In July some of my classmates and I embarked on a ten day trip to France.  The first two days we visited the Normandy region at the North Western coast of France.  While there we stayed at a hotel in Trouville.  We walked through the tight streets of Trouville the first night, and the second day we visited the famed sites of the D-Day invasion.  On the second day we visited the Caen Peace Museum, seeing many WW2 artifacts from various countries, and later we visited Omaha Beach where I collected sand in a phial I bought at the museum gift shop.  Later in the day we visited Pointe-du-Hoc where U.S Army Rangers climbed the mountain destroying German artillery.  The are has been left unmodified since the war with ruined bunkers, pillboxes, artillery placements, and gigantic craters like I have never seen before.  Our battlefields in America are much older and less destructive, and being able to see the effects of the largest war in history was an incredible experience.