I lost a week to the surreal world of jury duty. Today I'm trying to reconnect with my home, work, laundry basket. The on-call system throws you way out of synch because you really can't plan for a whole week, possibly two, if you get called in on a Thursday or Friday like I did. I do want to do my civic duty, I just wish I knew which day of the week it was going to be in advance. The free MOCA admission is a nice bonus.

My vacation memories are quickly fading but before they do let me share a few of the highlights, esp. some facts about World War II that really shook me out of my ignorance of the event and made it abundantly clear why the generation we're about to lose deserves so much attention and respect.

First, 50 million deaths were attributed to WWII - 50 million! I don't remember this fact being drilled into me in history class but that is the figure on the wall at the Musee de la Paix in Caen. Some put the figure much higher, around 70 million. 25 million were military deaths, the rest civilians, with places like Poland losing something like 18% of its total population. Staggering. And this happened within the lifetime of people who still live among us, even know well.

The U.S. lost over 400,000, most of them military, which is within about 100,000 of the number lost in France. The lead-up to the war is fascinating; a visit to the Normandy coast is haunting yet somehow makes it easier to disbelieve. All the details are organized in endless tiny museums, exhibits, memorials, maps, roadsigns and cases full of artifacts along the Normandy coast, where we visited Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Arromanches, Caen and Pointe du Hoc. We also spent some time at the American Cemetary in Colleville-sur-Mer, overlooking Omaha Beach. The entire area is surprisingly serene and appears to be exactly the same as it may have been hundreds of years ago: sparsely populated, slighly hilly, and misty green, dotted with stone farmhouses, rolls of hay, with narrow, ancient towns sprinkled here and there and more cows than people, and more American and Canadian visitors than French inhabitants. It was easy to imagine the scene. I was struck by what I now realize is a deep and complicated connection to France, and to Europe in general, and by the understanding that when the cause was clear, people banded together in incredible ways you almost hope you never see again.

We flew into Paris and took a train to Rennes, rented a car and drove to St. Malo, a beautiful, large, medieval walled city on the beach, great for families - there's an aquarium, medieval ramparts, tons of restaurants, shopping and hotels at reasonable prices. We stayed in a beach-view room at the Hotel Beaufort (fantastic), and walked along the beach into the walled city for dinner both nights. Akhil started out eating pain chocolats right there at the airport; he had a gauffre, or big, fat waffle, with Nutella, in St. Malo before dinner. That was Day 1; on Day 2 we headed straight off to Mont St. Michel along the coastal route and spent most of the morning there before lunch in nearby Pontorson. We spent the afternoon in Dinan, which is one of the few cities in northern France that was left unharmed during the war - it's a great walking town with half-timbered buildings and cobblestone streets, plus a tiny harbor where you can arrive by boat if you like from St. Malo. We took our Peugeot.

We stopped for a drink in Dinard, a posh seaside resort town across the water from St. Malo, on the way back to our hotel. I had a cider, popular in the area, which is also known for its Calvados, or apple brandy (INCREDIBLY potent -- we tried it -- that's all I can say).

Day 2's dinner was gluttonous - a three-course menu, of course, at an excellent local restaurant called Delaunay. Akhil had scallops with bacon-laden creamed potatoes and I had a fillet of tuna that had foie gras on top. I am not sure I need to be eating foie gras but I'm game. They started us off with a mussel each, served on a tiny silver spoon with a curled handle, and appetizer salads. Of course, we had wine -- and dessert. Oysters are HUGE in this area, but neither of us like them. If you do, you'll be in hog heaven.

Days 3 and 4 were reserved for war touring, from Caen to the beaches to Bayeux, where we stayed and where we also viewed the 1000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of William the Conqueror's invasion of England and his taking the crown. He was born near Bayeux, in Falaise, in 1028. Our hotel, the Hotel Churchill, was steps away from the museum, and Bayeux, also untouched during WWII, was an excellent place to stay. It was also the first city to be liberated after the Allies' invasion.

Day 5 was a heavy driving day. We headed off to Vernon late morning and got there by late afternoon to visit Claude Monet's garden and home in Giverny. I'd been before, in 1994, but saw it anew this time since I now have a large garden of my own - Akhil was inspired too but we won't be building a pond with water lilies in it in our backyard anytime soon I hope. We did plant some sedum and yarrow though, as soon as we got home and will be giving our heliotrobe another shot. From there it was Paris, and since we had some rental car agency confusion we had to drive it ALL THE WAY in and park it someplace overnight near our hotel on the street. Like last time we stayed at Hotel Monge in the Latin Quarter and had giant beers at a bistro down the street. We spent our one, single, solitary day in Paris walking the bridges, the left bank, the Tuileries, and having one more overly indulgent dinner in the Latin Quarter area - we didn't even mean to, it just happened.

Flying home is the hard part. You've got one long flight followed by another one. But France doesn't disappoint. Next time we're thinking south - the Dordogne, Corsica, or the Pyrenees... my fantasy life!