Weekend in Normandy

Ok, the big trip to Normandy. This was a great weekend, punctuated by a ton of picture-taking. See Picasa for more details.

Friday morning, at the ungodly hour of 7 AM (if the boulangerie hasn’t opened yet, I should not be going anywhere), we gathered in front of the train station to meet up with our wonderful Saïd and the bus. We discovered we had a tiny little thing of barely 20 seats. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except our luggage had to go in the seats as well – no storage. So we were a bit cramped.

Having snuck off to the boulangerie for breakfast, we made for Rouen and got there in just under 2 ½ hours. We had an adorable tour guide to take us through the old city. Rouen is the city that Joan of Arc was tried and burned in, so that’s a large part of the history. The tour included the cathedral (gorgeous stained glass windows), and the medieval section of the city. We also learned the origin of the phrase “taking the high road.” In the Middle Age, the people had to throw their waste out into the street – no sewage yet. So the middle of the road was really disgusting because of all the grossness out there. If you were rich, however, you had the privilege of walking under the eaves, where nothing could get on you. So you got to “take the high road.”

In addition to the medieval city, we got to see Pierre Corneille’s house, the actual site of Joan of Arc’s burning at the stake, and one really cool clock. In the Middle Ages, most people couldn’t read, so the clock with the day on it couldn’t just say “Thursday.” Instead, they took the Roman god for each day and made a picture with them on it. Each day at noon, the clock changes pictures. We were lucky enough to be there right at noon and saw it change from Thursday to Friday. Apparently, a lot of people in Rouen don’t even know it does this. Sad for them.

After lunch, we headed off to Bayeux, small town near the northern coast of France, and home to the famous tapestry, “The Lady and the Unicorn.” This thing is literally a thousand years old and depicts the story of William the Conqueror. Our favorite part was the battle scene, where instead of embroidery, you suddenly find beheaded men’s bodies in the border. How odd. We couldn’t take pictures, since the tapestry is so old it could probably disintegrate just by being touched, but Google it. It’s very cool.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast before heading off to the beaches of Normandy. Incidentally, we had the most amazing coffee ever at this hotel’s breakfast. Should you desire the name in order to stay there sometime, I can hook you up.

First, we went to one of the beaches where the British came ashore. From the cliffs above, you can see the temporary ports they built and then left there. This enabled them to bring in about 700 (ish) ships a day once they had established a line in France. From there we went to the American cemetery. Trivia fact: the cemetery is actually American land and is maintained by Americans. It was given to the U.S. by France after the war and is literally ours forever. The cemetery is gorgeous, but of course it’s really sad and somber, since it’s a graveyard. There are over 9,000 graves, and the only criteria to be buried there is to have died at some point in the Normandy invasion (which was a 3-month long enterprise). The cemetery itself overlooks another beach where soldiers landed, and you have the opportunity to see what the German soldiers would have seen the morning of the invasion.

Once we left the cemetery, we headed back to Bayeux for lunch. We then packed up our stuff and headed out to make our way to Mont St. Michel. Everyone working at the hotel was so friendly, and as we drove away, the concierge stood on the road waving an American flag. How sweet is that?

Getting to Mont. St. Michel took a good few hours, so the rest of the afternoon was spent on the bus. We finally got there, and marched off to our hotel through the annoying throngs of tourists.  Our hotel was actually within the boundaries of Mont St. Michel, which meant lots of stairs. We had a considerable amount of free time before dinner, so the girls decided to go mudding. So off we go, marching back out of the city, taking off our shoes, and jumping into the mud. There were signs all around warning of quicksand, so naturally we couldn’t resist playing and seeing if we sunk or not. I don’t think there was any actual quicksand there, but if there had been, we had a resident expert in Emily (whose main qualification comes from having been stuck in quicksand earlier this summer). We frolicked for a good hour, getting disgustingly muddy and poking jellyfish with our shoes.

Dinner that night was in the hotel’s restaurant, and was absurdly good – like most food in France. I got to have a dozen oysters for an appetizer, which came with a really good sauce. I think it might have been raspberry vinaigrette of some kind. The main course was a plate of lamb, and dessert was crème brulée. Mmmm…

The next morning was the tour of the city proper. Surprisingly, for all the tourists they have, there are only about 70 actual residents, and not all of them are full-time. There’s not even a boulangerie or charcuterie within the walls, so it’s not surprising that people don’t stay – there’s no way to get food on a regular basis. We climbed all the way to the top and got to see the church and amazing view of the surrounding area.

