The trip was for the weekend of November 28/29 it was advertised as 3 castles, 2 days, 1 party. For 99 euro you got entrance to 3 castles, a night in a hostel, wine tasting, a party, food, and transportation. That's pretty dang good!
So Friday night was the Latin American food night which was a little rowdy and caused us to lose the common room again. So that is now closed for the year. Awesome. So I was up pretty late. Then I over slept a little and let's just say I was a bit of a hot mess in the morning. I turned off my computer which decided to run updates before shutting down (many of you know the end of that story) Then luckily my friend helped me and I drank orange juice and ate yogurt on my way to the bus pick up point. On top of it all it was raining, and I don't own and umbrella, had no hood, and forgot my hat. So I am wet, cold, and very pathetic.
Then of course this being France the bus was late and we were standing out in the rain for sometime huddled under a tree in front of the school waiting and hoping it would arrive soon or we all got out of bed way too soon.
Finally it arrived and our 5 hour bus ride was underway. Unfortunately the bus driver had some sort of secret hate for us and decided at first there would be NO heat on the bus, then after our first stop he decided to turn it on full blast (which is how it stayed the rest of the trip)
On the bus we all chose rooms and roommates for the night. I got into a 3 person room with Laine and Magda. The only room with the possibility of being cooler was the boy's room with Francesco, Adrian (right there you know it's going to be crazy), Dan, Corey, and Justin.
After 5 hours of in and out of consciousness and some crazy facts provided by Boyd's iphone we arrived at the first castle. Chateau Chenonceau. It was a bit of a dreary day but we were all so happy to be off the sauna of a bus it didn't matter. Some of us started at the Maze (or Labyrinth depending on what language) and others headed on to the castle.
In the maze there were huge puddles everywhere so it was more a game of avoid getting muddy and wet than finding the best path to the center and back. At one point one of the boys decided to hide in the bushes in order to scare Francesco our new Italian friend.
Francesco is in white under the arch. Britti is hiding int the outer hedge waiting...Eventually we subdued our childish antics and walked to the actual castle which was on the water (literally on the water)
I wanted to go in here it looked like a chapel or something but that wasn't allowed, I was bummed
here is the chapel in the castle
I have to warn you know I gained a slight obsession with the windows in all of the castles and there are LOADS of photos of windows and through windows. I limited myself to only putting the best ones up here.
The view from the library:
This was a bookcase in one of the bedrooms. I think I need one like this sine I always seem to run out of space for my books at home.
Here is a view of the part of the castle that is over the water
All of the castles had Christmas decorations up some were more subtle than others this particular castle had very simple decorations upstairs but in the servants quarters they had an entire table decorated
The floor was beautiful in this castle
This was my favorite room but I can't remember which one it was
I fell in love with this bust on the cab the window
This was the exhibition room which were simply for the purpose of displaying some of the Queen's favorite art.
The ceiling of the chapel
This is the basement where the servant's quarters are and the kitchen
The servant bells
The servant's dining room
There was a butchery in the basement as well. Here is a butcher table
the floor in the entrance hall
After seeing the castle we still had a little time before heading back to the bus. It was still drizzling rain but we wanted to see the donkeys before heading back. They were really cute and kept coming up to the fence and licking it.
After the first castle we went to a Winery with caves near Tour. It was a very small local type winery that only sell locally from what I could tell. Here is the machine where they label the bottles and seal the corks.
The Caves, which they don't really use anymore however this woman's great grandfather built them and they were used until the 70s I believe.
After the tour was time for the wine. Here is everything you need for classy wine tasting: delicious goat cheese (yeah I actually loved a cheese!) spittoon, and water
we tried 4 types of wine, a white (which was amazing!) a rose (pictured) and 2 reds.
Magda and Laine
Post tasting we went to the hostel to get a quick nap/refresher in. To be honest I have no idea what town we were in or where we were in France that night. I know that it was relatively close to the second castle but that's it. I don't know the name of the hostel or town or anything.
In the hostel was this poster of the first castle
At the hostel we had dinner in their restaurant and then got ready for a party in the basement where craziness broke out in every form. Here are a select number of photos from the fiesta.
Francesco
Anniina and Laine
Corey
Francesco, Juliana and I can't remember the other girl's name (I know that's really bad)
Fran and her new best friends (email me if you want the whole story here and more photos! seriously it's a good one)
the dance floor
Magda and Me (Britti was cropped out of this copy)
The next morning we got up, ate breakfast, and checked out of the hostel, and headed to castle number 2.
Chateau Blois
Before entering the Chateau we looked around outside first like this cool church across the street
This is the entrance to the castle
Here is overlooking the town and the church next door
This photos is for Matt: MF Doom anyone?
Another church next to the castle (the bells were ringing when I took this)
Finally we made it inside and got a quick history from a tour guide about the castle.
Inside the castel was basically a museum/art gallery, which I thoroghly enjoyed and wished we had more time to actually explore and look at. But we were running late that morning so we had to rush through the whole castle.
