Nous sommes restés à Tours pour quatre jours. Nous avons vu quelques châteaux de la Loire: Loches, Chenonceau, Blois et Chambord. Chambord est vraiment magnifique. C’est le plus grand château en France, derrière le château de Versailles, bien sûr. Aussi, c’était intéressant d’apprendre que Chambord, construit par François 1, n’est pas un château pratique, donc ce n’était pas très confortable pour les personnes de rester là. Il faisait froid, en particulier pendant l’hiver! C’est à la cause d’escaliers au centre du château que les chambres n’ont pas le chauffage très bien. Cependant, les escaliers doubles sont fantastiques, comme le DNA. Ils ne se rencontrent jamais!
Nous restions dans le même hôtel que je suis restée pendant mon séjour là avec mon lycée dans l’été de 2005. J’étais dans le même étage aussi, mais pas la même chambre. C’était chouette ! Alors, il y a 53 personnes dans le programme d’IES, mais seulement 8 garçons. Tout le monde est très gentil, mais il y a déjà les groupes différents entre les étudiants. Il y aura très intéressant de voir comment le semestre sera.
Well I have almost survived my first week en France! My host family is so gracious and wonderful! They have been more than accommodating so far, giving me my own room and bathroom! I basically have the upstairs of the house. I also have a very large desk and a big armoire and closet for my stuff. It’s great! I should have brought more stuff! Everyone is amazed that I only brought one suitcase... including myself.
This past week we started ‘orientation’ for the program, but it was really a small vacation with a lack of actual orientationing… We drove to the city of Tours, a city almost 3 hours east of Nantes. One thing was clear right away; there was snow on the ground and it was at least 20 degrees colder. Not so fun. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been in Minnesota, with my winter coat, boots and adequate socks. However, seeing that I did not have these things, I was threatened with frost bite often…
Tours is right in the middle of the Loire Valley, which is loaded with châteaux, or castles. Thus, we completed a significant amount of castle sight-seeing during the 4 days we were there. We saw 4 châteaux in particular. The first was in a small town called Loches. It was built in the Middle Ages, thus the style of the castle was very simple with some large rooms, some small rooms…. Haha. But it was also ridiculously cold and by the end I had trouble concentrating on what our tour guide was saying because I couldn’t feel my toes…. We also visited Chenonceau, a château which is more recent and also more celebrated in France. There are two defining features of this château, the first being that part of the castle extends over the Cher river, and the second being the enormous grounds, full of beautiful gardens, or at least so they told us (everything was a little brown when we saw it). The funny thing about this château is that it was built by Henri II, who then decided to give it to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. However, after Henri was killed in 1559, his wife, Catherine de Médicis, ordered Diane to move out and give her Chenonceau…. Which, hey, good for her. The whole mistress/wife situation with most of the châteaux is a little sketchy to me and hard to keep up with, but it seems that back in the day everyone was pretty open about the whole situation. Besides having to acknowledge the fact that her husband had a mistress, Catherine also had to put up with the fact that Diane had a garden at Chenonceau that was at least 5 times larger than hers… Bummer man.
The château at Blois is probably the most bizarre castle I have seen thus far. Its final structure reflects 4 distinct centuries of architecture. The first part was built in the middle ages (13th century) and is only reflected by one very large room at one corner of the castle. The next part was built in the 15th century and reflects the gothic architecture of France at the time. The outside walls are covered in brick and creepy looking gargoyles… The next part was built in the 16th century during the Renaissance. There is a staircase in the middle of this part that spirals up towards the top of the château. The last part was built in the 17th century and looks exactly like it was taken off of Versailles in Paris. However, it was actually completed before Versailles, but both were done by the same architect. So, each of these individual structures were just kind of stuck together, making a large square with a courtyard in the middle of it all. Weird, but cool at the same time I suppose. It’s also in the middle of the city of Blois, so in some ways it just kind of blends in with the city, which is also pretty neat. The last château was Chambord, the second largest castle in France, next to Versailles. It truly is a breathtaking sight. Absolutely fabulous. It was built by François 1, who basically just had it built to show how great he was, and how much money he had, etc. He hired Leonardo da Vinci to design the château, so the castle is filled with great, Italian Renaissance goodness. The best part of this castle though is the double staircase in the center of it. It’s designed like a double-helix or DNA, and thus there are two separate staircases which spiral upwards, that never meet. It’s sweet. However, the intent of the staircase again goes back to the Mistress/Wife thing, in that neither would ever meet if they each took a different staircase…
Another interesting part of the adventure in Tours, was the food. We ate quite well over our 4 days, always having an appetizer, main dish and dessert for both lunch and dinner. Talk about a lot of food. Thank goodness the portions here are smaller than at home. However, the whole group was always given the same thing, and we never knew what we were eating, with the exception of a few obvious green salads. So one night we found out we were eating eel…. After I bit into a bone, or spine, I don’t really know, I was done with that. Man I was grossed out. We asked the waiter what it was and he said the word for eel in French, but didn’t recognize it, so then he said, a snake in the water… yeah we understood then. Ew. Not for me! We’ve also had duck and elk, neither of which I’ve had before, but I suppose were ok. It didn’t help that we ate the elk on a wildlife preserve and the duck right after feeding some at one of the castles earlier in the day though…. We’ve also had an abundance of fish and other seafood wonders… I’ve managed some of the fish, but I couldn’t get past the scallops and mussels. Maybe it’s just the way they’re being presented? I’ll work on being more open minded about what I’m eating. However, tonight at my host family we had quiche and I was absolutely thrilled. They eat ‘normal’ food!
This week starts actual orientation in Nantes. Woo hoo! Tomorrow morning I’ll get a bus pass and head to IES for a day full of information. Oh yeah, and starting tomorrow there is a strict French only policy. Il n’y a pas d’anglais en France! Excellent…
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