After the tour, we grabbed our stuff from the hotel and meandered to St. Malo. It was completely out of our way, so I’m not sure why we went there, but after eating lunch at a little pizzeria, we did find an awesome fort to play at. By fort, of course I mean a medieval fortress from sometime in the 13th (ish century). It was really cool. Emily and I spent a good half an hour climbing all over the rocks right next to it and attempting to not die in the English Channel. All in all, a good visit.

From St. Malo, we headed back to Versailles/Paris. Naturally, everyone else who had gone away for the weekend was heading back at the same time. So what should have been a 3 ½ hour trip turned into 5 hours. We were all really antsy. To make matters more frustrating, we got back to Versailles 1 minute after the last bus of the night. Normally not a big deal, it turned into one when we realized that we had our luggage to carry in the drizzling rain for 15 minutes. Growl. Needless to say, I was very glad to get home.

That about sums up Normandy, I do believe. See pictures on Picasa for more detail, since I’m sure I’ve forgotten parts of it by now. It really is gorgeous there. If you need hotel suggestions, I can definitely help out there. 

Now all I need to do is update on Toussaint so far. Sigh.

I'm incredibly long-winded...

Sunday the 4th was a dinner at our professors’ house. Our theater and civ professor are married and the directors of the program, and they very kindly invited us to their house to have dinner and watch excerpts from the first play we read (La Reine Morte, by Henry de Montherlant, if you were wondering – I know you were). The play itself was interesting to read, but this is one of those times when it really helps to see it put into action (or mise en scene, as the French say). The prince on paper was a wimpy baby, but the man who played him made him stronger than he was written, and so you didn’t get annoyed by him the way he was in the book. The end scene was a little creepy. The book ends with the prince’s secret wife being murdered by the king (drama, huh?), and in the very last scene, the king has died, making the prince king, and you see the dead body of his wife propped up on the throne and he makes all the nobles come do their obeisance to her. Meanwhile the dead king is left to rot in his bedroom, and why not? I would be angry too if I were the prince and my dad killed my wife and unborn child. This piece had some serious drama, and it was actually really fun to see it played out by some actors that I thought were really talented.

Dinner itself was a mix of foods, punctuated by the dog Bernie wandering around and literally trying to hump every person there. It’s so funny to watch, because Mr. Sinniger hates that dog (who is really a nuisance) and Mme Sinniger loves him. Thankfully, their son-in-law, Matthieu, was there, and has the gift of making the dog behave. For dessert, Mme Sinniger had made an apple tart and a half-baked chocolate cake. Amazing. Wow. After that dinner, it’s a really good thing they drove us home, because I would not have made it on my own. I could have been rolled up the stairs to bed.

The following Wednesday was another one of our weekly visits. This particular week was Notre Dame de Paris. You know, the really famous one. The gorgeous cathedral with gypsies out front trying to steal your money. We had come by Notre Dame the first time we were in Paris, but this was our first chance to actually go in. Tourist trap or not, it’s stunning. You can easily spend an hour in there just looking and looking and looking. I wandered through, just enjoying the serenity and the stained glass windows, and taking pictures along the way. After about 30 minutes of just looking (my neck still has a crick in it), I snuck out past the nuns at the door, and made my way to a nearby alley. Just across the river from Notre Dame is a super-touristy alley with creperies and Greek food galore. For 3 euros, you can get a steaming hot crepe chock full of Nutella – it’s the same place that has the head sized jars in my pictures from Paris.

Two days later, we made for Normandy on a three-day weekend. But that’s going to be its own entry, so hold your horses on that one. Just know that it was really great. There. Now you know.

This past Wednesday, the 14th(we’re almost up to date!), we went to the Palais Garnier. If you don’t already know it, think of the gorgeous opera house that inspired Phantom of the Opera. As that’s one of my favorite musicals ever, I was really excited to go. As was Kirstin – we’re starting to realize that we’re the same person, and it’s a little unnerving sometimes.

The visit started off really promisingly. We had a guide who was really amusing and very illustrative with his stories. He’d tell us about each room as though we were Parisians living in the early years of the Opera. Then we had the good fortune to sit in the actual theater section for a few minutes and got to see the stage crew working to set up for that night’s production of – I’m not sure, maybe Joyaux? It was an opera, but I can’t remember what it was (and I had never heard of it). The famous chandelier was there, of course, so see the pictures on Picasa. The ceiling above it is modern and is only about 20 years old. If you look closely, you can see various monuments from Paris, and if you know your culture, the most famous ballets and operas are depicted as well. Look for Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, The Magic Flute…and that’s all I remember at the moment.

