Still playing catch up!

Tuesday May 14th

First class of course with the wonderful Sprengers (no seriously they are wonderful teachers not to mention pretty cool people....and they aren't even paying me to say this). Today was one of the days where they cooked for us at the BYU apartment (right next to the Ecole Militaire metro stop) so needless to say we were all pretty full by the end of it. After that we visited le Musee Carnavelet and we focused on the exhibitions on the French Revolution because that was what we had talked about in class that day. Then we hit up another vintage shop that we just happened to run across and my friend Lauren bought some really awesome shoes that I totally wish were in my size...#jealousmuch! We also went to Sacre Coeur at Montmartre. Sacre Coeur is my absolute favorite church in the world it is so peaceful and wonderful! You can't take pictures in the inside so we just went inside and there were nuns singing and a priest and everything so we just sat and listened for a while. Even though its not a Mormon church I could definitely feel the spirit there and it was nice to just soak it all in.

Wednesday May 15th

Started the day off right with a nice dose of school and then onto Les Invalides. I have seen it from the outside before but never gone in so I was really excited to see where Napoleon is buried as well as walk around and see some of the exhibits that there are. Of course I have to mention the small man large tomb situation, which is a bit odd but if you are Napoleon I guess you can have whatever kind of tomb that you want....hence a giant freakin tomb in the middle of what used to be a church and then was a hospital for soldiers and now houses a dead man. After this we went and saw The Great Gatsby (Le Magnifique Gatsby en francais) on the first day that it came out and I LOVED IT! I apparently lived under a rock before this day because I didn't know the story line at all so I was completely shocked the whole way through, learning the plot bit by bit. It was in English but with French subtitles.

Thursday May 16th

We left bright and early Thursday morning for a train to the Loire Valley for two days. Trains are quickly becoming one of my favorite modes of transportation. Pluses: you get to see the beautiful countryside, you can take photos, you can eat and sleep fairly comfortably, you can get up and walk around. Cons: super stinky bathrooms (who knows why it just is the way it is). Once we arrived it was a continuous flow of chateau after chateau, and really who doesn't love that!? Not this girl! I loved it!!!!! :) Everything was so beautiful! First was the Chateau de Villandry which is well known for its gardens, pictured below:

We even saw swans in a lake, hello picturesque! The next stop on our castle tour was the one known as Sleaping Beauty's castle called Chateau d'Usse(pictured below), which was the inspiration for many Disney castles. We just saw the outside of this one as well as the outside of Azay le Rideau, another very beautiful castle.

Then back onto our giant tour bus (which has the weird power of making everyone, myself included, really sleepy and needing naps big time) and onto Chateau Royal de Blois.  The tour guide was surprised when Madame asked him to give the tour in French instead of English and for whatever reason he kept asking us if we could understand what he was saying during the tour, and then he just finally switched to English. Of course we couldn't understand every word but for the most part we could understand, I just think he was being super condescending. Kind of like he didn't think we could handle his advanced speech so he needed to dumb it down for us in English, thanks but no thank mister tour guide. The chateau is really interesting because it has several different styles because of when each part was built and such, definitely look this one up. I would explain more about it but I'm not a history major for a reason ladies and gentlemen. :) Here is a picture of me on a throne at Blois.

Okay so then the coolest thing every happened!!! We drove to a little castle called Chemery and got to sleep in it for the night!!! Can you believe it?! I slept in a castle! It was very quaint on the outside and the lady that owns it was very sweet, there was even a dog (I tried to be his best friend but he wasn't really having it...maybe dogs don't like me?). Apparently it is haunted because a long time ago someone was buried alive there or something like that...who know what happened but I do know that I didn't hear anything besides some snoring that night. The attic was definitely a bit creepy though. We played truth or dear that night, and it was the first time I had ever played (hello deprived childhood!)....I just stuck to truth, dares are too scary!