Salut tout le monde!! Je suis très désolée
pour ma pénurie des postes pendant le dernier mois. Maintenant, j’ai une petite
roman d’écrire avec tous les choses que j’ai fait depuis ma dernière poste et
je ne sais pas où j’ai besoin de commencer. Alors, préparez-vous pour mon
histoire!
Ok so the last you heard from me, I had
just returned from a trip to see my friend Gaby in Rouen. Looking at the
calendar, I now realize that was almost a month ago and as you can probably
guess, I have done quite a bit since then. So instead of describing everything
I have done, I will use a combination of anecdotes and pictures to tell you all
about my adventures here in Tours.
The weekend of September 20th, I
visited my first castle in the area, Chateau d’Amboise. Amboise is a royal
chateau, built sometime between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Several
kings lived there, including Louis XII who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci’s.
In the church on the castle’s ground, one can find LDV’s resting place! I
visited Amboise with a group of Canadian girls. After the castle, I visited the
Clos Lucé, a manor about 200m from the castle, which was the last residency of
Leonardo da Vinci. The castle was beautiful, but I definitely found Clos Lucé
much more interesting. I got to see LDV’s bedroom and kitchen and I sat at his
desk!! As well, in the giant garden behind the house, there are lifesize models
of his inventions. The man was a genius!! He designed things from the first
life ring to army tanks and many of his designs influenced much of what we
still use today. Unfortunately, I could not convince any of the other girls to
visit the Clos Lucé with me, but I am so, so happy that I decided to explore
within.
The weekend of the 20th was also
the Journées européennes du Patrimoine in
France, or the European Heritage Days. Because of this, many of the museums and
historical sites had reduced rates and/or free entrance, making it the perfect
weekend to visit different places. On the 21st, I visited many of
the sites in Tours with my friend Samantha, including the Musée de Beaux-Arts,
the musée du compagnonnage, les archives de Tours, le basilisque and many, many
more. We tried to visit as many as we could that day because a) we didn’t want
to pay to visit a different day and b) we wanted to explore as much of our town
as we could while we had the time. I think we often forget to be tourists in
our own cities and experience what they have to offer, but now I feel like I
have seen a lot of the historical sites around Tours!
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| Musée de Beaux-Arts |
During the following week, I started a
program called the Tandem Service Learning Project. For this, I meet with a
French student for one hour and we talk in English for half an hour and French
for half an hour. This program is worth three credits for me, providing I
complete 20 hours and write an essay at the end of the semester. So far, I have
really enjoyed this program. First of all, it is a great way to practice
French. Second, it is a great way to get to know some fellow students. I have
been lucky with my partners so far, and have even had some request me for a
second session. I have talked with all sorts of students, from one who moved
here from New Zealand when she was young and is now more French than English to
one guy who invited me to watch his band perform on the roof of the library! I also have become really good friends with a girl I talked with who is now applying to do the Disney Cultural Exchange Program!
The following weekend, my friends Kelsey,
Esther, Rachel and I rented bikes and spent the day biking the Loire à Velo
trail. The Loire Valley (my region of France) is famous for its beautiful
landscapes and countless castles, gardens and historical sites and there is a
600km bike path that connects everything.
We were only able to do a small section of it and biked from Tours ->
Villandry -> Azay-le-Rideau -> Bréhemont -> Langeais and then back to
Tours, biking a total of 80km. In Azay-le-Rideau, we stopped to visit a castle
because it was free to enter. The castle was beautiful, one of my favourites so
far and I think it was because it was small enough that it felt liveable. We
stopped for a picnic in Bréhemont before returning home. By the end of the day, I was definitely
wishing that I owned a pair of cycling shorts!
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| Stopped to pick some apples! |
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| Waving to my royal subjects! |
That Sunday, I visited Château de
Chenonceau with my friend Anna, a German exchange student and my host mom,
Genevieve. I signed up for a program offered by the city that matches
international students with a local family to help us experience the true
French lifestyle. My host family is really just a woman and her husband as her
kids are grown up but my “host mom” is lovely! She was extremely knowledgeable about
the château and gave Anna and me a fantastic tour! Chenonceau was actually
called the castle of ladies as there were many influential ladies who lived in
the castle walls and made the château the place it is today. At one point,
there was both a king’s wife and mistress living there at the same time! Personally, that would not be my ideal living situation, however I guess I would still get to be living in a castle. Tough choice.
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| Anna, Genevieve et moi! |
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| The next lady of Chenonceau? |
During
the first week of October, I gave my first presentation in French. It was very
nerve-wracking but overall it went pretty well. I was even able to make a joke
(in French) and made my professor laugh! I also went bowling with my residence
at the local bowling alley and am proud to announce that I did NOT end up in
the gutter every time. The week before, I had gone a trip to play laser tag
with my residence and had earned a grand total of -3000 points so I think I
redeemed myself a little with my bowling abilities.
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| #strike |
The next weekend, my grandparents came to
Tours to visit me!! They arrived on the Saturday and stayed here until the
Wednesday morning. It was such a treat having them here. I met them at the
train station when they arrived and we walked to their (beautiful) hotel
together. I brought them a French picnic, complete with a fresh baguette, local
cheese, local apple cider and French pastries for dessert. I gave them a tour
of Tours in the afternoon, including a visit to the Château de Tours and to the
local chocolate shop!
