We're Here!!

We finally made it to Paris Friday night!! The apartment we're living in is absolutely gorgeous and our host family is so nice! We're living with Béatrix and Quentin Le François and they are extremely welcoming & very personable. She teaches studio art at a local high school and is a free-lance painter, and he is the chief of development of a large company. They have two grown sons, Martin & Mathieu, and we had the pleasure of meeting Mathieu, his girlfriend & their 2 year-old son Oscar yesterday. As I had posted earlier, we live in the 20th arrondissement, and on the 8th floor of our 9 story complex. Our whole neighborhood has a very hipster/artsy vibe, filled with lots of modern buildings, bustling cafés & tons of shopping. Here's a peek inside our place...

My room! Complete with floors made of hemp

Other side of my room

The view from my window

Eric's room - he may have a larger window, but I definitely have the larger closet!

Dining room/ Béatrix's art studio

The living room

The kitchen, which is surprisingly roomy for French standards

Our balcony & favorite spot to have dinner

Other half of our balcony - so spacious & tons of plants! Even have an olive tree growing up here!

The view off the balcony

Also, we have our own toilet & bathroom (not as exciting to take pictures of!), so that makes things very nice as we can leave all of our stuff right in there and don't have to cart it back and forth like in dorm showers.

Our host family gave us a detailed tour of our neighborhood yesterday morning, making sure to point out the best pâtisseries, cafés & bars, and helped us find all the local metro stops and secure some metro passes for the weekend. Since I'm here for the semester, our program hooked me up with a Navigo card, which has my name and picture on it, and lets you recharge it on a weekly or monthly basis to save on metro fares and to eliminate my need to have a pocket full of metro tickets all the time. With this card, you can use all types of public transportation, making city life very easy.

After our buzz around the neighborhood & a delicious home-cooked lunch, my housemate Eric & I headed off to do some exploring in the 90-degree heat. Since pictures are worth 1000 words, I'll let them speak for themselves....

La Tour Eiffel!

The Seine!

:)

Tada!

Strolling along the Champs-Elysées

L'Arc de Triomphe

One of my favorite sculptures, on L'Arc de Triomphe, by François Rude

Even got to see a military parade up to it as they were preparing to lay wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier below 

We had a great seafood-themed dinner with fish soup, baked white fish & roasted tomatoes, red peppers & onions, and then took the metro over to our friend Kasey's house to spend the evening with her and our other friend Kaitlin. We enjoyed our giant bottle of chardonnay that cost a whopping 4.20 euro & was absolutely delicious, then took the metro back to our house for the night. All in all, not a bad first day in Paris!

Peace out, Tours...it's time for Paris!

Tonight is my last night in Tours. While I've really enjoyed settling into the French lifestyle here, it's definitely time to move on to bigger and better places - namely Paris!

Honoré de Balzac, famous 19th century writer born in Tours. His portrait hangs in Tours' Musée des Beaux-Arts

I think my two weeks spent here was a very beneficial transitional time, as life here in a smaller city is slower and a bit less stressful than it would have been jumping directly into life in Paris. It might sound strange, but you don't realize how many social cues and random routines you take for granted at home - when you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a completely different society, you quickly learn that even the little things here are done differently. Even the smallest social encounters are different. Take, for example, approaching a fellow pedestrian on the sidewalk. At home or back at college, you just take it for granted that when you approach someone on a sidewalk, especially when you are the only two people around, you look up and smile, maybe even say hello! Here, if you do that, you either a.) will get bad looks, or b.) will be thought to be hitting on the person! I wouldn't  say this is really super stressful, but there are just lots of little things like this throughout the course of a day that you have to figure out how to go about doing.

It's nice to have helpful program directors here who are more than willing to offer insider tips whenever possible. Like when they us sitting around writing postcards to send home, they will come over, strike up a conversation and suggest that if we have yet to buy stamps, we'll be better off heading to a tabac (a small store selling coffee, the newspaper, cigarettes, etc.) than going into the logical place one would go to find stamps, the post office, where the dreaded & miserable government employees await. All in all, I would have to say that figuring out the basics of integrating into French society was made way easier in a smaller city!

Did I mention the food here is AMAZING?! This was my lunch today, a 'Buffalo Bill' galette (savory crêpe) filled with potatoes, ground hamburger & tomatoes topped with cheddar cheese drizzle, all served with caramelized onions and "salad" (a.k.a. lettuce...)

So I've been working on packing up my bags (why do clothes always take up so much more room after you've unpacked them???) and am just about to call it a night in order to prepare for a long day tomorrow. I have class in the morning from 8:45 until 11:45, have to grab some lunch and then meet up with our coach bus with all my bags for 2pm so we can get on the road to Paris! We should be arriving there around 6:30pm and then we're set loose to find our new homes.

