This is Really Long and I'm Really Sorry

To the approximately 7 people who read this blog: sorry there wasn’t an update yesterday. I got busy, and then exhausted, and, well, yeah. I’m back now! Get ready for THE LONGEST BLOG POST IN THE HISTORY OF THIS BLOG THE WORLD!!!!!

Friday was a pretty long day—and I mean that in the best way possible. On this trip, our long days just mean seeing more and more gorgeous things. We went to three chateaus—which is like a mansion or a castle—in the Loire valley. Our program director prefaced the first one to explain something that made me want to squeal like a little girl: the first chateau we would be visiting, Chateau d’Usse, was the inspiration and intended setting for Charles Perrault’s original version of Sleeping Beauty. This was literally the Sleeping Beauty Castle.

What do you think? Is this place fairytale material?

Maybe?

(Definitely??)

This garden is one of my new favorite things. Check out those lemon trees. Who the heck just has random lemon trees??? (Said the girl from Washington, who had basically never seen a lemon tree until her first time in California at age 15).

The inside of this place did not disappoint, either.

(The first pano I took of this room had a lady walking across the room and it turned her into a literal H U M A N  CENTIPEDE.  Not fun to look at, I assure you. But I digress.)

There was lots of really neat antique stuff (like really antique). My favorites were probably this set of miniatures painted on ivory that represented the various wonders of India:

And this great big curiosity chest with about 600 hidden compartments:

Dad, you can forget the pony. I want that thingie. Also this entire castle.

Except probably not that bed, because in real life it was only like five feet long, and this was supposed to be a king’s chamber, so like . . .  ??????? Is the king really short or does he just sleep all curled up like:

Anyway. In the interest of time, let’s move on to the next chateau.

Wait, do you hear that?

Off in the distance?

Can it be . . . the sounds of . . . Mr. Darcy declaring his deep and undying love for Elizabeth Bennet?????

No? Well, that’s what it sounds like to me.

Seriously, though, I was getting some huuuuuge Pride and Prejudice vibes from this place. I don’t know if it’s just the water, or the huge and beautiful gardens, or the fact that any really really big white house is bound to remind you of Pemberly, but I don’t really care. It was AWESOME.

I am pretty much a glutton for gardens at this point. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. Just give me ALL THE GARDENS. BUT MOSTLY THIS ONE.

Oh!! Also also!!! I found more homicidal animals!!! :D

Pigeons again this time, only instead of fighting people they were fighting each other. It was quite the match. Check it out:

Animals fighting is not a really new thing, but it always makes me laugh really hard because I can just imagine them being two angry little children and me being their crotchety old grandma going . . . . BOYS . . . . I am TRYING to CROCHET, could you please give me some PEACE AND QUIET????

 Because that’s honestly what I feel like whenever I see animals (or people, for that matter) fighting.

But back to the beauty of this place. Doesn’t it remind you of Pemberly? Anyone? Anyone???

In case you were wondering about the history of this place, here are some fun facts: it was actually mostly designed by a woman, and she and her husband lived in it for a few years. But then they moved out, and over time it passed into royal hands: Henry II gave it to his mistress Diane(ew), who was twenty years older than him (DOUBLE ew????) but then when Henry died, his wife, Catherine de’ Medici, kicked Diane out and moved in herself. Oh, it’s called the Chateau de Chenonceau, by the way.

Why is everywhere we visited so gorgeous and peaceful? Like, I seriously felt like I would be happy just living homeless by the side of this little river. (I probably wouldn’t. I like food.)

Final stop of the day was in Blois, at the Chateau de Blois (appropriately named.)

Check out this swankified place! It was probably the biggest one we’d seen, buuut it was also the one with the shortest tour, since the lady giving us the tour had to close up shop half an hour after we got there. My camera was sad, but my feet were happy.

Oooh. Aaaah. Why don’t I live in a big chateau like this? Oh, that’s right, because I’m broke. But still happy, because I get to see places like this! And beautiful antique pianos like THIS!

La la la la la, I’m so happy, I’m so . . . . wait.

It’s all right, children, just come around and stand underneath the  T O R N A D O  M O U T H  

 O F  D O O M! He just wants to suck your soul into his mouth and lock you in limbo forever!!!! It’s all good!!!!

Seriously. Why.

Also: there were several busts throughout the castle, most notably of a group of brothers who were all kings of France. This guy was one of them:

Um. Excuse me.

UM.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN????

Only bad things, I’m sure. Let’s not dwell on that too hard.

