Stories from Normandy

Several days ago, we decided to see Pointe du Hoc, the location where the Rangers scaled a 100-foot cliff against all odds. Pointe du Hoc was 12 km from where we were staying. Unfortunately, it was Sunday, and the buses in the area did not run on Sunday. Aaron tried to convince me that hitchhiking was easy, safe, and fun. I remained skeptical. So, the compromise was that we would walk until I became comfortable with the idea. So we started walking... and walking... and walking. About half-way we started trying to catch a ride. Lots of cars went by. And then more cars went by. Pretty soon, we were almost there!!! About 1 km from the Pointe, a Canadian couple on vacation stopped to pick us up and deposited us at the Pointe. After checking out the sights we began our long walk back. Not far into it, a 80-year old woman stopped us to ask if we liked her roses. She only spoke French, so our understanding of the conversation is a little sketchy. But we told her that her roses were marvelous and they were. She proceeded to make many hand gestures, and then she cut roses and handed them to me to take on our walk. When we explained where we had started from, and where we were going, she motioned us inside her beautiful home and gave us each a cookie for the road. Pretty wonderful. We then walked almost all the way back, with no hitchhiking success. Again, about 1 km from the end, we were picked up by a French couple on vaction. We had seen them before while having lunch earlier that day. We thanked them for the ride and went on our way.
Fast forward three days and several hundred km. We ran into the same French couple on a sidewalk at Mont San Michel, one of the most touristed places in France. What a small world. We had lunch and shared as many stories as the language barrier would allow.