We also remembered to ask, and sadly there is not precisely a lake under the opera. Due to the enormous risk of fire (remember, that chandelier was filled with candles in the 19th century), they needed something to put out fires quickly. So they have a reservoir of water under the opera for just such purposes. Kind of redundant now since we have electricity, but useful nonetheless. We also learned that plays and opera make their acts as long as it would take for a candle to burn out, and then the entire chandelier’s candles would be replaced at intermission. So they came up with a phrase to describe plays they didn’t like– “Ca ne vaut la chandelle.” Literally, “it’s not worth the candle.” Hah.

We then went wandering through the dance foyer, which was modeled enormously on the Gallerie des Glaces at Versailles (they’re easily mixed up, in my opinion). The most amusing thing about the Opera Garnier is that Andre Garnier (the architect), was something of a prankster. No one expected him to get the job of building the opera for Napoleon II, and there were a considerable number of people upset that he did. So once he got the job, he played a few “tricks” on those who attended the opera. For instance, if you look at the pictures of the dance foyer, there seems to be a lot of gold, which would make the hall really expensive. It wasn’t. Except for the parts of the columns that are struck by light, it’s all fake — paint instead of gold leaf. In addition, the fireplaces are completely useless. You can’t actually light a fire in the opera because of the huge risk of fires, so the fireplace is just there to torment people when it’s cold.  He was a mischief maker, that Garnier.

After the foyer of fake gold, we found the library. It has basically every score of any opera, ballet, or oratorio that you could think of. Kirstin and I decided to be really rebellious and touched Mozart scores through the bars, just to say that we did. Take that, France. What a way to end the visit. It was marvelous.

Thursday was a quiche lesson with Madam Chauchat. She had very generously offered to teach us some French recipes, so we learned how to make quiche and then had lunch at her house. Yum. And so useful to know. I can now make my own pie/quiche crust. Also on Thursday, Dr. Allen arrived in France. We were all really excited to see him, because after spending a month and a half with each other, anybody new is welcome. We also got to go out to dinner to celebrate his coming, Dr. Maiden’s return, and Scott’s birthday. After dinner, we went next door to the professor’s hotel and had a really good cake for Scott’s birthday. Strangely, it had popcorn on top. Hmm. Still delicious, though.

The following weekend was another free one. It started off interestingly – my French mom was having a dinner party, and she invited me to stay and have a drink with them. Incidentally, this is where I learned that Martini (the liqueur) is something to be avoided when possible. I got served some by the uncle and found I didn’t particularly care for it. So the next time my French mom went to answer the door, I snuck into the kitchen, poured it out, and put the same amount of water into my cup. I like water. :P

Highlights of the night: apparently South and North Carolina are too hard to tell apart. Every time someone found out I was from South Carolina, they asked me if I was from Charlotte. In fairness, it’s an honest mistake, given how close Charlotte is to the border. I also had the good fortune to hear a French man with a lisp for half an hour. I spent most of that time trying not to destroy French-American relations, since giggling in his face might have done just that. All in all, though, I met a bunch of really friendly people, including one who could actually say my name without an accent (they have just as much trouble with our “r” as we do with theirs) and the sister of my French mom, who is wonderful as well and reassuring to have around (she teaches French to Americans). Plus, my mom told me later that everyone said I spoke really good French – they even complimented my ability to say the French “r.” Hooray! It took me so long to get that blasted “r” right. It’s so easy to overdo. Or under-do.

Saturday, I ended up just spending the day being lazy with my family, which was really nice. Emily came over that night, so we made a quiche (spinach and feta, mmm) and watched Finding Nemo in French. Super. Sunday was a lunch with family. I had gone to church in Paris that morning, and on the way back to Versailles, I got on the same train as Austin! The odds of this happening, especially in Paris, are hilariously low, but it happened. We get back at the same time, and we find out that the “family” lunch is actually an extended get-together. So I got to meet what seemed like half the family. And the entire lunch, I was sitting there thinking “nobody talk to me!” 10 native French speakers are a little much to have aimed at you all at once, and I was extremely glad Austin was there with me. After lunch, we all watched a slide show of the daughter, Agathe, and her party that she’d had the night before. So adorable.

