Rule #1

CHATEAUX GALORE!!!

Today was the day of our Loire Valley chateaux tour!! It was really fun and all the castles were super cool. It was a long day though (9am-6pm) and we are tired once again. The castles we went to were:
Chenonceau


Amboise


Cheverny


and Chambord


They were pretty incredible. Although after the first couple, the insides of them all start to look pretty similar. Over the top tapestries, furnishings, portraits, and the like. I just loved the diversity of the exteriors. The contrasting architectural styles were amazing and I loved when two or three different styles were used in the same building. I sound like such a nerd, but whatever. I thought it was cool :)

What was really crazy was the size of these places. The first three were all similar in size, big but not insanely huge. Kind of like those HUGE houses you see in really rich areas of the country. Maybe like some of the houses you might see in the Hamptons where you look at them and you're like, "how could those people POSSIBLY use all that space? That house is HUGE!!!" That's kind of house big the smaller castles were. But Chambord, the last one, was just beyond comprehension. It's the largest castle in France next to Versailles. But with Versailles, the style of the building just makes it look big because the whole thing is kind of square and normal looking. Chambord looks just as big, but actually looks like a real castle. This place is just MASSIVE! The grounds of this castle are the size of Paris proper. The grounds are the size of the CITY OF PARIS!!! Ridiculous. It's just so, so big, and guess what it's purpose was? A hunting lodge. It wasn't even a permanent residence!! As we heard today, it's amazing the French Revolution didn't come sooner than it did. The amount of money that was put into this place is just crazy and then the king that built it only spent 29 nights there in his entire life. What a WASTE! I mean it's beautiful, don't get me wrong. But good gravy, just thinking about all the people he could've helped with that money instead! Like I said, the French Revolution could have come much sooner...

Funny story from Castle hopping today:

So I decided before we came on this trip that if anyone ever offered to take mom and my picture together while we were at some tourist attraction, that I would definitely say no. I have heard too many horror stories about theft to let someone else be holding my camera. No one would touch it except mom or myself. End of discussion. This was going to be Rule #1.

So today, at the first castle we visited (Chenonceau) mom and I were walking through the gardens and she went one way and I went the other. I wanted to go to one corner of the garden to get a better pictures of the castle (funny how most of my blog is about going random places so I can pictures...) and this guy has been walking behind us, and was now walking behind me. These are pretty big gardens (I mean it is a castle.) so it feels kinda weird that he's just walking behind me for a really long time. There are a couple other people around, so I'm not completely freaked out, but it just feels weird. So I get to the other corner and get some good pictures, and then I look around a little bit and start to head back. Right as I start walking, this same guy comes up and asks if I would be so kind as to take his picture in front of the castle. This has happened to us a lot over our time here so I oblige without hesitation. I take one shot (it's obviously a good one:)) and then hand his camera back to him, ready to take off. Then he asks, "Would you like me to take your picture? You know, to return the favor?"

MIND STARTS MOVING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT.

"Oh no this is rule number one I am NOT supposed to let anyone touch my camera I decided this before we even got here but he's going to think I'm totally rude if I say no I mean what type of person doesn't want their picture in front of a castle well I did just look around that direction is gated off so he couldn't run that way and this way is a really narrow little bridge and he's wearing a backpack so I could probably grab him if he made a run for it and this third way is back towards everyone else and they would totally notice him sprinting away from a girl screaming and running after him plus I just learned a ton of self defense moves so after I caught him (since he'll be slow from his backpack) I could totally take him down but if I DID take him down what if he fell on my camera and broke it then I'd be PISSED."

"Sure!" I told him. I handed him my camera and explained how to use it (it's amazing how many people have no idea how to use a camera with a view finder these days, it's like cameras have always had LED screens...) and take a few steps back. Then he fumbles with it, takes a picture or two and says something about it not focusing. I'm like, oh I KNOW it's focusing pal. I can hear it and see it rotating around, what are you playing at? So I go over and take a look and the pictures are totally in focus so I tell him it's fine, and I start to take my camera away. Then he asks if I want a picture in front of the garden too "It's so beautiful with all the snow!" Yeah. right. Me: "No thanks! It's fine with just the castle, thanks anyway!" Him: "Ok, well see ya" Me: "BYE!" And I hoof it outta there. Whew...crisis averted. Although he DID have an Australian accent. At least he had THAT going for him..


