saturday: mont st michel

Today began my first of four days exploring Normandy. I woke up at 5am with my Dutch friend Alineke, and we took the first tram at 5:45 to the train station which was amusingngly stuffed with African girls from partying the night before. after the tram, train, and bus we arrived at the breathtakingly creepy abbaye of mont saint michel (michael), basically a massive mountain with a huge 12th century church dominating the otherwise desolate coastline.
after 3 visions were had by people of the archangel michael defeating satan here, someone built an abbaye, and at one point napoleon made it a prison (it's a functioning place with monks today again). the tides on this island are the largest in the world, reaching 45 feet high (we went low tide) at times. i was excited because we got a free tour, my first guided tour of anyplace i'd visited in europe, and it wasn't terribly exciting so we left the group.
the wind was INSANE, the post powerful and domineering wind i can ever remember being in! it rained a bit, typical brittany/bretagne, but nothing we couldn't handle. we walked around the island a bit, where they say there is dangerous quicksand, and i was glad i was wearing my red texas cowgirl boots :)
i spent a couple hours in a tabac, writing postcards, watching horse races with old men and drinking a nasty blue cheap champagne type drink, and then headed to caen. i met up with my two couchsurfers, marion and jeriam, both about my age. they were nice enough to meet me and pick me up from the train station by car (and later took me back too).
i spent the evening eating italian food they made and hanging out with their friends.