Having had a four-course lunch, you’d think I’d have taken it easy for dinner, right? Of course that didn’t happen, don’t be silly. We got invited to have a cheese and wine dinner party at the apartment of Matthieu and Marie, the son-in-law and daughter of two of our professors. So off we went.

The second we walked in the door, we got to meet Philippine, their adorable 2-year-old daughter. This child literally looked like an angel. She had big blue eyes and messy blonde curls, and literally was the prettiest toddler any of us has ever seen. She took right to Dr. Allen, and ended up sitting on his knee for most of the night. She kept wanting water, and would say “Eau. Eau!” So then we’d all coo over her and of course she got her water.

In between these bouts of fawning over Philippine, we actually managed to have dinner. Matthieu is something of a wine connossieur, and he got a couple of whites and a red for us to taste. Thankfully for a complete novice like me, he picked really good wines – they were so different I could actually taste the contrast. They also had bought about 10 kinds of cheese, which we naturally felt obligated to try. On top of this, they had bread and cold cuts and chocolate cake for dessert. We stuffed ourselves, but even so, at the end of dinner Marie thought we hadn’t eaten enough. The French really do seem to eat more than us at times. Marie may have thought we didn’t eat much, but my stomach begged to differ. Totally worth it though. So good.

Wednesday following, we went to Musée Jacquemart Andre. I would love to tell you all about it, but unfortunately, I didn’t pay so much attention to the audio-guide. It was boring. And we couldn’t take pictures in the museum, so boo. It was basically a house turned museum, so a lot like a chateau, but smaller and more boring – short visit though. That was good.

Next to come…Toussaint and the Tour of France. We currently in the middle of cavorting around the South of France, doing way too many tours and learning an awful lot of history.

Nuit Blanche

The following weekend was another free one, and very low-key, at least at the start. Then Nuit Blanche happened. Talk about a comedy of errors. In short, in French Nuit Blanche refers to an all-nighter in which you don’t sleep. Check. The entire city of Paris has exhibits all over to display new artists’ works, and some museums are open all night, etc. I ended up getting together with Brita and Sally, two old friends from Furman. We had decided to have a picnic somewhere in Paris, and this is the phone call I had with Brita before I left for Paris:

“Hey, can you bring a blanket with you when you come?”
“You want me to carry a blanket around Paris all night during Nuit Blanche?”
“Yeah, and do you have any plastic cups you can bring for the wine?”
“What? No. Stop it.”

In the end, we ended up grabbing a pizza (about the only thing that can be to-go in France) and a bottle of wine from a store, and we camped under the Eiffel Tower. This was fun in that the Eiffel Tower is lit up at night and tends to sparkle every hour. This was not fun in that the wind made it freezing and odd gypsy people were trying to sell us wine, even though we blatantly had a bottle of our own. However, on a really cool note, Sally and I have the ability to make the Eiffel Tower sparkle on command. We were getting impatient, wondering why it hadn’t lit up yet. Right as we go, “Why won’t it sparkle?!” the lights come flashing on! Everyone has a talent, I suppose. We’ve definitely found ours. We were so excited by this that we started cheering and this set off a round of cheering all around the tower. (Maybe we have two talents.) After bringing joy to the people of Paris, we decided that no night is complete without a crepe. So we got a couple and then headed off to Odeon, which was where the party was, according to another old friend Austin (the one who stayed with my family before me and came to lunch the weekend I cooked).

On the way into the subway, we ran into a group of about 30 drunk French students. We didn't think anything of this until they ended up on the same subway as us, on the same car. They were riotously singing French sports chants, or something like that and jumping up and down in glee, shaking the entire car. At every single stop of the subway, they played Chinese fire drill and ran down to the next car. It was hilarious. Naturally, the three of us HAD to follow them. We almost didn't get off at our subway stop in time.

Once we got to Odeon, we realized very quickly we weren't going to see anything anytime soon. The crush of people was insane -- there was literally an hour wait to get into the Jardin du Luxembourg, and all that there was apparently was a giant disco ball. It was kind of cool, but not worth an hour's wait. In the meantime of figuring out our next plan, we made friends with an extremely drunk French guy who started asking all about us. Sally gave him a cover story of us being Scottish (although we could have told him we were Chinese and probably gotten away with it). After a few minutes of getting creeped out, he turns his back for a second to check on his even drunker friend, and we bolted like, well, Usain Bolt.

