell that I've been feeling slightly company deprived recently, and all this people action is making me unbelievably content...yeah, it's not that obvious, is it?

Furthermore, the experience was topped with a cherry when we went out for dinner on the last night of our stay. We went to a little restaurant called Le New Haven - I know what you're thinking: "Those silly French, putting their French article in front of two English words. Why not just use "the"?" Well, I actually have an answer for you. It's simple, really: "Le" sounds so much cooler. It's the French way. Make English tiles sound totally epic by adding a French article or word at the beginning, or end, or even in the middle if it fits right. The French have truly perfected the art of "Franglais", as we like to call it. It's fun being bilingual, when it gets right down to it...

Finished dish of Mussels

Anyhow, Le New Haven is a sea food restaurant - considering the location of the Atlantic in proportion to Dieppe, it makes sense that it would be - and as such I decided that I would have to eat sea food, rather than ordering the omelette, which was the one item on the menu that did not having something fishy about it. I ended up sharing a menu with a friend, an excellent idea since the menu was comprised of four courses and I never would have finished it by myself, and neither would my friend. First course, as expertly photographed and illustrated on the right there, was mussels. Understand my excitement: I had never ever, ever, ever, ever tried mussels before that meal. In fact, I had seen someone eat them when I was a young child and I had thought to myself: "Never. Never in my life will anyone even be able to shove that monstrosity down my gullet. Over my. Dead. Body. And nobody feeds a dead body. So never."

But, alas! My childish dreams were not meant to last, for I have officially demolished that idea from my brain. Mussels are delicious, meant to be gobbled up and tasted and savoured and-and-and-and- I could go on. They were so delish, and I will end my description there (lathered in a cream sauce, they were, my dears. These cooks knew what they were doing.).

Next! Course number two, another item of food that I had not tried before. I may have tried it once...but I was so young I had no recollection of it, so it was a new thing for me. And - drum roll, please - it was duck! Yes! A duck leg! Ta-da!

Duck leg

Once again, this part of the meal was absolutely scrumptious. Delish. Wonderful. Beautiful. Delicious, and tender, and greasy, and so freaking good. And you want to know something?

It did not taste like chicken.

Maybe it did a little,  but seriously, there is a difference, and if you tried it you would be able to tell. Different, and terribly, temptingly scrumptious.

I do believe duck is a French thing. You don't hear of many people eating duck in Canada or the USA, ducks are creatures that swim in the lakes at the park across the street, the swim with their ducklings trailing behind them, cute and fuzzy, and people freaking feed them bread! Fatten them up, and cook 'em! That's what you Westerners should be doing! Or are you saving ducks for when every other species is extinct because of the damage to the planet, and they'll last you for a while longer? I guess that works too, but you should all have some duck meat sometime in your life! Totally worth it!

And as we're on the topic of French foods, I will move on to the next course, the very French course, the cheese course.

The official cheese from Normandie

Now, as I am under-age, I therefore cannot drink wine, so no, I did not have win with my cheese course, but what I can say, is that I had official French cheese, Normandie cheese, actually, and I had it on fresh French Baguette. That's right. That wonderful bread that people wearing berets, riding bicycles, wearing striped shirts and suspenders carry around town with them, that famous bread that everyone seems to be so envious of.

I eat Baguette quite often, actually...weekly, in fact. They don't sell much western bread - you know the loaves you buy in the grocery store that you are so familiar with, they come in those plastic bags, and unless you buy the right kind, they taste like cardboard? Yeah, the French don't really sell much of that. They do, it's just that they have a very limited selection. Rather, they buy their fresh Baguette from the bakery down the street. Everyone does, just about. It's common, it's wonderful, it's delicious, and it's one of those things that makes living here pretty darn awesome (and yes, you know I'm just bragging to make myself feel better, but you can just ignore that part, so it's all okay).

And lest I waste more time, I shall present to you the final item on the menu of delish and scrumptiousness that I ingested into my system.

Poire Melba

Dessert! Allow me to paint you a picture of words: a perfectly rounded scoop of creamy ice cream, three perfectly formed splashes of whipped cream, pears laid into the bottom of the plate in a crimson red sauce, and finally, a few slivers of almonds sprinkled on top. All of this inlaid into a white dish, and set before us with grace, by a French waiter wearing a tux. Basically. He was wearing a white shirt, black bow-tie, black pants, black shoes. Close enough, just without the top jacket.

And the dessert: splashes, sparkles, explosions of beautiful tastes, erupting on your taste buds, filling your whole mouth, forcing you to close your eyes from the pleasure. 

Look at me, right now, right in the eye, and tell me that you wouldn't like that.

If you hate pears, maybe I'd understand. If you hated whipped cream or ice cream or almonds, you could ask them to hold them and to simply serve you the pears in the sauce. I have never had a more pleasant restaurant experience in my life. And by pleasant, I mean amazing, fantastic, sublime.