I found out yesterday that I'll be living in the 20th arrondissement. Paris is divided into administrative districts called "arrondissements" (from the French verb arrondir, meaning "to make round/to round out") which start in the heart of the city and spiral outwards like a snail's shell. There are 20 of them in Paris proper, with the smaller numbers closer to the center and larger ones, like my #20!, further towards the city limits. My schools, the Sweet Briar College building and Universite de Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle, are located in the 6th and 5th, respectively. With the metro conveniently located just outside my house, it's only about a 20 minute commute from home to school, which is less than I had to walk each day here in Tours to get to school.

Paris & its arrondissements

I will be living here with a husband and wife whose grown children no longer live at home, as well as with another student on my program, Eric, who I happened to become good friends with right off the bat! Our host mother teaches studio art at a local high school and is a free-lance painter, and our host father is the director of development at a large company. It will be exciting to see what our home for the next 4 months is like! 

I had a very positive experience with my hostess Aurélie here in Tours (I hesitate to call her my host mother as she just turned 30 last week!) and am hoping my next home is just as welcoming. We shared some delicious mixed drinks tonight over dinner made of passion fruit liqueur and orange juice and she gave me a book called "Carnages" by Maxime Chattam...it's a police thriller (an extremely popular genre with the French) set in Harlem, of all places! We had talked about what types of books we liked one night at dinner, so she said she set out on a mission to find the perfect one for me - how nice!

Enjoying more cold drinks at a café, very typical of our days here! 

I just have a few things left to pack up and then I'll be good to go in the morning. Here's a link to a popular song on the radio here that put me in a happy packing mood - even if you don't speak French & can't understand the lyrics, hopefully it makes you dance anyways!

The Last of the Châteaux

A sculpted downspout at Blois 

On Saturday we visited the last two châteaux on our itinerary, Chambord & Blois. These ones were a little farther away from Tours, so we took a coach bus instead of the train. Chambord is the largest of the Loire Valley châteaux and was our first stop. 

Chambord

Built between 1519-1547, Chambord served as the royal hunting lodge of King Francois Ier, who only ever spent 10 days of his life in this massive castle large enough to house 1000 people! Chambord is famous for its massive open double-helix staircase in the center of its four interior towers. When designed by Francois Ier, he wanted it to resemble the skyline of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) with its many towers casting quite an imposing shadow upon the royal lawns. Although mostly empty inside, a few room are furnished with period furniture and are still quite an impressive complement to the astounding architecture.

A view up the double-helix staircase

City skyline-esque shadow cast by the chateau

Another spiral staircase in the interior courtyard

Francois Ier's bed

Have you ever wondered why royal beds always look so small? Well, during the Renaissance, royals would sleep nearly sitting up. At that time it was thought that sleeping laying down would cause one to choke on his tongue or to suffocate after having eaten a large meal. Thus the shorter bed, which was also easier to warm up during winter months than a larger one. Another interesting fact: one of the greatest honors foreign dignitaries could receive would be an invitation to sleep next to the king in his bed. Imagine the scandals that would arise if heads of state today began adopting this custom!

Enjoying the view from the roof of Chambord

Cupola at the top of the double staircase, as seen from the roof

The salamander, symbol of King Francois I, who spits flames (ignites wars of worthy causes) and also spits water (extinguishes conflict and promotes peace throughout the kingdom)

After a quick picnic lunch on the château's grounds, we hopped back on the bus and headed to Blois to check out the château there as well.

Chateau de Blois

Blois is a sort of hodge-podge château in that it is comprised of multiple buildings in separate styles from the 13th through 17th centuries all stuck together. In the panorama below, you can see a few of the styles, in chronological order: the oldest part (slightly to the right of center) consists of an early Gothic hall, the brick & stone part to the right is from the Flamboyant Gothic era, characterized by its many windows and skyward-reaching towers, the section in the center with another spiral staircase is from the Renaissance, and the section at left is from the Renaissance-revival era, showcasing three orders of Greek columns.

Blois, from its inner courtyard

The porcupine, symbol of King Louis XII. During the Middle Ages it was thought that porcupines could launch their quills far distances to ward off enemies, thus Louis XII was asserting his power over the region & warning invaders of his power.

The "Salle des Etats Généraux," (13th c.) is one of the oldest seignoral rooms still preserved in France, and also the largest secular Gothic room surviving in Europe.   

After having a guided tour of Blois, we stopped for a quick refreshment at a local café before taking the bus back to Tours. Following such a long day of walking around & sight-seeing, I was very glad to be able to sit down and relax for the evening! 

Chenonceau, Crêpes & Les Jardins Botaniques

It's been a busy past few days here for me in Tours! I'll try to keep this brief, but I have lots to share!