Sunday, my host mom took my grandparents
and me to the Château et Jardins de Villandry. We had the perfect day to visit,
as the sun was shining and the weather was warm. The castle was very different
from the other ones I had visited, as it was not a former royal residence; instead it belonged to a very wealthy man and his family and has been passed on
through the generations. However, more beautiful than the castle were the
gardens. There was a vegetable garden, a sun garden, a love garden and several
others. In the brochure, I read that there are only 9 gardeners who look after
the garden year round. I wonder if my past experience with Seeing Green would
qualify me to work there.
Monday, my host mom took us to the Château
de Loches, which is a château-fort from the medieval period. It has a giant
wall around it, which circles the castle and the city, called a donjon or a Grand Keep. It was also very different from the other castles I had visited, as instead of a residency, it was
built for war and defense. One of the main indications that it was for war,
which I learned in my castle history class is that it had a vertical
organization, meaning there were lots and lots of stairs! However, the view from
the top, i.e. the place where the soldiers stood to survey the area, was
absolutely incredible!!
My grandparents left for Paris on
Wednesday, which was a very hard day for me. However, I did not have to wait
long to see them again as I went to their hotel in Paris on the Thursday night
for dinner before I caught a midnight bus to Amsterdam with my friends Rachel
and Sam. Let’s just say my grandparents are NOT on any sort of student budget,
as indicated by the view of the Eiffel Tower from their suite!! It was so nice to see them one last time
before they returned home, however I am definitely sad that they had to go. I
thought for sure that France would work its charms on them and convince to stay
with me in Tours for just a little longer!
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| Thanks for dinner G and G! |
Thursday night, I spent 7 hours on a bus as
I travelled to the wonderful city of Amsterdam. We arrived there at 6am in the
morning and were delighted to find that the Starbucks was open!! I could not
have asked for a better way to start my day than with a Pumpkin Spice Latte! We
hung out in the Starbucks while we waited for the city to wake up and then
started our touring at the central train station. When we walked out into the
city, there was a band playing and a man was handing out the local newspaper –
what a welcome! Starting at the train station, the first thing we did was a
self-guiding walking tour put together by a man named Rick Steves. His tour was
fantastic! He led us (via an audio podcast we had each downloaded on our
phones) through the city, going by the National Monument, the New Church, the
Royal Palace, the shopping centre and the Civil Guards Gallery. We then had a
picnic lunch on a canal and did a photo shoot at the “I Amsterdam”
letters. We then visited the Anne Frank
house, just like in The Fault in our
Stars. The AF House was amazing – it was so surreal to actually be in the
place where her family hid for two years.
The exhibits were really well put together and lucky for us, they were
all in both Dutch and English.
Following the AF House, we went to our
hostel, Stay Okay Zeeburg to check in for the weekend. Our hostel was pretty
fancy, and we had a six-person bedroom for just us three! Our hostel also had a
restaurant cafeteria and a bar, but we chose to go to the Amsterdam Library’s
rooftop terrace restaurant for dinner that night, which offered a very cool
panoramic view of the city. Saturday, we did Rick Steves’ tour of the Red Light
District, which was a total contrast from the historic old city we had done the
day before. Let me paint you a picture of this area of town: the prostitute
shops are centred around the Old Church and there is also a daycare in the
district! Walk a few metres away from the church and you hit the street filled
with strip clubs and legalized marijuana shops. It was surreal, almost to the
point of not believing something like that could be real. In case you were
wondering, no I did not buy anything from the Bulldog Café chain.
To finish our time in Amsterdam, we did a
boat tour on the canals, visited the Holland International casino, had two
picnics – one in the train station and one in our room, ate Dutch waffles and
went to the bar in our hostel where we met a touring symphony orchestra and
some friendly guys from New Zealand and New York. We had our final breakfast on
the Sunday before hitting the road for our long trek home on the Sunday. We
left our hostel at 9am in the morning and I was back in my room at 10pm! It was
a solid 13 hours on the road but the trip to Amsterdam was worth every penny
and every second! Before I came to Europe, Amsterdam was not really one of the
places I originally planned on visiting but I am so glad that I did! Definitely
a great way to kick off my European travels!
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| Tot ziens Amtserdam! |
Unfortunately, due to my weekend trip away
I missed the Thanksgiving party my friends had here on Sunday. However, I
decided to make a turkey dinner for one in my cuisinette on Monday and was
relatively successful! I made turkey, stuffing, potatoes and orange-glazed
carrots. I was unable to find cranberry sauce so I substituted with fig jam.
Happy Thanksgiving to me!
On a side note, yes I am still going to
school! It’s not my preferred activity but I am still the dedicated student
that I have always been! I got my first exam back today and got an 85%, which
is quite good in the French system. I do not have too much this week, but have
three exams next week before my reading week. I will have to find some time to
study before I head off this weekend to climb Mont-St-Michel, in Normandy,
France. I absolutely cannot wait!! I also need to squeeze in some time to
sleep, however, knowing me, I cannot guarantee that will happen! Well, c’est la
vie d’une étudiante d’échange. So much to do, definitely not enough time!
À la prochaine!
Avec amour,
Erica xoxoxoxoxoxo
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