Day 4

It's now Monday the seventh of September, and I had to wake up at six to get to the train station at seven to meet Shelly. I met her at a clock sculpture in front of Gare Saint-Lazare. There was a big old looking clock on the station itself but there was also this tall sculpture of many clocks bending and twisting together. It was a good idea for a meeting place. We got tickets easily and I even got a small discount for being young. On the train we got a room with a table, that we shared with a young couple and child. The ride was smooth and I got to write on the computer for most of the trip. Shelly read a book that my aunt had me give her. The two hour ride was very easy, except when we had to play the ignorant tourist card for not validating our tickets. The attendant was nice enough not to fine us. We were quite hungry when we got to Deauville, so we went across the street and had some breakfast or lunch. We had cafe auit lait and croque missieur, but the latter was overcooked and not great. Shelly later said things like, "not a good introduction to croque missieur." I still ate mine and half of Shelly's. The bus to Honfleur was really quite fun, since the roads were very narrow. We were a battleship amongst fishing boats. Any time the bus went around a turn or had to share the road, I thought something bad was going to happen. At one point we followed a biker very closely up a shallow hill and then passed him. I could only imagine the rider's thoughts, "don't mess up, don't mess up." Honfleur was much nicer than I expected, and had much better food than Deauville.

Scenery on train to Deauville

Deauville Harbor

We walked to the little harbor and sat at a cafe, that we would revisit throughout the day. My aunt and uncle met us there and we began our walk around the town. My uncle was very excited to take pictures, which was part of the reason they had come to the town. We bought a tour guide to the historic sites in the town and began about half way through the tour. The buildings in this area were very old, the streets very narrow and the shops very cute. The first stop was Saint Catherine's church, which had a very strange looking bell tower next to it. We went to a museum of a painter named Bodin. Every painting in the museum was of Honfleur or of the surrounding areas. There were beach scenes, harbor scenes, and scenes in the towns. My aunt and I agreed that is was neat to see so many different interpretations of the same area. Each painter had a slightly different style, but their subjects were very similar. One funny part about this beautiful town is that across the water of the Seine there is a large port. The opposite shore was many container cranes, liquid containers, and some big industrial buildings. It really looked like Jersey when you drive through Staten Island, but it might have smelled better. We left the museum having a good feel for what life used to be like in Honfleur, and an idea about why so many painters had gone there. The snapshots of life in these beach towns, that were captured in these painting, were very different from the tourist crowd we saw on the streets. They showed people relaxing on the beach, stormy waters, and wooden masted ships.

Looking out at the harbor

Looking back at Honfleur harbor

Street in Honfleur

We were getting very tired, but we pushed on. We decided to split up: the men going for a longer walk, and the women heading back into town. We walked a while to a beach and then up a hill back toward the town. There were several very old beautiful houses on this path. Jon had to stop and take pictures through or over fences. There were a couple very old looking farms; one was probably a house, while the other was probably a hotel. We finally got back to town and regrouped at the cafe we had met at in the morning. The plan was to have dinner at five thirty, and then take a bus at seven back to the train.

Sainte-Catherine Church bell tower

View of Seine and Le Havre from a beach near Honfleur

I had a really funny time with Shelly this whole week. It's really an adventure when travelling or spending time with her. When we were going from Deauville to Honfleur we almost got on the wrong bus. When I was holding the tickets she kept asking if I had the tickets. It's good that she was making sure, but after a while it got silly, so we both had a laugh about it. On the train home she was very antsy so we almost got off at the wrong stop. Then when we were waiting for the transfer to come we almost got on the wrong train. Another time she suggested we go to the place where I got a twelve dollar beer. Her thought was that no matter where we went lunch would be twenty. I said, "are you sure are you sure." She said "yes, yes." When we got there she looked at the menu and said, “this place is expensive.” Still it was only the main dishes that were expensive. I got a delicious pasta entree (starter), penee in fromage sauce and roe. In Honfleur we almost sat to have a drink outside a place but luckily I checked the menu, since every main course was over thirty euro. I had a very good time with her, despite some near mishaps.

Our plan to go to dinner at five thirty did not work out. Earlier in the day when we were at the cafe we kept revisiting, we had all sat and listened as Shelly made reservations for dinner at five thirty. Somehow there was some sort of miscommunication, and the restaurant was actually not even open until seven. We found this out at five thirty when we talked to the head chef.

We decided to return to the first place we had gone. The place where we had lunch, dinner, cafe, and after dinner drinks. We also at one point sat down and then left without ordering. I hate doing that, except when there is a good reason, like at the place that denied us the bathroom.

We were both exhausted when we got on the bus, but there was a pretty girl there that I kept meeting eyes with. For this part of the ride we had to transfer trains, but when we got to the station there was no train. We waited for almost an hour before the train came. The conductor told my travel buddy that a child had been killed falling into the train tracks, and that it had taken two and a half hours to resolve. The train came and zipped us quietly back to Gare Saint-Lazare and got me in bed shortly after.

This was the longest day of the trip so far, aside from the trip from New York. That reminds me, I was so tired on Friday that I can't really remember where we went that morning. Turns out that we had walked through Luxembourg gardens at some point. Similar to the trip from home, traveling to Honfleur took a total of seven hours, and we were up for about eighteen hours.