This is my new boyfriend, he's very regal and classy I think. As Amine said he has a lot of bling which is good.
The boys the morning after: Britti looks surprisingly alert, Amine is Amine, and Brian looks like he's hurting
The Calpoly girls triumph onward though!
Corey and Amine (Oh Canada)
This was a HUGE hall where in this photo I could only capture about 1/3 of it
They also had a museum of the ruins and sculptures that are no longer up or on display.
This is the inside of those crazy stairs
They also had a modern exhibit in one of the wings. It was a photographer who took photos of different people's feet from babies to older people, manual laborers to office workers. I walked in one room and knew immediately - Dancer!
I also loved some of the paintings and sculptures however whoever designed the lighting in the galleries should be fired because it was awful there was so much glare you could never get a good look at the entire painting. I was thoroughly irritated.
They also had a display of royal shoes
Ok here is my new favorite sculpture (ok it's a tie with Rodin's kiss and a lot of others but I like this one A LOT)
I also knew immediately this was a sculpture of a dancer, I'm really quite pathetic but I don't care
Here is the inner courtyard
Then we headed over to the look out and began being childish again
All of us gained a love for tiny doors this weekend as well, there has to be hundreds of photos of all of us in tiny doors acting silly.
The chapel
After Chateau Blois we headed towards the final castle, Chateau Chambord. Before heading in though we had a nice picnic lunch in the freezing cold rain, crammed under some gazebos. The food was sandwiches, baguettes, cheese, chips, clementines and cookies. Nothing really to warm the soul (or body for that matter).Finally it stopped raining and we headed to the castle.
The gardens were beautiful and I'm sure on a nicer day with more time we would have walked along the paths but it was not the day for it.
The castle was sllightly decorated for Christmas and had these amazingly rugged looking trees all over.
One of my favorite wall hangings were these golden deer with real antlers attached
The chandeliers were beautiful and created an epic lighting in the rooms
there was also a central stairwell that centered around this hole. I don't know how to describe it but it reminds me of that scene in the little mermaid where she swims up the long tunnel sort of thing in her place of treasures. It felt kind of like that
more window shots
This was the chapel and it was very basic and bare, with just the stained glass windows as decoration. you could tell they had removed at some point all the frescos and paintings that once adorned the chapel. It looked almost like it had been sterilized of all emotion and drama.
The little girl was petting the big beasts it was really cute
The roof of Chateau Chambord was by far the best part of the entire trip in my opinion. I never wanted to come down, it was so dramatic and beautiful. I kept imagining what it had been like back in its glory days.
This is Fran my bathroom mate from Minnesota and Adrian the Australian
and this is what we like to call a photo bomb (thanks Britti that's 2 of my photos you've bombed)
The Boys: Luis (from culture connection), Vladie, Corey, Oliver, I don't know (he's polish I believe), Dan, and Brent.
A water spout on the roof
The grounds
looking down the pit
another tiny door photo
playing in the ruins
One of the courtyards of the castle
The end of the trip, yes Adrian is number 1
The trip back was very long and hot (the heat was all the way on again) and we begged and pleaded with the driver to let us stop at a station. Then the one he chose, the girl's bathroom was closed so we were forced to use the boys (that was interesting) one of the stalls looks like this:
We're not really sure what it's for but it was curious looking so I took a photo.
We got back home around 9pm and I promptly went to turn on my laptop to check email upload photos etc. and it decided to not start up properly and make horrible beeping noises at me. So now it is broken and all the people I've taken it to and the things I've tried haven't worked out. Now I am a computer mooch and I borrow all of my friends' computers whenever I can. It's a little sad but oh well.
Fun facts about:
- I have been proposed to 2 times in 3 days by an Italian and a Canadian (I haven't decided whether I'll accept or not)
- there was an open mic night at a pub the other night that was a lot of fun
- another soiree put on by my school is tomorrow the theme is monsters and scary things, it's in french and doesn't really translate well. Basically it's stuff like vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc
- Lykke Li is awesome and I love the remixes of her song Dance Dance Dance
- We're doing a secret santa and I have a really hard person to shop for
- The Christmas fair began and I've already been like 3-4 times
- I am finally reading my fall Hemingway (I usually read him in November but Wicked took me a while) so now I'm on For Whom the Bell Tolls which is my first time reading
- I'm done with classes!!!! I only have 2 finals, on the 16th and 21st.
- I'm spending the night of the 18th in Paris with all my friends at a hostel called Oops before we all go our separate ways basically
- Finnish independence day was last week and there was a small party on the 4th floor (since the common room is closed again)
- Finns drink cider-ed everything like blueberry cider and pear cider I want to try these
- I hate Christmas shopping I am a terrible present giver, I never seem to get people the right stuff.
- Insomnia sucks
- please email me or comment I get lonely without a computer so when I check things I feel REALLY happy when I have email and such waiting for me.