Imagine yourself leaving the restaurant, your stomach as full as it can get, feeling enormously satisfied (and enormous in size, naturally), and then you get to walk to your car parked in the seaside parking lot, and you get to see the sight of the sun setting orange on the horizon, far, far away, as far as the sea stretches, as far as the eye can see.

Dieppe, Normandie beach at sunset (10:?? pm)

If I had a better camera, a tripod, and if it hadn't been past 10 at night at the time, I definitely would have taken a much better and more professional picture of the beauty of that sunset. But as it were, this is as good as I could do in a rush to get back to the hotel and sleep before we'd have to travel home the next day. I still didn't get to bed until around midnight, and then I didn't get to sleep until later because my younger brother and I were sharing a room and we kept hitting each other and laughing our heads off...yeah...tiring, but a lot of fun, and totally worth it. If there was an offer, I would return in a heartbeat. That is one place that I would not get tired of quickly at all. Daily strolls on the beach, all the inspiration I could wish for, the sight of a castle on a cliff whenever I felt the need to look at one...

The Castle on the cliff in Dieppe...saw it every day.

Indeed...that would be the life. I will have to satisfy myself with believing that I may be able to return one day, and thinking of all the other places I will yet have the opportunity to see in the future.


As a very good friend of mine encouraged me to remember: Wide horizons!

Lest we forget...

A week of pure joy

View looking down from the third level.

Stephanie, Zach, and myself on the third level  of the tower.

I don't think I've ever had as much fun in Paris as I did this past week. We had guests staying over from Monday to Friday - the Beck family, minus Alexander, sadly :'( We had a lot of catching up to do with Steph, though! Crazy times, man. First day, we did mounds of touring! So freaking awesome, but it was super tiring, too. I don't think that I've ever done that many sets of stairs in one day in my entire life. We took the metro to the Arc-de-Triomphe, took a couple pictures, then got back on the metro and went to the Eiffel Tower, where we climbed over 600 stairs to get to the second level. Then we lined up for the elevator for level three, took it up, and saw that fantastic view.
We descended the tower, and when I got to the bottom, my legs were actually shaking from all the stairs...fun times. Then we went, got back on the metro, and went to Notre Dame Cathedral, took a walk through that, and then on to Sacre-Coeur, where we took a couple pictures of a crazy-talented guy with a soccer ball (shown below). He was awesome! Maybe a little egotistic when he took off his shirt, but his soccer-juggling skills were a-ma-zing!!!!!
After Sacre-Coeur we went to a cafe, had a little refresher, and headed back home for the day. That was the most tourist-filled day I have ever experienced, and IT-WAS-AWESOME.

Day after that, Tuesday, we went out with plans to go to see the Catacombs later on in the day, but we never ended up getting around to it because we got there too late and it was closing...a little disappointing, but the day was still fun! It's the people that make the experience what it is!
Thursday was the next big day! Versailles! The monstrous collection of gardens outside that terribly flashy château. A little too glittery for my tastes, but still pretty darn cool. We didn't go inside, because the line-up wound around for the longest time and we knew that it would be ages before we got in, and everyone said that they were satisfied with just seeing the gardens, so...it was great! Besides the scantily clad statues, it was quite gorgeous out there! I can't imagine how much time it would take for them to take care of those gardens, to manicure every bush, hedge, and shrub, to water and care for every patch of flowers, to mow the lawns and keep maintenance of the fountains! I cannot imagine the

 work they would have to go through! It's fabulous, the things people will do for tourists...
But I appreciate the work to the fullest! I thank you fabulous workers for the effort you put in to this beautiful tourist-hotspot! Thank you! Merci beaucoup! Danke-schön! Arigato-Gozaimasu! Gracias! Grazié! Shokran! Abrigado! The languages in which I could express my thanks, to my knowledge, are limited to there, but if I knew any others, I would surely say them!

Anyways, Friday was the mark of a new day. Our guests departed (I miss you already! :( Come back soon!), and Dieppe, Normandy was set as our destination of the day! Packing, travel, a walk on the beach and through part of the town, and then a little tea at the cafe with an ocean-front view made for a fabulous afternoon, and then on to a wonderful dinner with some friends.
Here in Dieppe, they're getting ready to celebrate the 70th anniversary of when the Canadian commando unit was sent to storm the beaches here, but were unfortunately slaughtered. Us Canadians, we're quite appreciated in this area, and we really enjoyed seeing Canadian flags all over the place, even flowers were planted in the pattern of our wonderful red and white maple leaf flag! Beautiful! I was definitely filled with a sense of pride and joy for my homeland. True appreciation, right there, my friends.
I speak the truth: it has been a very good day.

Happy travels!