Travel Series: Caen, France

After leaving Marseille and returning to Paris for a few days, I was fortunate to be able to travel north to Caen with one of my best friends, Marie. I’ve mentioned Marie in past blogs before; she was my first French friend and we met while she studied at my high school for a year.

When I met up with Marie this August, we took the train together from Paris and then she drove me to her apartment. It was so funny because it was the first time in 5 years of being friends that I had ever been in the car with her behind the wheel.

We spent the night relaxing and cooking- I learned how to make homemade mozzarella sticks and guacamole. Marie’s father is a chef, so I knew I was learning from the best.

The second day in Caen we drove to Marie’s beach house and spent the day at the beach. It was freezing and the waves were absolutely HUGE, but that didn’t stop us from going in the water. Marie’s cousin was celebrating her birthday at the beach house with friends, so afterwards, we played Mölkky with a lot of people our age which was so fun.

The next day we went to Festyland, an amusement park. We spent the entire day there going on rides. It had been so long since I’d been to an amusement park, so that was a lot of fun, too.

On the 26th of August, it was a pretty rainy day at first, so Marie and I decided to go shopping (never a bad reason to shop!). In the afternoon, I got to meet Marie’s sister and later went out to dinner with Marie and her boyfriend, Clément. That same night we went out to a karaoke bar. There for several hours, we finally added our names to the list, of course singing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” around 1 a.m. The crowd loved it, I’m sure! I had so much fun at this place because half of the songs were in French and the other half in English, and as a listener of both English and French music it was great to know some of both.

The 27th of August was my last day with Marie. We spent the morning relaxing and getting ready and then went to the beach before I had to leave for Paris. Knowing Marie since 2017, it’s crazy how even though we see each other only about once every year, it feels like nothing changes! I am so so grateful for her and everything she has done for me:)