At this point, I decided to try to head back to Versailles. Unfortunately, it was past 1 AM, so the trains weren't running anymore (although I didn't know this at the time). After attempting to find a train for a while, I ended up calling Austin, who promptly (and wonderfully) offered for me to stay with him for the night, since nothing was running. It took us nearly an hour and a half to find each other in the chaos of Paris, but we managed it eventually. Then, it only took another hour to actually find a moving vehicle that had room in it for us, take it to Austin's apartment, and stumble our way in on aching feet. My feet were literally in agony, and when I took my shoes off, I had the world's biggest blister on one foot. The next morning was NOT fun when I had to put my shoes back on my swollen feet.

Thankfully, the next morning was much less eventful. I took the subway back to La Defense (the business district) and then a morning train back to Versailles just in time for lunch. All told, a long and nerve-racking night. But it's actually kind of funny now.

I certainly wouldn't do it again though. Those blisters HURT. But more amusingly, the South Carolina blanket that I brought my family (and carried around Paris until 4 in the morning, per the request of Brita) saw about half of Paris in one night. I haven't told my French family that yet, I doubt they really want to know. :)

Update part one.

Uggh. I just got back from a really good dinner, and I'm so full/content that I might throw up. It's a paradox that even I don't understand.

Ok, so admittedly I suck at updating this blog. My bad. Here, for the two and a half loyal readers I might have, is a semi-update while I try to get the rest of my thoughts out of my head and into a Word document.

I'm going to be better at this. Be back soon. Promise.


An extract from an update that has been sitting on my computer for a week:

Plenty has been going on, and at the same time, not much, so it’s hard to know what to update. We haven’t taken a weekend trip in the past couple of weeks, so nothing on that front. But this weekend is Normandy (!), so there should be some great new pictures come Monday. We’ll be visiting the beaches where the Americans came ashore on D-Day, the American cemetery, and Mont-St.-Michel, among other things. We’re also kind of obsessed with our bus driver, Saïd (he’s awesome), and I fully expect our meal times to be as epic as the first two lunches were. Little does Madame Maiden know, there will also be more karaoke on the bus this weekend. Good times ahead.

So…updates. Not much goes on during the week. Mainly classes, dinners en famille, and the occasional trip into Paris. An entry of “a day in the life” has been requested, so that will be coming soon. And since you know me, by now you know that “coming soon” means “November.” But it will happen. I promise.

I think the last thing I updated was our trip to various chateaux. So backing up about a week and a half (maybe two).

We visited the Musee du Louvre about two weeks ago. I had been once in high school with our exchange group, but it was much more interesting to visit having actually studied some of the art since then. The only problem with the Louvre is that it’s so darn big. There are 60,000 pieces of art (and history) in what was the royal palace before Versailles was finished. So naturally, it’s enormous. And confusing to walk around, because who ever heard of a royal palace that didn’t get you lost? Right.

Anyway, it’s really impressive, but since you would need approximately 4 years, 261 days, and 12 hours to appreciate it all, a 2 hour visit was a little daunting. We were instructed to hunt down 4 paintings to take notes on (and no, the Mona Lisa was not one of them), but surprisingly, we found that 3 of the 4 were closed. What are the odds, right? We later found out that they weren’t actually closed, but rather that we were on the wrong floor. Figures. We googled them anyway. And then went to look at other paintings. But after about 2 hours, we became overwhelmed by the vast array of art before us and went to find a crepe. You do what you have to to cope. It usually involves Nutella.

The following weekend, we had completely free. It was glorious. I got to sleep past 7:30, relax, and spend time with my family. The son came home for the weekend, so we had everyone present except for the 22-year-old sister who finds it difficult to commute home for the weekend from San Francisco. Saturday consisted of being absolutely lazy, and having a late lunch with my family. Steak – so yummy.

After lunch, I made my very leisurely way to Paris and spent about 3 hours doing nothing but exploring. I took some of the walking cards I had been given and went wandering around the Louvre, Tuileries, and Place de la Concorde just taking pictures and enjoying the sights. Since it was a gorgeous day, the Tuileries were swamped, but that’s because they’re beautiful. After Paris, I came back to Versailles and had dinner with Emily at a pizza place we had found the weekend before with pretty good deals. Sunday, the entire group had lunch together as a celebration for Kirstin and Dan. They ran the Paris-Versailles, a 16k from the Eiffel Tower to the gates of the Chateau. They got a sweet t-shirt for torturing themselves, and we get a really good meal courtesy of Furman at this creperie right next to the Chateau. My dessert crepe had literally the most amazing vanilla ice cream I have ever had. Incredible.

