Vacances Normand - Day 1



Jen and I (I hate using this proper english grammar structure) went to Normandy in the west of France for 5 days and 4 nights.  Normandy is famous for it's cheese, milk, cows, butter, apples, cider, farms, and coastline.  Also my Canon 5D mark II is dead!  Error 30 code, it won't take any photos.  I'm sending it in to get fixed so I had to use Jen's broken and buggy Canon EOS rebel.  no, no model number here because its literally the first Canon digital rebel ever made in 2003 (called 300D in other countries).  It's 6.3mp and originally retailed for $1000.  It's super sh!tty compared to my camera which I don't have to sing the praises of anymore on this blog.  I bet Jen was real happy to hear about how sh!tty her camera was everyday.  She also inherited the first GoPro so any fish eye shots you see are taken with that.

This photo was taken a few days later after the sting of car rental had subsided a little.  The adventure started in Paris at enterprise rent-a-car, the branch that's an 8 minute walk from my house.  I made sure I reserved an automatic car since most are manual in Europe.  I even called twice the week prior to make sure everything was ok.  When I got there at 11 am they said they were looking for an automatic car for me.  Come on now!  Finally she found one but it was at the exact opposite end of paris at Port Maillot so they paid for a taxi for me to go over there.  The process and paperwork took forever on their end.  I was pretty pretty peeved.  I got them to upgrade the car to this Mercedes E class.  For those of you that know me i'm not a douche that stands in front of hot rides posing for pics but I have to admit that this car was the bomb.  It was like driving a cloud.  I would never buy this kind of car but if I get this instead of driving a compact French car with no suspension I will take it and peel out of your driveway super fast. (or like really really slowly and carefully because it's my first time driving in France).  Finally made it onto the road at like 3pm.  Enterprise kind of ruined half of our day, and I hate to admit again that being able to drive this douchy car for 4 days almost made up for it.  1582 km (983 miles in total).  Getting out of Paris wasn't very fun or cause for harmonious cooperation between us because the GPS was in French, or slow so it took some getting used to.  We spent the first 45 min driving around Paris and learning that the GPS honestly and for truly does mean for you go make 3 consecutive acute angle turns because the roads in France are insane.

So most people stop an hour outside Paris at Giverny on the way to Normandy.  It's where Claud Monet build his dream gardens so he could paint them.  pretty impressive stuff
a lot of this happened.  Jen has a gig doing social media for Creed, a Paris based perfume and cologne brand, so a lot of iphone photos of bottles in beautiful places happened.

nature happened

this little guy was perched atop a tall flower munching on something

Claud Monet's dream land.  

look familiar?


I try not to put too many photos of flowers up but there were some interesting specimens going on here.



no photos allowed inside his house which was super amazing but i snapped this one of the kitchen 
We arrived at the B and B near Honfleur.  The old couple didn't speak any english so my elementary french skills came in handy.
an old mill on the side of the house.
we went for dinner in Honfleur


We ate at la Tortue (the tortise).  It might have been the best food we had in Normandy.  There was some kind of creamy salmon terrine and some kind of creamy oyster and truffle soup that was awesome.  Destroyed from a day of stress and driving we went to sleep in the adorable B and B





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