So anyway, have I mentioned that Tours isn't that great? Because Tours really isn't that great. I like Paris way better than Tours, and I like the country better than Paris, so you can see where that puts Tours. At the bottom of the happy list. The castle tour today was fantastic, but the city pretty much stinks. Although this is only from the perspective of a tourist. If you lived here as a French person it would probably be just fine, but they make ZERO effort to accommodate tourists here. ZERO. Now, you'd think that for a town within the limits of a region that has the most castles concentrated in one area in all of Europe, that you'd be used to, and ready for, a good amount of tourists. Apparently not. Yesterday when we got here we walked around for probably a good 20 minutes trying to find a restaurant with an english menu. (Meaning that there are english descriptions under the french descriptions of each item on the menu) None to be found. But we figured we just didn't know the area well enough yet, and that we were probably looking in the wrong spot. False. Tonight, after getting back from our castle tour, we walked around for 45 MINUTES, in the area of the city that is filled with restaurants, and only found 2 places that had an english menu. Also, it wasn't like we just ran across one restaurant every 4 minutes or something, there were restaurants EVERYWHERE. We probably looked at like 30 restaurants and none of them had english menus. We were about to go insane. We even walked into an Irish pub-looking place just because we saw the word "Irish" in english and hoped for the best. But alas, the bartender spoke great english, but they didn't serve dinner. Foiled. Basically we're just tired of this town and we're ready to head back to Paris where they at least speak a LITTLE english...good gravy.

So anyway, tomorrow we're on our own and were planning on roaming around the countryside as much as possible and staying out of Tours if we can. But it's supposed to snow so we'll see if the roads are passable. Since they don't plow anywhere, things could be messy. We'll see what happens! Btw, is anyone still reading this? I feel like people have gotten bored and stopped reading...if you're still out there gimme a shout! (Pal I know you are, don't worry) :)

Je ne sais pas francais!

Mer. That's how I'm feeling right now. Also, I miss Mont Saint Michel.

We drove to Tours today. Left MSM without a hitch, got on the road and just cruised. Have I mentioned that the countryside is beautiful? Because it is BEAUTIFUL!! Today it was even rainy and cloudy, but it was still gorgeous. I can't even imagine what it must be like in the spring and summer when the weather is nice.....crowded that's what. Mom and I have decided we are happy to trade the warm weather for less people. There are enough people here without the hordes off tourists that come for the summer months. Pass.

So we drive, and we love it. Then we get to Tours, and I don't know why but for some reason I was expecting kind of a smaller, touristy town. WRONG. This is basically like a mini-Paris. Busy, crowded, and even less English. Perfect. Fortunately, we will spend most of the day tomorrow on our guided tour of the castles (Yay!) and then we will just have Saturday to look around and see what we want to see. But yet again, we were both overwhelmed upon arrival, and this time we had a car to find a park for too. Oy.

Fortunately, once we parked the car and got some food in us (awful as the food was, and I'm not being a pansy this time. We both ordered steak, "medium", and it came out almost entirely raw and I think I heard a couple of "moo's" out of mine...it was pretty gross. But our waitress spoke like 3 words of english so I didn't think it was worth trying to send it back...oh well.) we felt a lot better. We walked around a little bit, bought some chocolate, and we're still a little confused about where we are in the grand scheme of this place but we're getting there. Now we're back at our hotel safe and sound. Exhausted, but better.

I think I've realized why the french get the reputation of being rude, because most of the people we have come across have been very nice and willing to work with us even though we speak very little french. I think it's because they are totally and completely unaware of anything that is going on around them. They are just entirely oblivious to anyone or anything outside of themselves. Now this usually isn't in a rude, selfish, or egotistical way (I mean sometimes obviously) but they're just plain oblivious. And when someone is oblivious to you, it is easy to think they're just being rude. Oh and french people are just as loud and noisy as Americans. Done.

Not too many funny stories today, sorry folks. It was a pretty run of the mill day, no hysterics or wreaking havoc amongst the throngs of people. Although we did stop to buy some fruit at a super market on our drive, but we didn't realize that we had to print off the little sticker with the bar code on it whilst we were in the produce section. So we brought our bags of fruit to the counter, hoping to just hand it to the woman, pay, and leave with as little communication as possible since it was a small town and we assumed they spoke zero english. However, since we didn't print off this sticker, she starts talking to us in french at a zillion miles an hour and we just have "deer-in-the-headlights" face on, and my mom is able to sputter out "je ne sais pas francais!"(I don't know french) And then the woman's like "OOOOOH d'accord" (ok) and then runs off to the produce aisle to print the little stickers for us. PHEW! That was a terrifying 5 seconds...so that was a good time. :)

Also, there are cows everywhere here. I mean they're in the pasture, it's not like India where they're all just run amuck around the road and such. But you can't go 10 minutes without seeing another small herd of cattle, and they're HUGE!! I'm convinced that french cows are way bigger than American cows, which I find to be ironic. You'd think that if the American people are generally physically larger than French people, than American cows would be bigger to feed all the big American people. Apparently not. I probably ate one of those fat cows for dinner tonight, maybe they caught one that we saw on the way into town. That explains why they didn't have time to cook it! ZING!

Oh and one little funny moment from last night at dinner. When we asked for water to drink, the waitress asked "Gas or no gas?" In my head I was like "Really? That's how we're gonna do this? Ok then..." "NO GAS!" As soon as she left our table mom and I broke into guffaws. Thus far we've had the epic "bubbles, or no bubbles?" "flat or fizzy?" and now "gas or no gas?" I think the later is now fighting for first place on the leader board of hilarity, but "bubbles or no bubbles" in a french accent still takes the cake. That was amazing..

Ahh well, beaucoup de Chateaux demain! A bientot!