The following Wednesday, September 30th, we had our weekly trip into Paris for the Hotel des Invalides. It, like most old monuments in France, serves 3 purposes. It has a museum, is a monument, and is a church – the holy trinity in France (ha!). Literally. If someone asks you what something is and you don’t know, we’ve found that it will always be one of those three. In addition, it still serves as a hospital for the invalid (hence the name). It was nice enough, but the entire visit was basically wandering through a war museum being told the history of weaponry from the French Revolution on. For 6 of the group, it was relatively boring. Not to mention that Napoleon had a real complex. When we went into the church section and looked at his tomb, it’s enormous. He could literally have fit into 1/3 of the lid. The tomb in its entirety could probably hold an elephant or two. Not my favorite visit, but then weapons don’t hold a ton of interest for me. Emily, however, was inspired by the clothing to create a modern day fashion line based on Napoleon’s clothes. Although that might have just been boredom in civilization class.

To be continued...

Quick note...

Two more posts up. Please bear with me, since they're fairly long. But it all builds up and then spills out when I make it to the McDonald's.

There are also more pictures on Picasa of: Chateau de Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte. Enjoy!

Mal

Thoughts on France...

Settling in has just about finished. I think for the most part, our group has gotten over the hump of “oh-my-gosh-why-did-I-think-this-was-a-good-idea-I-can’t-even-speak-French-and-I’m-an-absolute-moron.” It sure takes a while though. Now that we’re settled in, we all pretty much love France and would prefer to never leave. Or at least import a few boulangeries to the U.S. when we come back.

A few things that still stump me:

-The lack of colors in wardrobe. Everything is brown, black, tan, white, gray, or navy, with a couple of wine or light blue shirts thrown in. Having on anything else stands way out. The thing that confuses me is, they sell colors. Every mannequin has on a fairly bright outfit. They just don’t buy colors. I don’t understand why yet.

-I’ve yet to see a girl with a bad hair day. Which is made even more irritating by the fact that I’ve had a continuous bad hair day since I got here. I think they may legitimately be immune to frizz. Whereas I have frizzy hair from heat-styling (when I haven’t even been blow-drying my hair or straightening it) and then I see these girls with artlessly done hair that just looks perfect anyway. I need to figure out how they do this.

-The weather. It can be absolutely infuriating. The forecast will be something like: sunny with a high of 75. What they forget to mention is that the high only occurs for about 10 minutes the whole day. The rest of the day will be chilly, windy, and foggy. I might be exaggerating a little, but not by much. It’s necessary to layer, even now when it’s still warm. Plus, the leaves have already somewhat started to fall, and it’s not nearly as beautiful as at Furman. It’s kind of dull looking, actually.

-They adore Abercrombie and Fitch. This is hilarious to me. Here, wearing A&F means that you are in the cool crowd. Our group hasn’t figured out a polite way to mention that A&F stopped being cool after middle school. But it sure is fun to watch some kid with the logo go swaggering by like he’s all that.

-They also love Keds. You know, the shoes that Americans don’t tend to wear after about the 5th grade. And Converses, but everyone wears those in the U.S. too. Literally everyone here has a pair of one of those. It’s insane.

-Really, what it comes down to is: France is insanely fashionable. And chic. I’ve seen a chic four-year-old (obviously dressed by her chic mom). I’ve seen a 12-year-old with better fashion sense than some grown women. But they have this weird obsession with things that Americans (much less fashionable) gave up years ago. It’s bizarre. And brings me to:

-Scooters. There are so many of these. I’m convinced that every other kid in France has one. Remember how every kid in America wanted one, got one, played with it for 10 minutes and now they’ve been gone for a couple of years? Still going strong in France. How odd.

On the other side, things I actually do miss, having been gone for three weeks:

-Family and friends. Obviously.

-Milk. It’s not pasteurized. Gross.

-Ice cubes. They only come in restaurants if you ask. And even then you only get two or three cubes unless you specifically ask for a lot. Definitely never at home.

-Diet Coke (and regular Coke). They have Coca Light here but it doesn’t taste the same. And Coke is pretty close (much more so than Diet Coke) but it’s still a little off.

