4th Grand Falls Scouts & Venturers2019 World Jamboree and the 2019 European Adventure!

Jul 22nd First 944 graves…

Our next stop on this emotionally overwhelming day was the Canadian War Cemetery in Dieppe.  Really the next logical stop it seems… this was our first of many cemeteries, but I can still remember how much it hit me how carefully maintained the cemetery is.  After 73 years the people of France are still very diligent at caring for the final resting place of the Canadian soldiers.  

Encountered some poison ivy on the way out… funny story actually…

After the cemetery we left Dieppe and the coast and moved our way inland towards the Trail of the Caribou.  Beaumont-Hamel was our next destination and knowing that kept things pretty subdued on the bus.  Going from what was one of Canada’s darkest days on the battle field to what was beyond a doubt the absolute darkest day for Newfoundland on the battle field is a weighty transition.   This was promising to be a hard day…

Jul 22nd “You promised you’d come back, and you came back!”

Although the Mémorial du 19 Août 1942 (Dieppe Raid Museum) was one of the most moving moments of the trip, it’s really hard to put the experience into words.  The museum is a partially restored theatre that still shows interior scars from Nazi occupation.  After a short tour our guide, a dedicated volunteer, sat us down for a movie about the Dieppe Raid.  For those who don’t know, the raid on Dieppe in 1942 was a desperate attempt by the allies to gauge the Nazi coastal defenses and to experiment with a large scale landing.  The battle was referred to as a raid from the beginning as no one had any false hopes of breaking the Nazi lines or gaining any sort of a foothold.  The soldiers involved knew from the outset that the raid was little more than a suicide mission, but one that was absolutely necessary to win the war.  Seeing as the Canadians had no intention of liberating Dieppe at this time they were fearful that the Nazi’s would seek retribution on any of the Dieppe citizens that assisted the Canadians during the raid, so the Canadian pilots dropped leaflets on the town urging citizens to stay indoors.  The leaflets basically said that this is a raid, not liberation, and closed with “We promise we will come back”.  I only tell the story so that you can have some appreciation of the emotion of the experience.  After explaining all this to us the volunteer looked at us solemnly and said “You promised you’d come back, and you came back.  For that we will forever be grateful”.  There wasn’t a dry eye there.  Turns out that after the success at Juno Beach the Canadians pushed in to occupied France further than any other of the Allied forces with the sole objective of the liberation of Dieppe.  Some of the same soldiers that survived the raid indeed came back to free the people of Dieppe.  

If that wasn’t enough the video depicted the raid in vivid detail.  The rocky beach at Dieppe is very distinct, and even though the video was black & white and 73 years old, you could clearly see that the beach with all the bodies, all the death and tragedy was the exact spot we ran into the ocean the previous night.  There was a scene that showed a giant pile of bodies on the exact staircase that we stopped at to dry off after a wonderful night on the beach.  It really, really brought everything in to a sharp focus that we all felt.  The Scouts were silently hugging each other and we all had a new appreciation for just how special our late night dip really was.

Jul 21st Sunset to Sunrise in Dieppe

As happy as we were with our hotel in Caen, the hotel in Dieppe was WAY above our station!  One of those places you immediately feel guilty about bringing Scouts to 😉  The rooms were gorgeous, the food delicious, and the staff very friendly.  Of course no one could speak English, and my French is good only for ordering coffee, so I have some fond memories of trying to communicate with folks using mostly charades (I am terrible at charades as an aside).  

After supper and a chance to settle in, we all walked down to the beach for a short ceremony and to really take in where we were standing.  

After the ceremony we watched the sun finish it’s decent and stood enjoying the peaceful darkness and watching the waves crash in.  Hard to imagine that this was location of one of most terrible military sacrifices in this history of our country.  We had all been talking for months about taking a night swim at Dieppe, and now was the moment… the kids turned to us wondering if we were serious…  I remember looking over at Scouter Dan, Dan shrugged, and we ran into the ocean together.  What a way to end a powerful day!

After our swim, we all took a moment to dry off on the stairs leading up to the road above.  Scouter Gerry and I had a “brilliant” idea to return to see the sunrise on the beach (another item we had been talking about for months).  Unsurprisingly, there were not many takers… in fact, only Eric volunteered to get up with us, lol!