I’ll leave you with that delightful image as the end of my Friday, since heaven knows I couldn’t stop thinking about it until bedtime. (PS: Luckily the hotel we stayed at this time was another nice Ibis with beds that weren’t covered in other people’s hair. Hooray!)

Saturday was the end of our adventures on the bus, with Patrick the chain smoker. Sad day. We did make one final stop on our way back to Paris, though, at Chartres, and it would appear that’s the best time we could have possibly done it because there was this huge festival going on.

There were tightrope walking demonstrations and bouncy houses and THIS:

I’ve never actually seen somebody doing silks in person! It was incredible to watch.

The point of us going to Chartres was really to take a look at Chartres Cathedral, which was by far the biggest cathedral I’ve been inside so far. Lookit.

More pretty stained glass! (St. Malo’s still wins, though.)

I have a lot more pictures from here, but since this blog post is already going to be a million years long, I’ll end it with two cute ones. First, here’s me on a really adorable street in Chartres:

And here’s me in front of Chartres Cathedral, to give you an idea of scale! (Yes, I’m really there. That yellow dot: do you see it?)

After that it was back on the bus for two more hours, which I napped through. And then we were home!

Tee hee. It gives me a thrill to think of this place as home. Next up on the agenda, of course, was meeting our host families, and everybody was soooo pumped. Me and Anna were kind of nervous, but we were hoping our host families would be as nice as everybody else’s seemed to be!

So we arrived at our house, which was very beautiful and old fashioned. Two smiling people, a boy and a girl in their 20s, opened the door and helped us with our luggage. They brought us inside, showed us our rooms, and then said, “Our parents aren’t here yet to greet you, they’re coming back tomorrow and we’re planning to go clubbing, so we can’t feed you dinner, oh also, here’s this complicated alarm system that you have to figure out how to work out, multiple codes to know, here’s your keys, okay bye!!!” and they left shortly thereafter, leaving me and Anna alone in their house.

Ummm. Wat?

Needless to say, we were a little surprised. (and more than a little starving.) Anna and I went off to find something at the local marketplace (beignets with appley goodness always make my anxiety from cringey social situations fade away a bit) and came back and talked for the rest of the night. It was actually really fun to have the house to ourselves. We talked and talked about boys (#Don’tDateCrazy2k16, Anna. I don’t even know if you read this, whatever.) until we were too tired to talk anymore, and then I skyped my family and went to bed in this pretty house:

  

Just thought you’d like to get a visual for this place. I’m pretty sure there is a way to get up on the roof from the inside of the house, but I don’t know how to do it yet. Updates on that forthcoming.

Also, that is the last picture for this blog, since my phone died while I was using it for scriptures at church today and I didn’t get to take any pics. So let me just give you a short run-down: I had church in French today! Understood . . . maybe half of it, all told. They really do speak faster here. But I discovered I was often able, from the context, to understand what was going on, so that was encouraging!

Less encouraging, though, was the ride into town on the RER (the train that takes us into Paris from the suburb where we live). I couldn’t figure out how to get through the little checkpoint gate in Paris, and it wouldn’t let me scan my card again, and when I finally DID try to get through, the fiberglass gates started to close just as I was going through them, and WHAM!

Ugh. I made it through, but let’s just say my hips will be sore for a very, very long time.

And, well, I guess you’re pretty caught up now! I’m currently sitting in my (completely made of stone, with antique keys in every keyhole) bedroom in the basement, starving because today is Fast Sunday and listening to our host parents’ kids (host siblings?) putter around upstairs. We haven’t talked to them at all since yesterday, or more accurately, they haven’t talked to us. They know darn well we’re down here, one of them came down and went into the laundry room right across the hall and my door was open so she could totally see me. I dunno what’s going on. I dunno if they’re feeding us tonight, or if we’ll have to go back into town to eat. I guess I’ll let that be a mystery that gets answered in tomorrow’s blog post(which will technically be up on Tuesday, assuming I can get back on my original schedule)!

So, yeah, that’s what the past three days have been like for me! Plenty of ups and downs. I guess we’ll see what happens next.

Song for today: “J’irai ou tu veux” (I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go in French), because we sang it in church today and I understood what the title meant before even singing it because somebody really nice helped me with learning French future tense before I came here. Thanks, Dad! :)

Watch it here because it's too hard for me to figure out how to embed it. (Click on musique-seule on the right-hand side to download the song version.)

All right, I think I’m going to go see if I ever get to eat again. If I don’t write another blog post on here, you’ll know it’s because I’ve died of starvation. Until next time (or maybe not)!!!