-English. I know the whole point of being here is to learn better French, and we’re definitely doing that. But sometimes it would be really nice to be able to have a conversation with anyone I meet, not just the 8 people here with me.

-Weather that actually adheres to a weather forecast, or is at least somewhat consistent.

-My cat.

-Having more than 5 shirts to choose from in my wardrobe. Or not feeling like I’m always wearing the same thing but in different colors.

-Football. It’s easy to forget it’s going on when you’re being herded through yet another chateau early on a Saturday morning, but I do miss it. Boo.

-Having a dryer. Washing clothes here requires a bit of planning ahead. Otherwise I might find myself without any dry pants to wear to class. This has not yet happened, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it does at some point.

-Sleeping in a bed bigger than a twin.

I’m missing less than I thought I would. It’s all more of an adjustment than an actual loss or missing of something. It’s hard to be upset over the loss of Chick-fil-a when I have a great boulangerie at the end of my block. I’m even starting to make friends with the people who work there. Which is good, considering they’re going to see me every day for the next three months. :)

I need to go, since we have a visit to the Louvre today, and I need to catch the train. But rest assured, France is great. And I miss y'all. And the word y'all.

Heads up...this is a long one.

Well, it’s certainly been a while. We’ve been keeping pretty busy settling in. Two weekends ago, we went to Giverny and Chateau d’Anet on Saturday, and then stayed in Versailles Sunday for the Grandes Eaux. This past weekend we went to two chateaux, Fontainebleau and Vaux-le-Vicomte. Sunday was a day of rest, literally, so I got to spend some time with my family and see an old friend from Furman who came to eat lunch with us. In between all of this has been classes, a visit to the chateau of Versailles, and trying to get to McDonald’s (the classy one, never fear) to use their wireless while conveniently not buying anything.

To back it up a bit…

Giverny – is obviously gorgeous, as you can see if you go to the Picasa page and check out the pictures. It’s Monet’s home, so you can probably see where he got his inspiration from. The entire place is drenched in flowers, and so it’s really pleasing both to the eyes and the nose. Lots of bees, though. So it’s not recommended for those with severe allergies/bee fears. We got to see his garden and pond with the bridge and water-lilies, even though they weren’t blooming when we came through. Monet intended to model his garden after the Japanese styles, but made one notable difference. In Japan, everything that isn’t nature is red, but at Giverny, the bridge is green. We spent the day exploring the house and gardens, and then headed to a wonderful restaurant nearby where we spent a good two hours thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

Chateau d’Anet – a small little chateau (bah –they’re all still humongous on a house scale) where Henri II hid Diane de Poitiers, his mistress. It was actually bought by a family when the country of France put it up for sale, so we also got to see someone’s rather impressive liquor stash in the enormous living room with 300-year-old furniture. But hey, why waste a perfectly good living room, even if a king did hang out there, right? The town itself is big enough to merit public restrooms and actual toilets, but small enough to not merit toilet seats, toilet paper, or soap. That was an adventure. But no worries, I learned my lesson at 15 in France, and I had hand sanitizer on hand (hah!)

Les Grandes Eaux – Given the enormous number of fountains at Versailles (see pictures – I didn’t even scratch the surface of all the fountains there), it’s fairly expensive, time-consuming, and effortful to get the fountains running. So in the interest of efficiency, they are only turned on once a week for six months out of the year. It was really impressive to see, but sadly, we only got to see a little, since they only leave the fountains on for an hour at a time. We then spent the rest of our afternoon eating at a little café/brasserie on the side end of the gardens. It was pretty good, but what in France isn’t? I haven’t really run across bad food yet, nor do I really expect to. Unless I go to London at some point.

Wednesday of last week, we split up the monotony of classes with another Wednesday visit. This particular one took us to the Chateau of Versailles, which we had not yet visited, despite having already been here for two weeks. We grabbed our audio guides and marched off into the maze that is Versailles (and yes, I got the audio guide in French because I felt too guilty when I thought about getting it in English). Versailles is gorgeous, but the visit wears you down a bit, and the whole thing is a little overpowering. I still got a lot of pictures though.

Chateau de Fontainebleau – this is yet another one of those chateaux belonging to the royal family of France for them to play in when they get bored with running the country. I should have taken pictures, but didn’t since it was about 9 in the morning on a Saturday and after a while, chateaux start to all look the same. They have the exact same rooms anyway. Master’s bedroom, mistress’ bedroom, waiting rooms for both, council room, servants’ quarters, etc. The only difference is who lived there. But it’s still really cool. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do in October when we hit 4 chateaux in one day.

