Mont Saint Michel!

MONT SAINT MICHEL!! It's really a tidal island, and when it was first built, the little bridge-thing that's there now would completely disappear during high tide!! This was taken during low tide... we never saw high tide.
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So, Kaitlyn, Klaudia and I went to Mont Saint Michel for Saturday and Sunday, and it was the PERFECT weekend trip!!

Mont Saint Michel is an abbey/monastery off of the coast of Northern France in Brittany.  It's located in a shallow bay, and it's basically just a huge granite island that a monastery/town is built on.  It's really cute, medieval-looking, and has FANTASTIC views of the flat, rural, French countryside!  I don't know a WHOLE lot about it--if you want to find out more, type it into Wikipedia. :)

AAH!!! QUICKSAND!!

The three of us: Me, Klaudia, and Kaitlyn (left to right). Like the bandage on my head? That's really a headband to keep my ears warm, I swear...
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On Saturday, we left Paris at 9:00 in the morning, took the train to Rennes, which is south of Mont St-Michel, and from there took a bus up to the Mont.  We got there around 1:00-1:30, and walked around the island for a few hours, taking in the narrow street and staircases, the incredible views, the numerous arrow-slits, and the abbey itself, located at the top of the hill.

We had galettes, crepes, and cidre for dinner, and then were picked and taken to the Bed and Breakfast where we were staying.  It was located in the middle of nowhere (there was a cafe across the street, though, and a couple houses nearby), and was BEAUTIFUL!  We sat in the dining room and looked through a funny book of crazy Japanese inventions (like a fake hand for your significant other to hold if they're uncomfortable holding hands with you) all night.

The cool fort gate thing!! It had the spkey gate-thing medieval castles have! ...I'm an architecture major, so you'd think I'd have a better grasp of vocabulary, right? NOT.
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The next morning, we had a continental breakfast, and then were carted back to the Mont.  Since we'd seen the architectural part of it the previous day, we decided to walk around it on the flat, sandy ground that was left afer the tide went out.  It was FREEZING and really windy, but oh-so-much fun!!  The sand was actually silt, and in many places was actually the slow kind of QUICKSAND!!  We played in the quicksand, took pictures of ourselves climbing the rocks of the Mont, and got ourselves remarkably muddy!  As we were nearing solid ground again, however, I stepped on the wrong spot, and ended up shin-deep in sand!  My shoe was covered in muck, and my ankle, too, since I'd rolled up my pants to save them from the mud.  Needless to say, my ankles were cold as it was, and then my left one was even COLDER.  Somewhere before then, too, my camera fell out of my pocket and got covered by silt.  It's not quite functioning normally, now--the picture-taking button doesn't go down all the way, and when it does, it doesn't register that it's being pushed down--but I still got plenty of pictures in before that!  I also stole a couple of rocks, a seashell, and put some quicksand in a ziplock bag for safekeeping! :D

The medieval street...
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After getting sufficiently muddy, we got some lunch, then did some shopping.  I got some caramels, some cidre (since we were in French cidre country), a small bottle of Calvados--an apple brandy--and a little tumbler-glass to drink it in.   I'm trying to drink it right now, as I'm typing, but it's... strong.  I like it, but I have to drink it very, VERY slowly.  I'm thinking about diluting it (like Brandy and Seven-Up), but for now, I decided I'd try an actual glass of it.

The abbey from the little town below.
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So, that was my weekend!  I think it's the best weekend trip I've been on since I've been here... it was really relaxing, fun, and pretty, and I was in excellent company, of course!!