In my opinion though, it was their loss, as the sunrise was one I won’t soon forget…

After breakfast we all gathered at the Canadian Memorial for another ceremony to give thanks

With the sun quickly warming up the morning, we walked a short distance through the picturesque streets of Dieppe to the Canadian Dieppe Museum. 

Jul 21st Pacific Ocean, Farmers and Super-Etienne

With very little enthusiasm, we all got back on the bus… not easy to leave Juno Beach.  So our trip towards Dieppe was far from uneventful as the farmers were protesting and periodically setting fire to tractor tires on various highways… this kept our tour on the rural (and very narrow) back roads of France.  As you can see from the pictures, it was a BEAUTIFUL drive!  At one point our unbelievably skilled bus drivers ended up having to turn around the bus on a street that I would have trouble turning my minivan around in!  The people in the small community were equally impressed as a nice older lady stood by and applauded, lol!

And then the “cabin fever” kicked in…

…and then we crashed

Finally we arrived at Dieppe, France!

Jul 21st Juno Beach

Visiting Juno Beach was just like any Canadian would imagine it to be – very powerful.  This was Canada’s great contribution to the D-Day invasion, and the beginning of what became a very successful campaign of liberation, salvation and sacrifice throughout Western Europe by brave Canadians.  We marked our arrival with a formal ceremony – our first of many in Europe.

Carl was beginning to figure us out and made sure we had some free time BEFORE touring the museum 😉  

After a chance to burn off some energy, the Canadian volunteers at the Juno Beach Centre split us in to two groups for a guided tour of the beach and the bunkers as well as of the Centre itself.  

The big take away I had from the bunker tour is that the guide was saying that there was a basically a bunker every 300m stretching from Spain to Norway.  It truly was “impossible” to invade Europe, which really made the success of D-Day all the more incredible

The Juno Beach Centre was also amazing.  What I remember best is a video we watched at the end that talked about the battle and the legacy it left on the people of France.  At the end of the video it showed the spirits of the soldiers playing on the beach with the kids and walking with them through the sand.  It was really powerful considering we were literally just there, doing exactly that.  

Jul 21st D-Day (Carl thinks we’re insane)

After the memorial Museum we had a “grocery store adventure” and hit the road towards the Normandy coast.  Arromanches is a beautiful coastal town, and it’s hard to imagine the kind of shear hell that occurred here back on June 6, 1944.  Always conscious of our schedule, Carl whisked us into the museum (kind of like herding cats)

The D-Day Museum was excellent, and went over the landings in great detail.  We all enjoyed looking at the exhibits, but also glanced longingly at the windows and the ocean beyond… 

When it came time for the movie, I pulled Carl aside and asked if we could have some time to actually go out into the water.  Poor Carl was floored, obviously not used to dealing with Scouts, lol!  So as Carl watched a bit stunned, we all left the museum to explore the actual beaches of Normandy.  Eventually Carl started to get us, and laughed to himself as he watched us playing on the beach.

It was a surreal feeling playing and laughing on the beaches with the remnants of the D-Day invasion all around us.   It was a celebration of freedom and a joy in life – perfect tribute in my opinion.

None of us wanted to get back on the bus, but after much encouragement and tapping of his watch, Carl got us back on route and heading towards Juno Beach.

Jul 21st Setting the Stage…

After a brief but comfortable night sleep we enjoyed a breakfast buffet and loaded back on our bus to visit the Caen Memorial Museum.  The Memorial Museum is essentially a walk through of the entirety of the second World War, starting at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and ending with Japan’s ultimate surrender.  This is NOT a celebration of the Allied victory, instead it is a very real, very powerful, and very brutally accurate telling of the story of the war and the unforgivable loss of millions of lives. 

Spirits were high as we entered the museum.  Upon signing in we were each given a cordless “phone” which was to act as our personal tour guide.  The idea is that as you approach exhibits you enter the number into your phone and you are told about it.  I was skeptical at this approach, but the audio tour was absolutely fantastic – truly one of the best museum tours I have ever participated in.  All the Scouts, Venturer Scouts and Scouters were absolutely riveted by the audio tour, and as you can see from the pictures, our jovial mood quickly became a lot more serious.  THIS is what we had signed up for.. this was the beginning of our Battlefields experience… and wow, what a wake up call…

As excellent as the audio tour was, it truly was a lot to take.  I don’t think any of us managed to listen to the full tour.  For me personally, I made it as far as the Holocaust exhibit.  Towards the end of the exhibit my audio guide told a story about a worker at one of the camps.  He was telling a story about these two young kids he had seen at the camp for a few weeks.  The oldest was 12 and the youngest was likely around six.  He went on to say that he later saw them lined up for the “showers”… he knew what was in store for them, but worse yet he could see by the look on the older youth’s  face that she knew it as well.  Despite her fear she comforted her younger brother and they moved ahead in line.  He closed by explaining that the reason he is telling this story is so there would be a record somewhere that these two children had lived.  That their life happened.  I had to put down my phone after that… just couldn’t take any more.

