view of chateau villandry from the gardens.
Soo I've officially given up on consistently updating this blog... I don't think I'll make anymore unreasonable promises :)
This past weekend we joined Danielley's parents in Loire Valley and visited the castles there. Among them were Chenonceau, Chambord and Villandry. They were all quite beautiful :)
view of the gardens from a tower in the chateau.Loire Valley is near the city of Tours and is basically the countryside and it was so pretty getting to see all the little old towns. They all had so much history and the buildings had so much character that walking aimlessly in the residential areas was just as enjoyable as touring the castles. In Amboise, we stopped by an old house of Leonardo Da Vinci and along the way, walked through a suuuuppper old neighborhood that had remains of houses built into the rocky hills... these are called "troglodytes" [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte]. I wish I had a picture to show you but unfortunately, my camera had no battery to begin with :( ... I know, Sorry Mommy.
Other things...
*As the new school year is beginning at home, the massive amounts of pictures being uploaded onto Facebook are making me rather homesick! Not to say that I am not enjoying every second of my life here, because I truly am, but it is quite a moment when you realize how much life is going on without you back at home! Last night Dana gave me a bunch of new songs to download as I had been listening to the same ones since I got here... bleh. It's going to be so strange to come home to a radio that is entirely unfamiliar and a blockbuster full of new choices :)
*Although, thank you all SO much for all of the mail :) I felt so so sooo loved, too! It's been wonderful having a reason to check the mailbox! I just bought stamps so I will be responding shortly :)
*Official school started a while ago... forgot to blog about that.. I'm still taking French along with Histories of Paris and French Cinema. Histories of Paris is really amazing... on Mondays we have lecture and on Wednesdays we go on excursions to see those places we are lectured about. It's like applied european history and it's great. Daddy you would love it! For example, we learned about Napoleon... his crazy military successes and his crazy Napoleonic code and domestic policies.... and then went to Invalides where his tomb is that is basically filled with artwork in remebrance of all of his accomplishments.
*Madame Anne (my Fran-mere/ host mom) is speaking almost all French at our dinners now. Danielle converses well whereas sometimes I just smile and nod. It's not that I can't understand, it's just that I can't think up a response quick enough, haha. Although I am getting much better with my French... occasionally I miss the negation in a sentence and totally get it backwards, but I'm no longer falling asleep in class so I know there is an improvement since before, I'd doze off because I didn't know what was going on :)
*I have now officially wasted far too much time blogging and way too little time doing my paper on Invalides.
Love you all!
A tout a l'heure,
Micheley
Other things...
*As the new school year is beginning at home, the massive amounts of pictures being uploaded onto Facebook are making me rather homesick! Not to say that I am not enjoying every second of my life here, because I truly am, but it is quite a moment when you realize how much life is going on without you back at home! Last night Dana gave me a bunch of new songs to download as I had been listening to the same ones since I got here... bleh. It's going to be so strange to come home to a radio that is entirely unfamiliar and a blockbuster full of new choices :)
*Although, thank you all SO much for all of the mail :) I felt so so sooo loved, too! It's been wonderful having a reason to check the mailbox! I just bought stamps so I will be responding shortly :)
*Official school started a while ago... forgot to blog about that.. I'm still taking French along with Histories of Paris and French Cinema. Histories of Paris is really amazing... on Mondays we have lecture and on Wednesdays we go on excursions to see those places we are lectured about. It's like applied european history and it's great. Daddy you would love it! For example, we learned about Napoleon... his crazy military successes and his crazy Napoleonic code and domestic policies.... and then went to Invalides where his tomb is that is basically filled with artwork in remebrance of all of his accomplishments.
*Madame Anne (my Fran-mere/ host mom) is speaking almost all French at our dinners now. Danielle converses well whereas sometimes I just smile and nod. It's not that I can't understand, it's just that I can't think up a response quick enough, haha. Although I am getting much better with my French... occasionally I miss the negation in a sentence and totally get it backwards, but I'm no longer falling asleep in class so I know there is an improvement since before, I'd doze off because I didn't know what was going on :)
*I have now officially wasted far too much time blogging and way too little time doing my paper on Invalides.
Love you all!
A tout a l'heure,
Micheley
1 comment:
So when you and Dana get tired of me asking questions and talking you could lead me into the middle of one of these mazes and ditch me. THEN you'd get your hour of silence :)
So who pays to keep all these gardens up? How come we can't do something like this in the states?
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