Welcome to Caen! A little bit about my home

My home away from home during these 9 months abroad is a city called Caen.

Caen lies a little ways north-west of Paris in the region of Normandy. About a 20 minute bus from the English Channel, or la Manche in French, Caen is a beautiful, mid-sized city with a rich history, a surprising number of medieval churches, and a renowned university.

With its proximity to the sea, Normandy maintains milder temperatures and is known for being rainy and green, with lots of cows. Thus, the cuisine favors a plethora of excellent dairy-based foods, the most famous of which is Camembert cheese. I tried said cheese my first evening with my host family and have been addicted ever since. In addition to dairy, Normandy is known for apples and anything that can be made from apples, including some delicious cider.

As for the people, natives of Normandy are quite friendly and tremendously proud of their region’s heritage. If you ever find yourself there, you will inevitably hear about two historical eras in particular: William the Conqueror and World War II. 

First of all, stop any Norman and I’m sure they could tell you the story of their hero, Guillaume le Conquérant. I noticed their distinct pride in him during my first week in Caen after the third time hearing the story at university orientation. As a quick reminder, William the Conqueror was a Norman king in the 11th century who conquered England (hence the name) and left a monumental impact on the English language and culture. 

Caen, like much of Normandy, is full of traces from William’s reign. The remains of his small château rise next to the University. William also commissioned the construction of a beautiful pair of abbeys: the Abbaye aux Dames in honor of his wife, Mathilde, and the Abbaye aux Hommes, which houses his tomb to this day.

In addition to William the Conqueror, Normandy is also famous for its role in WWII. Of course, everyone’s mind goes to D-Day and the triumphant end of the war. However, not everyone understands the full cost this victory had on Northern France.

Much of the region was utterly desecrated under the Allies’ bombs. In fact, over 75% of Caen was demolished. Recently, I went to a museum in Falaise (also 75% destroyed) that was entirely devoted to the impact on civilians during the occupation, the bombings, and the reconstruction afterwards. Compared to other war museums I’ve seen in France so far, I found the images and footage of Normandy’s population struggling amid the destruction to be particularly emotional, especially now that I’ve stood where those photos were taken. 

In Caen, traces of WWII are everywhere. The Eglise Saint Pierre, the largest of the many beautiful churches in Caen, is my favorite representation of the city’s history, destruction, and recovery. Nearly 800 years old, much of the building was destroyed in WWII. If you look at the church today, you can see the rough, darker stone from the 13th century around the nave that transitions to a pristine 20th century rendition of the spire. 

Built in 1432, my university, the Université de Caen, is one of the oldest in Europe. It, too, was completely destroyed in 1944. With its reconstruction, the school took a new symbol, the phoenix, to represent its rebirth from the ashes. 

However, the scars of WWII are not only in the buildings but in the people as well, passed down to even the youngest generation. To this day, appreciation for the liberation of France is so persistent that it ranks as one of my greatest culture shocks thus far. My host family assures me that the people of Normandy will never forget what the Allies sacrificed to save a country that was not their own.

Early into the semester, this point was driven home by a striking event that happened to an American friend of mine. She went to buy some school spirit merchandise at the university. To her astonishment, the employee at the little shop gave it to her for free, thanking her for America’s sacrifice in the battle for Normandy. 

Since then, experience after experience has confirmed how deeply rooted this gratitude is. For a recent example, at the school where I am an English assistant, the 13-year-old class wrote letters to American WWII veterans. As I walked around helping students with grammar and spelling (“thank you for being our fighter,” “we want you thank for liberating the France,” “thank you for risk your life to save my country”), I marveled at the scenario and hoped US veterans would also realize how much their sacrifice still means for Normans today.

This is one of the beautiful and precious aspects of study abroad. When you live for an extended period in one location, you’re not only discovering the country, but also the region, the city, and the locals themselves. Like the USA, each region has its own history and personality. Every week, I pick up little things from my host family, my French peers, and even my professors. From the aforementioned pride in William the Conqueror, to the many slang words about rain (a pépin, or “seed,” is an umbrella in Normandy), to connotations linked to different regional accents, to the good-natured feud between Brittany and Normandy over who owns the island of Mont-Saint-Michel…this kind of observations is something you can only gain by planting yourself somewhere and keeping your eyes and ears wide open.

I absolutely love it. 

Every moment of these last few months has been a gift. I love the cheese, the rain, the Norman pride, the history and heritage, the vibrant town and university and, of course, the people. I love the unique opportunity to understand a place through an insider’s lens. After 3 months, I can say with certainty that Caen is a second home.