“All right class, pack your bags, because we are going to France!
As if study abroad couldn’t get any cooler, we, the IP students of Lausanne, recently got to take a week off from classes to take an adventurous field trip to Normandy, France.
To be honest, as a teenage girl, history lessons about WWII are not exactly my forte (though I could tell you all about the 2005 war that was Angelina Jolie vs. Jennifer Aniston over Brad Pitt). So for those of you reading this who are unsure of the significance of Normandy, let me give you a five second summary.
In what is now known as D-Day, on June 6, 1944, allied troops, including the United States, landed on the shores of Normandy and invaded German enemy lines. Though thousands of our soldiers died
in the invasion, their courageous act led to the final victory over the Nazis in WWII in May 1945.
So basically, a visit to Normandy is a dream come true for any history buff. The city is full of museums, monuments, memorials, and statues all related to that enormously significant era.
During the course of our week, we toured the WWII museum (you have to do something educational on a field trip after all) and walked the shores of Omaha Beach (which was really cool – literally. It was only about 40 degrees plus wind chill). We stopped by the house of a famous painter – Monet. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, you probably would recognize his legendary painting of blurry lily pads…which as it turns out are in his backyard (art really does imitates life I suppose). We also visited Mount St. Michel, or as my friends and I now refer to it, Hogwarts. But seriously though – the castle looks like it is straight out of Harry Potter. If JK Rowling didn’t base Hogwarts’s architecture off this place, then I will eat my beret.
Time to get serious though. The best part of the trip was definitely experiencing the Normandy Memorial. The site simply took my breath away. In the drizzling rain, overlooking the beach shores where our soldiers fought so bravely, we were surrounded by hundreds of small white crosses that mark their loss of life in the D-Day landings. The beautifully stoic monument served as a backdrop to the American flag as it proudly billowed in the wind and the national anthem played. I even had the distinct honor of placing a red rose on a soldier’s grave during a memorial service. I will never forget the words written on the cross, which marked the spot of the unidentified hero: “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms, known but to God.” I have never felt more proud to be an American than at that moment, nor more touched by the courage of our troops.
I suppose studying abroad is sneaky like that…. I went on a rendezvous through France, and ended up learning more in one day than I have in all my years of history class.
Well played Pepperdine, well played. 😉
