Day (?-?): Portsmouth, Normandy, Etc.
It's been, I think, three days since I've last updated this thing. Mostly because I've been travelling or doing stuff non-stop. We took a train to Portsmouth on Monday and had the world's most intense taxi driver EVER. German efficiency, my friends...German efficiency. The trip to Portsmouth was probably the most typical ride through England's countryside that you could possibly imagine - lots of fluffy animals running about in oversized, overgreen fields, probably crawling with hoof & mouth or mad cow disease. There were tons of slummy areas that were in industrial sectors - all of which still had scars from bombing raids in WWII. Further towards Portsmouth, however, there is nothing but trees and countryside. Quite enjoyable. Quite nondescript. Ellis and I pass the time by playing Texas Hold-Em - the stakes being pints of beer. I start out 3 pints up, end up 14 pints down. I am in deep deep shit. I have already blown a fuck-ton of money in England buying food while I venture all over. I refuse to eat any more fish & chips/bangers & mash.
We arrive in Portsmouth and look at the H.M.S. Victory and other circa-1800 war ships. My dad is obsessed with wartime relics, and these are no different. Unfortunately, we are situated in this port-side mini mall that has completely hidden any semblance of historic importance. I am surrounded by Vans, Puma, and Virgin outlets and it makes me sad. There are even a whole bunch of BARS here (not pubs - motherfucking bars) that are like a totally beefed up Red Room. Not only are they the most insignificantly named things on the Earth (Ha Ha!, Tiger Tiger - apparently, the trend is to name the first thing you can think of and write it down twice), but they are apparently where British scenesters hang out. If you thought American scenesters/hipsters were unbelievably fucking generic, you can only imagine how much more they must be here. Think fashion mullets and faux-hawks on EVERYBODY, the same white belts, and EVERYBODY wears pink. It depresses me that I travelled 7,000 miles to see the same people I see back home. It's even worse when they're twice as snobby. Either way, we left this hell-hole (mall area, not the REAL Portsmouth - which I enjoyed thoroughly) the next morning on a Brittany Ferry (that was actually a hydroplane) across the fattest part of the English Channel. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is half the normal time. As we're leaving Portsmouth, I see tons of cathedrals and rustic remnants of Victorian housing districs and it pisses me off that I didn't get out of the mall.
We step off the ferry to an armed French soldier at the customs gate. He keeps flipping the safety on his assault rifle and I want to reach over and slap the shit out of him because my nerves are so shot from constant travelling. However, he doesn't stop, and I'm sure the rifle is a fake - just like the rest of the French Army (OH!), so we exit and hop a ride to our hotel - The Ambassadeur. It's around 8PM here (for some reason, time is an hour later here - thus furthering the time-warping effect) so we get dinner at a Crepperie across the street. We get some of the meanest mad-dogging thus far and a group of 20-something girls refuses to sit next to us, which turns into a blessing because they chain smoke the entire meal. I think it's because Ellis is wearing complete surf attire and I'm wearing an England long-sleeve soccer jersey that I bought before leaving Portsmouth. I'm glad I didn't buy the England cricket shorts...
We stay until early the next morning, when we begin our trip towards the Normandy beaches. We rent the most hideous car ever (a Renault station wagon that operates by a service card instead of a key and has airline-like tray tables in the back) and head towards Utah beach first. I understand after visiting why this was the easiest beach to storm on D-Day - it is about ten feet long, it has no treacherous hills to climb, the allies actually landed at the right place, and there are two visible German bunkers. It is thoroughly unimpressive and my mom does the tourist thing and gets some Utah Beach sand in a film canister. She's still intent on calling attention to us. Next is Point du something-or-other (I'm tired...it's in-between Utah & Omaha Beach) and start to understand the sheer ridiculousness of what WWII troops were expected to do. The entire walk up to the cliffs is completely shelled out and riddled by 25-foot diameter craters from previous bombing runs. What isn't completely pulled out of the ground is pulled out of the concrete bunkers - as many of them are completely leveled. Considering these were 20 feet of solid concrete embedded into the cliffside and are - for the most part - reduced to gravel makes me sick. Most amazingly, the Army Rangers climbed a 200-foot cliff from the base of the cliff using grappling hooks, simply to check and clear out German soldiers. It sounds/looks/is a suicide mission and being among these giant craters and rubble is honestly haunting.
We go to Omaha Beach and the American cemetary there. Like every other American war cemetary - frighteningly precise, perfectly groomed, and clean. It's too similar to Arlington and doesn't capture any bit of the French scenery. There is a walk down the one or two miles to the beach (which we drive) and there are still remains of German bunkers in the cliff-face. Mom makes me grab Omaha Beach sand. Frenchies stare at me. We spend the rest of the day looking at bunkers in the side of lush, green hills and can only imagine how bare they must have been 60 years ago. Everything is populated, the beaches are normal beaches, and the towns along the water look just like Monterey. The artificial harbor they created out of concrete pylons and sunken ships is still slightly visible and is the only clue into its past. We're staying at some totally posh golf-club resort just north of Omaha Beach, and it's hard to believe some of the most disgusting fighting during WWII happened around here. I'm tired, this isn't interesting anymore, I'm just babbling, and I have to get up early to swim laps and have mimosas (a rough life, I know). We have no real time-table for the rest of our trip - we just head through Germany and anywhere else we want until we have a hotel reservation in Paris early next week. Then back to England through the chunnel, and then back home. More when I can get to Internet cafes.