Probably drink a lot of wine.

I digress.

Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte -- this is probably one of my favorites due to the story behind it. The guy who built it, Nicolas Fouquet, was one of the grand financiers of the state of France. Since the monarchy couldn’t run on its own, it essentially borrowed money from people like Fouquet. Well, he decides to build a nice new home called Vaux-le-Vicomte. He even thoughtfully throws in a special room for the king, because he’s such a great guy. So he throws a huge party, invites the king, who comes and proceeds to have a major temper tantrum. Basically, Fouquet’s chateau is better than Versailles was at the time. So the king (one of those Louis’ – XIV) has Fouquet arrested on absurd charges, steals his architect, lets Fouquet rot in prison for the rest of his life, and expands Versailles in the meantime. Lesson learned? Don’t invite the king to a party if your house is better than his. He gets cranky.

The chateau itself is, of course, gorgeous. The entrance is impressive, but the back view is stunning. I took about a dozen pictures just of the back because of how pretty it was. In a way, I liked it better than Versailles. Versailles is designed to be ostentatious, to show off, and to impress foreign monarchs and domestic nobles alike. It has paintings all over every ceiling, fabric covering every inch from the ceiling down, and basically so much art that you feel overwhelmed with patterns and sculptures and everything else. But Vaux-le-Vicomte is much less so. You can see where parts of it clearly influenced the construction of Versailles (since they were both built by the same architect), but VlV actually feels like it could be a home (and it was). I could easily see making it my personal vacation home. Especially with the talking statues.

That’s right. Vaux-le-Vicomte has been overtaken by Disney animators and now history is being reenacted by the same robots used in Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride, not the movie). This is funny, not only because I got to see a stuffed pet squirrel on a robot’s shoulder, but because Emily and I had had a conversation about this kind of thing just 2 hours earlier. We were sitting on a bench, talking about how the chateaux run together, and how it would be much more interesting if people dressed up and reenacted the history for us. And lo and behold, the very next chateau we visit is doing just that, with little speeches playing from the walls as the robots’ heads move woodenly back and forth. It was awesome. We really felt like we were part of history. Or a Disney ride.

Sunday, we had nothing planned for the first time since we had arrived in France. This was really nice, and it was a gorgeous day to have nothing to do. I ended up making lunch for my French family. I had brought them she-crab soup mix and cornbread as part of their hostess gift, so I made that, plus a salad with raspberry vinaigrette, a peach cobbler, and sweet tea to introduce them to the South. To make matters even better, Austin came to lunch. He’s an old Furman classmate (we had maybe one class together) who also had my family when he studied abroad a couple of years ago. Now he works in Paris and comes to have lunch with them on a regular basis. Since he’s from North Carolina, he was the true critic of my Southern lunch, and according to him, I got full marks.  Surprisingly, they really liked our food. Or should I say, they liked our tea. Soup and cornbread I can understand them liking. Salad they have all the time. But tea? Well, in France they prefer for drinks like tea to be hot. And strong. Not cold and sweetened. For instance, they take their afternoon coffee (an espresso) black. It’s really strong. But they actually liked sweet tea. Definitely a surprise. They also wanted to request more cornbread. I tried to explain it was a mix, but I’m not sure I explained it very well.

After lunch, we just sat around talking for about an hour and a half. It was so pretty out that none of us really wanted to move. Later that afternoon, I ended up going to Paris with Emily and Dan just to hang out. We wanted to take advantage of everything being open, but ended up just wandering around and exploring. This weekend was the Journées de Patrimoine in Paris, which basically means they open the political buildings, chateaux, and most monuments for completely free. The only caveat is, it’s free for the rest of Paris too. It ends up being like tax-free weekend – you stay and home and take the tax just so you don’t have to wait in a four hour line to see where President Sarkozy lives. He wasn't even home, since I saw on the news last night he's in NYC for a summit of some kind.

This coming weekend is a free weekend, so no one is sure yet on plans. We won’t go far though, because a couple of students are running in a road race from the Eiffel Tower to the Chateau of Versailles on Sunday. Not me, oh no. I will be cheerfully waving from the sidelines with my brioche in hand. So stay tuned for what might be our first foray out of the country. Or at the very least, our first foray on our own. Even if it’s only to Disneyland Paris.