Life plan: Marry someone rich, live in a château

October 1st was the first day trip for IES outside of orientation week, and we visited Mont St. Michel and St. Malo (a beach city in the north of France). It also happened to be 85 degrees that day. We had a ton of free time at Mont St. Michel which was perfect... it was too touristy to try to go on a guided tour. I loved it though; we walked around the "mountain" (I think it's too small to be considered a mountain, but I wasn't the one to name it after all) for a few hours and got to see the chapel and everything around the island. I ate the best -- and my first -- gaufrette there and it was quite possibly the best thing I've eaten in France. There was a slight problem as we were trying to leave Mont St. Michel because one of the buses decided that working wasn't necessary, but thankfully almost everyone fit on the first bus. I was one of the lucky ones that made it onto the working bus. St. Malo was an adorable little beach town with a bunch of little shops, including a 5 Euro shop that was AWESOME. I bought a hat there that I love. :) I also went into a cute little chocolate shop and bought myself some chocolate... I gotta say, I was rather unimpressed. I'm hoping Nantes' chocolate can blow me away. We went to the beach at St. Malo, so I can officially say that I was in the English Channel/both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They run into each other, so I'm counting the Atlantic haha. St. Malo was also the town in which I had my first croque monsieur in France. It was the cheapest thing on the menu, so of course that was what I got! And it's France.. everyone NEEDS a croque monsieur in France!

October 15th and 16th IES took us on a tour of the châteaux of the Loire Valley. It was an insanely busy trip, but I'm SO glad that I went.

The first châteaux that we visited was Montgeoffroy in Anjou. Absolutely nothing has changed since 1775, when it was finished being constructed. Insane right?! There was a small chapel on the property, which was insanely gorgeous with lots of stained glass on the inside, as well as a kitchen with servants' entrances totally apart from the living area. There was also a round room where they kept all kinds of supplies for horse back riding. The really crazy part? People actually live in this château!! It's a super old family of dukes, but because the château is in such good condition, they let tours go through while they're not there. There was also an original signed document by Napolean Bonaparte. I almost died, not gonna lie.

The next château was Azay-le-Rideau, where unfortunately I don't have a little guide book for because it was a free visit. It was great as a free visit; there wasn't really a lot in the château, but it was surrounded by water on 3 sides and had an adorable little park right next to it so we were all able to lay down on the grass. After we got sandwiches at a little brasserie (sandwich shop), of course! I think while it was one of my favorite visits in general, we had a little too much time there.

Villandry was the 3rd and final château of the day. I was sad because we didn't get nearly enough time there.  Not only was the inside of the château totally decorated, but there were also some AMAZING gardens. Google it. For real. The château was finished in 1536... and is still standing. Ridiculous. In my opinion anyway. The French knew how to build things. ;) The gardens were so amazing I can't even begin to describe them.. Google them, Google Earth them, or eventually look at my Facebook... when I FINALLY upload all of my photos.

That night we had dinner at the hotel, which was completely amazing, and went out to celebrate my friends' birthdays. The only problem was, we got lost in Tours, so we didn't actually go anywhere. Oh well.

The next day was October 16th, and among it being a day where I saw 2 more châteaux and returned to Nantes, it was also the day that I found out that a kid I literally grew up with passed away. It was a very, very hard day for me, which I hope will hope to excuse what I remember from that day, which unfortunately isn't very much other than crying quite a lot. We left the hotel to go to Ambroise, where Leonardo da Vinci is buried. The tomb is in the small chapel on the property, and there is also a bust of da Vinci in the gardens. We could also see the house that da Vinci lived in from the property. It was really cool.

Then... finally... we went to the last château, Chenonceau. I was super exhausted by the time we got to this château, but something that stuck out to me about this one was that there was a gallery that they turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers during WWI. There were also several gardens, also beautiful, but not as much so as Villandry, a farm, and a maze. The bedrooms included Diane de Poitier's (King Henri II's favorite mistress... he gave the château to her. I wish), François I's (King of France from 1515-1547), Louis XIV's drawing room (King of France from 1643-1715 - he became King at 4 years old), Katherine Briçonnet's hall (the wife of the original owner of the château), Catherine de' Medici's bedroom (wife of King Henry II), and other famous people in history that I just don't want to mention. Something important though, is that the 2 gardens are named after Diane de Poitier and Catherine de' Medici. The whole château is a really cool shape too. The bottom of it is arch after arch after arch that suspends the whole building over water. Google it. :)

This, thank God, brings us to the end of this blog post. Sorry it's so long!

À plus!
Sam

Is this real life?

Wow.. I haven't updated in almost 2 months. Jesus. A LOT has happened. Lots of traveling, class things, midterms, crazy amounts of homework, and lots of hanging out with friends :)

So September 17th and 18th was Journée du Patrimoine, which is a weekend where all museums are open to the public completely free. They do this all over France, which is pretty cool. My friends and I went to the Musée de Beaux Arts de Nantes which is a pretty cool art gallery in Nantes. this was the first time in almost a year it had been opened, and closed again after the weekend. There was mostly modern art, which isn't really my thing, but it was okay. Some of the paintings looked like paintings my nephew made when he was like 6 years old, but if some people want to call it art, so be it. We also went to the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Nantes which was pretty freaking cool. They had so much stuff in that museum, including a giant sequoia and a bunch of cross sections of tree trunks. They also had a giant whale skeleton, tons of shells and stuffed animals (pretty creepy, not gonna lie) and rocks and gems and that kind of thing. It was huge. We were there for a really long time because there was just so much to see. The same weekend we visited the Château des ducs de Bretagne, which is also in Nantes. It's from the 15th century and HUGE. There's a museum inside and there are artifacts with plaques all over the place, so you know what's what. Nantes was a big slave trade city because of how close it is to the ocean, so they had a lot of history about slavery. It was pretty interesting. A lot of the museum was dedicated to Nantes' history as well, so they had a ton of statues of Anne de Bretagne (the saint of Nantes) and information about her, as well as old advertisements and other cultural history. It was really interesting.

My birthday weekend was pretty laid-back. My friends made dinner for me on the Saturday before my birthday (it was super cute) and then we went to a bar and to the largest discothèque in Nantes. Girls get in free, so that was pretty awesome. It was super fun and really a great way to spend a birthday weekend. The day of my birthday we went back to the fair that was in town and rode the ferris wheel (again) so that we could get pictures of Nantes from above the city. The photos turned out great. I also had a delicious ice cream cone that was my present from my friends. It was very chill. I appreciate chill so much now... everything here is so hectic all the time.

Between then and the next major chunk of the blog post, there were a lot of crepes, a lot of ham sandwiches (what I eat for lunch literally every day) and a lot of Nutella and Speculoos. Speculoos is this amazing spread that tastes like crushed up Cinnamon Teddy Grahams. It's so phenomenal. Like ridiculously good. I'm bringing a jar back with me and will probably cry when it's gone.

The next blog post will start the 15th of October. I'm breaking my blogs up so it's not a 10 page blog entry :)

Til next time!
Sam