-Bryant
We arrive in Portsmouth and look at the H.M.S. Victory and other circa-1800 war ships. My dad is obsessed with wartime relics, and these are no different. Unfortunately, we are situated in this port-side mini mall that has completely hidden any semblance of historic importance. I am surrounded by Vans, Puma, and Virgin outlets and it makes me sad. There are even a whole bunch of BARS here (not pubs - motherfucking bars) that are like a totally beefed up Red Room. Not only are they the most insignificantly named things on the Earth (Ha Ha!, Tiger Tiger - apparently, the trend is to name the first thing you can think of and write it down twice), but they are apparently where British scenesters hang out. If you thought American scenesters/hipsters were unbelievably fucking generic, you can only imagine how much more they must be here. Think fashion mullets and faux-hawks on EVERYBODY, the same white belts, and EVERYBODY wears pink. It depresses me that I travelled 7,000 miles to see the same people I see back home. It's even worse when they're twice as snobby. Either way, we left this hell-hole (mall area, not the REAL Portsmouth - which I enjoyed thoroughly) the next morning on a Brittany Ferry (that was actually a hydroplane) across the fattest part of the English Channel. It took 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is half the normal time. As we're leaving Portsmouth, I see tons of cathedrals and rustic remnants of Victorian housing districs and it pisses me off that I didn't get out of the mall.
We step off the ferry to an armed French soldier at the customs gate. He keeps flipping the safety on his assault rifle and I want to reach over and slap the shit out of him because my nerves are so shot from constant travelling. However, he doesn't stop, and I'm sure the rifle is a fake - just like the rest of the French Army (OH!), so we exit and hop a ride to our hotel - The Ambassadeur. It's around 8PM here (for some reason, time is an hour later here - thus furthering the time-warping effect) so we get dinner at a Crepperie across the street. We get some of the meanest mad-dogging thus far and a group of 20-something girls refuses to sit next to us, which turns into a blessing because they chain smoke the entire meal. I think it's because Ellis is wearing complete surf attire and I'm wearing an England long-sleeve soccer jersey that I bought before leaving Portsmouth. I'm glad I didn't buy the England cricket shorts...
We stay until early the next morning, when we begin our trip towards the Normandy beaches. We rent the most hideous car ever (a Renault station wagon that operates by a service card instead of a key and has airline-like tray tables in the back) and head towards Utah beach first. I understand after visiting why this was the easiest beach to storm on D-Day - it is about ten feet long, it has no treacherous hills to climb, the allies actually landed at the right place, and there are two visible German bunkers. It is thoroughly unimpressive and my mom does the tourist thing and gets some Utah Beach sand in a film canister. She's still intent on calling attention to us. Next is Point du something-or-other (I'm tired...it's in-between Utah & Omaha Beach) and start to understand the sheer ridiculousness of what WWII troops were expected to do. The entire walk up to the cliffs is completely shelled out and riddled by 25-foot diameter craters from previous bombing runs. What isn't completely pulled out of the ground is pulled out of the concrete bunkers - as many of them are completely leveled. Considering these were 20 feet of solid concrete embedded into the cliffside and are - for the most part - reduced to gravel makes me sick. Most amazingly, the Army Rangers climbed a 200-foot cliff from the base of the cliff using grappling hooks, simply to check and clear out German soldiers. It sounds/looks/is a suicide mission and being among these giant craters and rubble is honestly haunting.
We go to Omaha Beach and the American cemetary there. Like every other American war cemetary - frighteningly precise, perfectly groomed, and clean. It's too similar to Arlington and doesn't capture any bit of the French scenery. There is a walk down the one or two miles to the beach (which we drive) and there are still remains of German bunkers in the cliff-face. Mom makes me grab Omaha Beach sand. Frenchies stare at me. We spend the rest of the day looking at bunkers in the side of lush, green hills and can only imagine how bare they must have been 60 years ago. Everything is populated, the beaches are normal beaches, and the towns along the water look just like Monterey. The artificial harbor they created out of concrete pylons and sunken ships is still slightly visible and is the only clue into its past. We're staying at some totally posh golf-club resort just north of Omaha Beach, and it's hard to believe some of the most disgusting fighting during WWII happened around here. I'm tired, this isn't interesting anymore, I'm just babbling, and I have to get up early to swim laps and have mimosas (a rough life, I know). We have no real time-table for the rest of our trip - we just head through Germany and anywhere else we want until we have a hotel reservation in Paris early next week. Then back to England through the chunnel, and then back home. More when I can get to Internet cafes.
-Bryant