Après plus qu’une semaine

Crazy, crazy weekend, but good.

Saturday was château day. As in, the group goes to Chambord and Chenonceau for the day. But of course, my roommate and I – both of whom are chronically late – missed the bus. We got there and I called my friend Alex, and she said the buses had already left. Oops. ;-) So we went to the train station to see if we could get a train to Chambord. It was super complicated, so we looked at prices for going to Paris, or to La Rochelle (the beach!), and briefly toyed with the idea of going to one, but they were too expensive. Sadness. So we figured out how to meet the group at Chenonceau in the afternoon, and then headed out for a wonderful morning in Tours. We seriously sat at a café for two hours and just talked and had fun, and then we wandered around Tours and window-shopped. And then we took the afternoon train to Chenonceau. Seriously, I’m in love with the train system here. So cheap, so easy, so romanticized.

Chenonceau was gorgeous and fun. Genius idea to build a castle over a river. Why didn’t I come up with that? ;-)

That night, we were all rather tired, but we did make it out for a bit. Got to hang out with more people with whom I’d like to be friends, but whom I don’t spend much time with, so that was fun. And we got crêpes. Yum.

Sunday was my friend Maddy’s birthday, and the Braderie, which is basically a huge city-wide street sale in Tours. There are tons and tons of people, and the streets are full of stalls and people shopping, and there are crazy fair-like things, and it’s pretty fun. If I hadn’t been so tired, it would have been better. But anyway, for Maddy’s birthday, we went to lunch at a fun place on Place Plume, then shopped at the Braderie (no, I didn’t get anything, sadly), then stopped for coffee at a café and shared a mini cake that Selene had bought for Maddy.

After, Laura and I wandered around for like an hour trying to find wifi! It’s impossible to get here, except at the school, which is where we are now. Thankfully that won’t be the case in Paris. Later on, Maddy’s host family invited us over for her birthday dinner, so that was really fun, getting to see another French family, and have different food. The food was amazing, and it was really fun, and somehow my conversing in French was better. And if you’ve ever had the most amazing flourless chocolate cake… that was for dessert. So good!

Speaking of conversing in French, we’re all finding that our French is barely improving, and our English is disappearing. Seriously. Soon enough, I shall be without language altogether!

Today’s exciting news is that I know where I’m living in Paris! Most people don’t, but I’m special. ;-) haha Actually, I had my housing meeting today, and I told the woman in charge of housing about Kaki’s host mom wanting me to live with them, so she said that works if that’s what I want, so I know where I’m living! I know I have nice people and a good location, which is more than most people can say at this point. AND Kaki can come visit and stay with me! :-D

So excited to get to Paris! We leave Friday. Tours is nice, but I’m ready to go.

Send me emails, guys, and leave messages on here! I miss you all so much!

Still trying to figure out the picture thing. Soon enough…