On Wednesday, we attended a French cooking class at a local woman's gorgeous home. It was a mansion by American standards & thus a château by French standards! Marie showed us how to make Tarte Tatin, a simple & delicious dessert particular to the Loire Valley region of France where we're living. Although it doesn't really compare, it's essentially an upside-down, one-crust apple pie. After cooking up some fresh caramel & putting it in the pie plate, you place apples that have been cut in half round-side down in the caramel and then top it with a pie crust. After it bakes for half an hour, you carefully flip it out onto a serving platter & top it with some cinnamon & sugar laced crème fraîche. Then go sit in a lovely backyard filled with fruit trees, a lot of cats and some alcoholic apple cider and you've got yourself an afternoon! It was fun and delicious and made for a great afternoon.

Mmmm...Tarte Tatin!

Thursday, we hopped on a train after class and headed to Château Chenonceau, a 30 minute ride from downtown. The structure which stands today was built during the 16th century on the site of an older mill and fort dating from the 15th century, all spanning the Cher river. Originally a possession of King Francois Ier, Chenonceau was later offered by King Henri II to his mistress Diane de Poitiers. The Queen was obviously jealous that her husband gave such a great house to his mistress instead of his wife, so upon his death Catherine de' Medici had Diane kicked out & took over the château for herself.

Voilà! Château Chenonceau spanning the Cher River

When you superimpose the H and the two C's on top of each other, you can see a big H and two interlaced D's (for Diane)...Henri knew what he was doing!

Portrait of Catherine de' Medici hanging above the mantle, with H's for Henri II and interlaced C's for Catherine below

Another highlight of Chenonceau is its massive Gallery Ball Room. This is the part of the château that actually sticks out across the river, and it has played a big part in history. Aside from being a great place to throw galas during the Renaissance, this hall served as a hospital during World War I, treating 2,254 during the course of the conflict. Even more interesting, though, was its function during World War II. The Cher River served as the boundary between the Northern Occupied Zone of France and the Southern Free Zone. Since the entrance to the château was in the Occupied Zone, and the far end of the gallery opened out onto the Free Zone, people would actually pass through this part of the château to gain freedom south of the Cher.

The Gallery Ballroom

I always love discovering the origins of words and phrases, and my visit to Chenonceau afforded me the chance to add yet another piece of useless knowledge to my collection... Did you know "barbecue" came from France? The word came about as a result of one of the many quarrels between the French and British, who historically have not often seen eye-to-eye. The French were known for only cooking their meat over a fire rotisserie-style, and the British would only ever boil their meat in a big pot. When the British observed the "bizarre" custom of the French rotisserie, they remarked (in French!) that the animals had been skewered "de la barbe au cul" (or, "from beard to ass," pardon my French!) and thus the "barbecue" was born. Just something to think about next time you have a cookout!

Chenonceau's kitchen, complete with a triple rotisserie and complicated mechanisms at right to keep them turning

The Jardin de Diane de Poitiers, one of the many intricately designed gardens on the royal grounds

Chenonceau, with its original tower on the right

Thursday after class, a few of us headed to a cool-looking restaurant we had seen a few days before called Mamie Bigoude's. We were initially drawn in by the Andy Warhol-esque art of an older woman with her tongue sticking out which decorates the exterior, and upon heading inside we found out how cool it really was! Set up like a giant dollhouse and painted every neon color you can imagine, we were seated in the laundry room where we ate our crêpes off of a table made from washing machines! I enjoyed a delicious mojito & a Christophe Colomb galette (savory crêpe filled with curried chicken) and would definitely recommend the place to anyone in the area - super cute, delicious, & fairly priced!

Nothing says "Happy Friday!" like a drink with lunch!

After lunch, we found the Jardin Botanique on the other side of town where you can see all sorts of trees, plants and flowers from all over the world. Not only were there flowers, but also all sorts of animals - some more exotic than others!

Peacocks!

Cockatoos!

Little French kids petting goats! (finding out that this is pretty typical of this region...)

Wallabys! In France? I have to admit I was quite surprised.

Emus!

And the best part? All of this was free! We were almost ready to leave the garden when we happened to see the area where all the animals were & had lots of fun checking them out - always nice to work something unexpected into the day!

Patrick, our caviste (wine expert) & comedian...he kept us laughing the whole time!

And to finish off the day, as well as the first week of intro classes here in Tours, I attended an amazing wine and cheese tasting. We sampled 5 wines and 5 cheeses and learned lots about how to determine all sorts of characteristics of the wine before even tasting it. Besides it all being delicious, the girl I happened to sit next to was not a big fan of wine and ended up giving me all of hers too! Needless to say I had a great day :)

Why can't I do this every Friday??