Chateau-ing: The act of going through the Loire Valley in France with a bunch of Kalamazoo College Students and visiting Chateaus.
Saturday - Started off by getting up early, finishing packing (because the night before I went drinking with some German students), and going to the ESC to meet the rest of the K kids and our program director Joelle. When I got to school there were some others there and by 9 all of us were there except Jenn who overslept. So we all climbed into the van and drove to Jenn's house and picked her up. Then we drove a couple of hours to the Loire valley. On the way there we stopped at a rest stop which was interesting because they had loads of Auvergnat stuff there (like loads of wine and knives). Also on the way there Lauren and I played the cow game. This is a game that Lauren taught us and it goes like this: whenever you see a heard of cows you yell "My cows!" then you get a point. The object of the game is to get the most points. But beware! If someone sees a power plant or a cemetery then they can kill one heard of cows from whoever they want. Also the land looked alot like Ohio where it was alot of flat, fertile, land.
Anyways, finally we got to our first of three chateaus - Chenonceau. Now I have already visited this chateau before, but that didn't stop me from having alot of fun or taking crap loads of pictures. Anyways, it was a little bit different because there was a cool art exhibit. Also it was nice to see again because it is a super cool chateau - it goes right over the water! FYI there are a few things that interests me alot when inside a chateau (and that you will see alot of in my pics): (1) the fireplaces - they look so cool and all of them are so different. (2) the walls - usually they are bare stone with huge tapestries or ugly looking wallpaper. (3) the ceilings - sometimes they have cool architecture like exposed beams or cool molding type stuff. Once we were done exploring the inside of the chateau we decided to go out into the rain and go through the maze. This was something I had not done the last time I was there and was super fun (even though we had to jump over huge mud puddles and it was pouring)! Then we all went to the designated spot to wait, but Sam wasn't there. Jenn went and found him and then we finally left.
After a fairly short ride we got to the city/town of Amboise. Once there we went to the hotel which was pretty nice. Jenn, Lauren, and I shared a huge three bed room. After half an hour we all left to go to the Chateau du Clos Luce (aka Leonardo de Vinci's house) except for Jenn because she wanted to shower and nap. So we hopped in the cab and just when we were about to get there we hear this huge noise. I thought we just went over a huge bump, Jake thought the car backfired, and most of the group didn't know what to think until this old lady started banging on our window a few seconds later yelling "Le pneu, le pneu! (The tire, the tire!)" The driver was like "Je sais! (I know!)" and we continued up the little hill until we got to a flat spot and got out. The tire was completely flat but we were at our destination so Joelle told our driver that we were going to go in and he could go fix the tire. So we went to go get tickets to go in except the lady at the counter told Joelle that they were closing soon. Joelle asked if we could see the gardens and see the house tomorrow but she was told we couldn't, we just had to come back tomorrow. So we all walked to this little bar that looked like it was carved out of a cave and got drinks (I got hot chocolate).
After a short while of talking, listening to American music (the restaurant owners changed it to that as soon as they heard us speaking English), and relaxing, the driver came in and after he had a beer we all left. We rode back to the Hotel and then went inside, freshened up and went down for dinner. Dinner was really good, and really big. It started with an appetizer (I had a seafood salad), entree (some sort of fish in this sauce that I really didn't like), cheese (duh!), and dessert (this was DELICIOUS - puff pastries with hot chocolate sauce). After dinner we all went out to a bar to hear music. When we got there we went in and got a large area all to ourselves. We all got drinks and Jenn and I decided to split one. This turned out to be a really good idea because the drinks were HUGE! Seriously I think their drinks used flower vases as glasses. Anyways, it was pretty good but there was no music so we were a little disappointed. After awhile we went back, went upstairs and I took a shower and was off to bed because it had been a long day.
Sunday - Started off waking up, getting around, going down for a good breakfast and going to the chateau on foot. It was a nice walk and a beautiful day (not rainy like the one before). We got to the Amboise chateau (another one I have already seen) and got in. We saw the little chapel where De Vinci is buried, amazing views of the area around the castle, the chateau itself, and the grounds and gardens. It was alot of fun until my camera had the battery light turn on. So I had to monitor how many pictures I took after that. Here's a video of the view:
Anyways, after we left we went to the market which was pretty cool. It was like a mixture of an Art Show, Shipshewana, and a Farmer's Market all combined and put on crack. It was really cool and had everything from butchers to cheese stands, clothes to shoes, lingerie stands to cowboy clothes (no joke, they even had Confederate flags for sale!), roast chickens to Middle Eastern food and everything imaginable in between. When we were done looking around there (and Lauren had bought her scarf) we left and went to lunch.
Lunch was good, we had a huge meal starting with appetizer (salad), entree (BIGGEST bowl of pasta I have ever attempted to eat by myself - it was fettuccine with seafood), and dessert (creme brulee). During lunch Sam told us that the day before, when the tire blew and the lady was screaming "Le pneu, le pneu!" He thought she was saying "Le canard, le canard! (The duck, the duck!" Which means that he thought we somehow blew up a duck. So for the rest of the trip, whenever someone would hear somthing incorrectly we would say "le canard?" as an inside joke. After lunch we piled into the van and went off to the Chateau du Clos Luce.
When we got there there wasn't alot of people so we got right in. It was really neat to go inside the house and see everything. There were lots of quotes on the walls and we got to see the kitchen and in the basement we saw alot of his inventions. After a while we went outside in the garden where the real fun was. There were remakes of his inventions everywhere, and best part was - you can play with them! It was alot of fun and would really recommend it to anyone going to Amboise. After playing and wandering around for over an hour, we left to go see our third and final chateau before going back to Clermont. We drove the 15-20 minutes to Chateau Chaumont.
This chateau was really interesting a different because (a) I haven't seen it before and (b) it was in a more Italian style. We went inside and there were alot of different artistic displays and exhibitions. It was alot of fun and they even had a billiard room which reminded me of playing pool back at school with my friends or at home against my dad and brother. Anyways it was pretty neat and then when we were out on the grounds we were given a choice to go to go back to the car or see the Dog Cemetery first. What did I choose? Dog Cemetery of course! It was really cool and they even had an elephant grave! No joke, they had a pet elephant and when it died they had a whole grave for it. Anyways, once we were done we booked it back to the van because it started to rain. Then we had a short 3 hour drive back and then we got dropped off at our houses, had dinner and I went to bed (after putting up pictures of course!).
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