Toussaints travel
Trip Start
Unknown
1
3
Trip End
Ongoing
Sainte Maxime, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Sunday, November 1, 2009
this is very long and if anyone actually reads this...well then, im impressed. and thanks!
anyhoo so this week we didn't have school because it was toussaints( all saints day). a lame candy free holiday that they choose to celebrate over halloween. i will someday write a blog detailing a number of times and situations where france lacks logical, this abandonnement of halloween will definitely be included
Since we have until the 5th off Becca and I decided to take a trek up north to see some loire castles, bretagne, and the mont saint michel.
old thing tours
well apparently since the south of france gets about 300 days of sunshine it has to spend a years worth of rain in one go, and there was crazy flooding on friday morning. it took me a very awkward hour and a half car ride with eve yo get to school. of course when i got there my teachers didn't actually need/want me to be there. rar. and i couldnt get home because no buses were running due to the crazy floods...the fact that there even was school on a day when half the teacher and students couldn't get there...is another story and also belongs on my list of illogical frenchisms...
anyways thanks to miguel, i made it both home and to saint raphael in time. thanks again miguel!!!!!
so while at the train station i witnessed the cutest children ever, and yes even i thought they were cute. As you all well know i despise babies so i hope you understand just how cute these 2 baby people were.
our story starts with a small black child shouting " blah blah blah blah black is blue- tiful". yes "blue" tifal. apparently his one phrase of english impressed small blonde child person enough to go over and befriend the bean
old thing tours
. they even shared blocks. but alas when the train came they were forced to part, and i kid you not they kissed on the lips. thats right THE LIPS. apparently they start early here in france....so on we went and arrived in tours. Albeit after a long sleepless night on the train and a brief moment in paris that included a walk to the seine.
On our way into the hostel we found an old thing, and a big church, followed by an even bigger church, followed by the wrong part of old town, then a bridge.then finally the hostel. yayyyy.
we ended up meeting 2 australian girls, and one girl, meng basically became our travel buddy for the trip. we spent our 2 days in tours mostly chilling at cafes drinking amazing cafe cremes, and looking at the ridiculously cute timbered houses of place plumerau. we also read trashy girl magazines in french and meng cooked us an amazing dinner. all in all tours was pretty fab.
So we booked a castle tour for monday and spent the day seeing 5 different castles
smaller big church tours
.Our first castle was chenonceau, which remains my favorite. if i'm ever a fairy princess thats my castle. I think what made it so incredible was actually the fog. it was so ridiculously foggy you could barely see the outline of the castle which added to the surreal feel of all of it. unfortunately we made it back to the van late and our driver got all pissy and french at us. later we charmed him with our amazing french skills and naturally he fell in love with us...well ok maybes not, but he told us the history of the area and said we could even contact him if we ever needed help with french.
anyway so we went on to see amboise, which was medieval. Chambord, which was built as a hunting lodge. A HUNTING LODGE?!?!?!?? gah crazy castle people. its just about the most amazing and grand thing ive ever seen. the staircase on the inside is a double helix designed by davinci so that francois the premier could have his mistress go down one staircase while the next is going up. dude was big pimpin apparently.
next was cheverny, which people actually still live in. crazy. the inside was the most elaborately decorated. loved it. the woman who lived there had her wedding dress on display too, not so impressive though. i realize she was married in the 90's, a fashion dark age, but seriously....not so pretty madame....we also passed blois and another castle that i forget the name of, in the van
cute houses in tours
.all in all castle day was just about one of the most amazing days ever i still cant believe that buildings like that are even real. just insane.
alright im sorry for how long this is....and if you actually managed to read it, you must love me a lot or something...?
more travel updates to come!
love love!
