Les Mecs

The French friends that Mamie and I made a few weeks ago decided to plan a trip to take us to some châteaux on Friday since none of them had work. They picked us up at our house with a huge umbrella because it was pouring. Only the château trip days, of course. The château Chinon was about 20 minutes in car from our house. When we got there it had stopped raining and the sun came out...it was so beautiful. Chinon is on a hill above the city and it was nothing like the other castles we've been to. It's more like ruins of a castle instead of having all the fancy beds and tapestries on the walls. But we got to go up into the turrets and look down on the city and the Vienne River. We could see mansions with huge vinyards all around the castle and when the sun shown everything was green and beautiful. That kind of beautiful after it rains and everything glistens. Romain, who I call Monsieur Histoire because he has his Masters in History, had a whole bunch of random information about Joanne d'Arc and the castle de Chinon. We went into a tower that had a Joanne d'Arc museum inside. 4 levels of her life story, and pictures. It was quite interesting but the buttons didn't work at many of the stations to explain to us what some things were so we just looked around, and of course, took a lot of pictures!


After we left the castle we walked though the streets of Chinon and saw I horse draw carraige, we also saw the place where Joan of Arc got off her horse and where she placed her foot! I put my foot there so now I've walked in the footsteps of a great woman! We walked down to a wine store and I bought a bottle of, apparently, very expensive French wine. It was the same price as normal wine in the US. I hope it's good! It started raining on our way there so we all had to pull out our umbrellas, but by the time we got out of the store it wasn't raining anymore. So we decided to go to another château.

This château is called Château d'Ussé, the castle that Sleeping Beauty is based off of. It's a very fairytale-like castle. You can just picture a princess looking out the window. We weren't able to go in because it was closed but they open again on the 14th of February so we might go back. But I got some good pictures of it from the outside.

On our way home we passed by Alban's house because the guys were going to football (soccer) practice and he needed his gear. He has a pool in his yard, marble stairs up to his house, and his sister lives in her own house right next to his. We got to meet his mom and she's just so sweet. She spoke French she softly and calmly it was easy to understand. Alban looks just like his mom. We also got to see his Suzuki motorcycle. Red. Beautiful. Yum.

From there they took us home and we had to get ready for the party that Jaqueline and Xavier were having for some friends of Geneviève's (the lady that originaly ran the Internation house I live in, but she died in October). We all got dressed up and went downstairs to greet our guests. Each guest that came in wanted to know about each of us so we ended up telling out story of where we were from and what we want to do with our lives several times. But there was plenty of wine so we all made it through the night just fine. Good hors d'oeuvres, great quiche, and some wonderful Pear pie... mmmm!!! After dinner I crashed. It was probably the earliest I've gone to bed since I got here!

Today was lazy. I woke up at 10:30 and sat in bed with the girls until 1:30 when the brunch bell rang. We ate a quick brunch with the whole family, then Grant, Joel and I had to go to choir rehearsal. It was sooooo long. I thought Concordia rehearsals were long. This lasted 4 hours! But I found out we get to perform in the Grand Theatre! It's so pretty! That will be a great experience! Then we came home and ate dinner. That was my day. I didn't do any homework today so that's all I'll be doing tomorrow...but I guess that's what I get for having a great Friday and a lazy Saturday :)