 Another moment that sticks with me is that I walked up to a couple of our Venturer Scouts standing in front of a huge mural depicting three youth being hung in France during the occupation.  The crimes they had commitment included delivering resistance fliers, helping Jewish people hide from the Nazis, and feeding the hungry…  basically they were Venturer Scouts dangling in gallows for doing exactly what we teach our Scouts to do – as in stand up for those who need your help.  These kids were publicly executed for doing what our kids do on a regular basis – what we insist they do…  the museum was an intense experience for everyone, but without a doubt, it was the perfect and really the only way to start our Battlefields experience.

Jul 20th Our “Tents”, Adventures at the Ticket Machine, Stop shooting me we’re on the same team!!

As we finally arrived in Caen we braced ourselves for the sub-par accommodations we all secretly (or not so secretly) expected, but were blown away by lovely hotel and spacious and comfortable rooms.  Although a bit rushed for time, we made it to supper on-time-ish and enjoyed a delicious buffet.  We had been worried that with the late arrival we might have to call off laser tag, but when we told the kids the tram was leaving in 15min they all scrambled, grabbed what they needed and met us outside in no time.  Based on earlier conversations, we were expecting about 12 kids to come out, but in the end everyone but two gathered outside!

We made our way to the tram station and were faced with our next major challenge… how on Earth do we get tickets?? After pacing a bit, staring at the machine in dumbfounded confusion, and pacing some more, a nice local girl took the time to walk us through the steps despite the fact that she couldn’t speak English and our French speaking Scouts were conspicuously silent…  With tickets finally in hand the tram arrived and we were faced with our next challenge… how do these silly little cards get into the machine???  After a few attempts our local “guide” politely took the ticket out of my hand and correctly inserted it.  We gave her a pin and a loonie in thanks, lol!

The tram ride into the heart of Caen was one of the highlights of the day, which says a lot considering our day started in Paris! Allowed us to see more of the beautiful historic city

Dec 7, 2018 – So that is the end of the blog postings from Europe… to be honest, the trip was a whirlwind and we just never found the time to keep up with it.  We’ll try and do better next time 🙂  So now it’s 3½ years later and I’m going to do my best to remember what happened for the remainder of trip… forgive me for getting things wrong, lol!  At least we have the pictures and videos to tell the real story!

I remember the tram ride ended at a huge train station and crossing the road involved several lanes of traffic and also several lanes of tram rails… fortunately it was late at night and their wasn’t many people around.  The area of town seemed a bit… colourful… though, so we kept together!  With some effort we managed to find the laser tag place.  Turns out none of the staff could speak English (which is fair enough seeing as we were in France), but we learned from our tram ticket incident and shoved Steven and Devin forward to use their French skills to save us all.   Devin managed to stay out of it, so it was all Steven.  

We played at least three games I think, and I remember it was HOT!!  Can’t remember what they were charging for a bottle of water, but it was considerable.  We realized that they actually make their money off of water and that the laser tag was just a front.  There was a moment in the last game when someone (I think it was Nathan) called out that there were no teams this round… it was a lie… there were still teams… and a “blood bath” ensued.   It was past midnight by the time we finished and made our way back to the tram (last tram of the night) and to our hotel after a very, very long day!

Jul 20th Vive la Paris!

Despite the short flight, I think just about everyone had a nap.  Personally I only stayed awake long enough to find out that the coffee wasn’t free, lol!  The Paris airport was about as insane as Pearson, but we all managed to work our way through and eventually find our tour guide Carl.  It was pretty cool seeing the Scouts Canada sign at the Paris Airport!  

