Normandy on D-Day

When we found out that we would be spending the week at a timeshare outside of Paris, one of the first thing that we thought of doing was going to the beaches of Normandy on the 69-year anniversary of D-Day! Our timeshare was only about three hours away from Caen which is the biggest train station in that area. From there we thought we could take a bus and make our way to the coast. The morning before, we talked to a couple from New Zealand that told us about a shuttle that takes you from our timeshare all the way to the bigger train station, Val de Reuil, which is 8 miles away. The best part is that it also only costs one euro per person! The country, or maybe the region of Normandy, had subsidized this shuttle service because there is no public transportation where our timeshare was located. Why in the world would the front desk not tell us that within the first four days of our stay and us asking what we can do??? That made all of us annoyed to say the least. At the same time we found out that the shuttle doesn't run at the time we expected to return, so we reserved a taxi to pick us up at 8:45 to take us back. The woman at the front desk, Anna, the same one who gave us attitude about not renting a car, the same one who didn't tell us about the shuttle service, wrote down our reservation for a taxi and said she would call for us. So all was well! Or so we thought....

We woke up and made our way to the gate to be picked up by the shuttle. Everything was smooth in the morning. We made our way to Caen and found exactly the bus we needed to get to the ocean. We weren't exactly sure which beach we would be arriving at, but we figured that no matter where we went there would be things to see. 

It turns out that we went to a beach that was invaded by Canadian and British forces, but still on D-Day. It was interesting to see the beaches and how at the end of the beach there were cliffs. I couldn't help but think about how the Germans would just sit up there waiting with their guns. It was sad to imagine what chaos went down 69 years ago. And another part of the beach that really caught my attention was how shallow the water was for a long ways out. I guess that allowed for the boat/tank vehicles that carried the men to get closer to the cliffs. The beach that we were at only had a few other people visiting so we decided to walk down the beach to see if we could see anything else. We ended up walking about two miles down the coast only to realize that we were too far east of the famous Omaha beach. We climbed up from the beach to the main road to find a couple tours of army jeeps driving people around, probably stopping at all of the famous beaches. 

By the time we walked all the way back to the bus stop, we had only a few minutes to check out a memorial that we missed because we walked straight to the beach. It talked about the British and Canadian support. I only wish that we could have gone to the actual beaches that we wanted to go to, but we had to get back or we would be staying in Caen for the night. 

Everything was smooth getting back to Val de Reuil, where we expected to wait for 15 minutes until our taxi arrived to take us back to our timeshare. 9:00 rolled around and all three of us wanted to scream at Anna, the front desk woman who had given us all sorts of problems during our stay. All of the other workers were incredibly nice and helpful. All but Anna. So AGAIN, we were 8 miles from our timeshare, at 9:00 at night and no way of getting back to our timeshare quickly. Our options were to either take the bus one mile and walk the rest, or take the train back to Rouen, and hope to take a taxi to our timeshare for €60, running the risk of being 20 miles from our timeshare and there not being any taxis. So we played it safe and got on the bus and walked almost the rest of the way. We were about two miles from our timeshare, completely worn out, when a car finally stopped to pick us up. At this point, we figured there were three of us and so tired that hitch hiking wouldn't be that bad. We were picked up by a man in a Volkswagen station wagon named Ego. He had just had his first daughter so the back of his car had a car seat and other toys. He apologized for the mess but we were all so grateful for him picking us up. A funny line that he said, in broken English, was that Kyle and I were lucky we were walking with a beautiful girl or else he probably wouldn't have stopped. Creepy, but also funny at the same time.  By the time we got back to our timeshare  we had thanked Ego about 100 times, but still had the annoyance of Anna on our minds. We put down our things and walked straight down to the front desk to complain. And wouldn't you know it, guess who was working? Anna! She was on the phone and there was another woman working who asked if she could help and I said no I need to talk to Anna. Anna knew something was wrong because while on the phone she said no talk to her co-worker. I didn't budge. I wanted to just blow up on her and tell her what a crappy time we had whenever we had to interact with her but I stayed calm and tried to speak with reason to her. I asked her if we were supposed to be notified if she wasn't going to call a taxi and told her the story of what had just happened. And instead of apologizing, she tried to cover her tracks by saying that we were supposed to come back down in the morning and re-reserve our taxi.... Are you kidding me?? How much sense does that make. She told us that she told us that, but all three of us never heard her say that. At that moment I lost my cool started yelling at her about lying to Her customers and all sorts of things. What happened next surprised even me and took me aback from already being mad. Instead of trying to calm me down or talk to me, or simply apologize for the misunderstanding, she started giving us attitude back and asking us all sorts of conniving questions like why didn't we rent a car? When we had already talked about how it was too expensive and she just kept giving us attitude. Her attitude was something I have never experienced with a concierge at a hotel. Her job is to help us with any questions we have and to be a mediator to our needs. I just yelled at her saying "I don't need your attitude right now!" It was so unbelievable that all we did was ask for her supervisor, who of course was on vacation, got his card and left. After telling Sarah's mom about the whole ordeal, she wanted to Skype with Anna through Sarah's phone to rip her a new one, but by the time we went back down to the front desk, Anna had left for the night and all that remained was the nicest lady of the workers. We wanted to complain, but everyone else had been so nice that it wasn't even worth it to complain to the nicest worker. Sarah's mom wrote a nasty email to the supervisor so we will see what happens next.....