Carl and our Bus driver Etienne (aka Steve) are both from Belgium.  They picked up a local Parisian guide in the shadow of the Arc du Triumph… wow, still can’t believe we were there!!  I won’t go into Paris too much as the pictures will tell a much better story, but suffice it to say it was incredible!  Not sure who was more excited, the Scouts or the Scouters, but everyone was excitedly shouting, gasping, and frantically snapping pictures in every direction at once.  I’m sure between us we took well over a thousand!

We enjoyed one brief stop at the Eiffel Tower so we could get a couple good pictures.  Our Scout uniforms served as a giant flashing arrow screaming “HEY, WE’RE OBVIOUSLY TOURISTS AND LIKELY TOO POLITE TO TELL YOU TO GO AWAY” so the street vendors came a running!  There are now a great deal of replica Eiffel Towers on our bus…

After an amazing tour of one of the most incredible cities on the planet we said goodbye to our Parisian guide and began our trip to Caen (pronounced “con” by the way).  Due to driving regulations our awesome bus driver had to stop at a rest station for a mandatory 45min break.  The rest stop served as a reminder that we are still fish out of water, but together we figured out our Euros, found a bank machine, and even found William some milk-free frozen treats.  The allergy situation is not nearly as dire as we expected; most labels that contain milk or nuts put it in bold in the ingredients list.  I continued my quest for a decent cup of coffee… in vain… apparently coffee that is dispensed from a vending machine into a plastic cup is about as tasty as it sounds :S

We’re now about 20min from Caen and have been thoroughly enjoying the incredible countryside of France.  Carl went into great detail about to expect for tomorrow, and even summarized both World Wars… only about half of us were awake to hear it though, lol!  Looking forward to supper and our laser tag adventure!

Jul 20th Good Morning Dublin!

Our WestJet flight from St.John’s was delightfully uneventful and got pretty quiet pretty fast.  Most of us got at least some sleep; I for one enjoyed at least a solid two hours which is already WAY better than CJ’13 🙂  The morning started off just right as I woke up not even 30 seconds before the coffee cart reached my seat.

As we descended through the clouds we were greeted with the emerald isle in all her glory; Ireland is a beautiful place!  The Dublin airport is MUCH larger than St, John’s, and was about as hectic and frantic as we imagined it would be.  Almost immediately after getting off our plane we had to clear Irish customs.  The customs agents were super courteous and even opened an extra lane just for the Scouts.  After a good hike we found our baggage and actually recovered all 33 bags quickly and easily.  So far so good…

Well for kids that were nervous about the hikes at the Haarlem Jamborette, worry no more as the hike through the Dublin airport was likely twice as long!  We managed to follow the signs to the tunnel to Terminal 2 (we arrived in Terminal 1).  We had to take the “lift” down a level to check in, before taking the “lift” up two levels for departures.  The Aer Lingus staff were awesome, and also waived the fees for our extra bags; gotta love traveling as a Scout!

By the time we finally arrived at security we were all soaked with sweat and about ready for a break.  We had to remove pretty much everything, place anything resembling a liquid in a clear plastic bag, remove our electronics, etc, etc before screening.  Eric was once again “randomly” selected as were more than half of us, lol!  When we finally gathered our belongings and redressed we continued on to the “Loop”.  Scouter Amanda and I dashed for the “Coffee Express” with our Scouts in tow, but were rewarded with a pretty “meh” coffee… it scratched the itch though, lol!  When we located our gate number we noticed a sign beside it warning of a 15min hike *sigh* and off we went.  We rode escalators, lifts, moving sidewalks, went up ramps, down ramps, winded here and there until we finally found gate 307A.

With our gate found we proceeded to our next priority: breakfast!  Gotta say, the breakfast selection was awesome, and we all walked away VERY satisfied.  Scouter Rhonda and I scored the best quiche of our lives, and the kids gobbled up the bacon, sausages and hashbrowns.  Paying was a bit of a struggle as I tried (in vein) to figure out which coin was a dime…

With full stomachs and sleepy but excited faces we lined up to board our flight to Paris after a 15min delay.  We taxied for what felt like driving to Gander until we finally parked and got to watch a Delta Air flight land right in front of us – pretty cool!  The Aer Lingus plane has a bit more character than our WestJet plane did and made all kinds of “interesting” noises during taxiing and take-off… but it got us off the ground, so no complaints 🙂

Passing now over the rest of the Atlantic Ocean we eagerly await meeting our tour guide “Carl” and beginning the next leg of our great adventure.

EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!!!!!!