This weekend Anna and I became official European travelers by taking a train to Tours (about 2 hours south) and staying in a hostile for the weekend. The region is known as the Loire Valley and is famous for it's many royal chateaus set in the countryside amongst picturesque French villages. Saturday morning we went on a tour that took us to see Chenonceau and Amboise (pictures below). My favorite part was wandering through the halls of these royal estates from the 16th century and imagining what life must have been like for those who walked there so many years before. It actually reminded me of our preoccupation with royalty, and how fascinated most of us have always been at the thoughts of great rulers from the past...but then I realized that this actually is evidence that we are meant to live in eternity with the highest King of Kings that the world will ever know, God Almighty. I believe He is the one who puts these desires in us and that He is the one who will fulfill them when we get to meet Him one day. Strange that a trip to the French countryside would remind me of my love for Christ and my desire to be with Him in heaven, but further evidence that He is goes with me and is ready to teach whenever I am ready to listen. The rest of the weekend was spent wandering around the old part of the city of Tours...taking in some cafes, dining at a great Irish restaurant (that could have passed for a Bennigins where I had a juicy ribeye steak), attempting to go to a concert, reading, and getting a lot of rest. Ahh, it was a great weekend.

this is what I have always imagined the streets in France to look like...this one was my favorite in the old part of Tours, lined with creperies, cafes, and local shops...pefect for a stroll

the Hotel de Ville of Tours

the chateau of Chenonceau was the first we visited on Saturday morning

the great hall of Chenonceau that actually is built over the river

welcome to my gardens :)

in the garden of Chenonceau they had this "maze" of shrubs...don't think we didn't race to see who would make it to the center first...

Amboise

here lies the late Leonardo Da Vinci...yes he was Italian, but spent the last few years of his life in this region of France, and after his death was burried in the chapel of the chateau in Aboise

okay, I know this looks touristy but i have to prove that I was actually there in a few of these...sigh, what a beautiful scene this was looking down on this little village and river from a tower on the chateau

after visiting the chateau at Amboise we found the perfect cafe...I could have stayed here for a really long time, sipping the best hot chocolate beside a cozy fire

Hey Mom, look what I found?! it gets better...it was a shoe store, my favorite!! Not quite like making a trip home, but a fun reminder of a place I love :)

a friend i met on the street

this is from our hostile window...as we ate breakfast they were playing some Barry Manilow, and as I sat there watching it snow I had one of those moments of self realization-- "how did a girl from Texas get here...to a hostile in the coutryside of France watching the beautiful snow while being serenaded by 'i can't get enough of your love baby'?" good times

the winter wonderland continues

It has been snowing off and on here for the past two days, though it does not pile up or even really stick to anything, it is a nice calm snow with big pretty flakes. everyone says it rarely snows in Paris so this is a treat...though I can't help thinking what a treat it will be when I can stop wearing long johns :)

I have been reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" and this lion sculpture reminded me of Aslan. If you have read the books, and I think everyone should, you know that he represents a Christ figure that it is hard not to fall in love with.

at the Louvre

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Little things: -- There is a man that I see every morning on my commute to school who looks just like Prince Charles, though he dresses quite nice (Charles would be proud) he carries an unfortunate bright lime green backpack. -- Yesterday while at a train station a friend of mine from here stopped to help a lady who was trying to buy a train ticket out of a machine. My friend kept asking her what stop she needed to get off on and after a lot of confusion the lady said, "I am just trying to make a call"...she had mistaken the metro ticket machine for a public telephone! Quite funny. --A new guy joined my French class yesterday, he is Russian and named Vladamir...and he was wearing a shirt that said "Grandma's Red Hot Ketchup" under a jacket lined with faux fur. Now who says life is boring?!

Things about France that make me laugh (in no particular order)

1)I have found a lot of products in the supermarket called “American”. Though some are a good try, most I have never seen anywhere in the U.S. Ex: “American pizza” topped with ham, cheese, mushrooms, an egg, and sour crème (?)

2)French bedding consists of a bottom / fitted sheet and a duvet cover, no such thing as a top / flat sheet available

3)You can take your dog anywhere with you, no matter its size. On the bus, on the metro, in the grocery store, and even in very expensive department stores

4)If you pet happends to die, no need to worry...our neighborhood is known for having a large pet cemetery and not too far from our house is the pet funeral home where you can actually get a headstone in the shape of your animal

5)Milk comes in a box; we buy them in packs of 8 which cost about $1. It lasts for about 3 months so you just store it in the cupboard until you need it.

6)French numbers: there is not a word that means 98 (ninety eight), in French it is quatre(4)-vingt(20)-dix(10)-huit (8), which means 4 x 20 + 10 +8…you have to add just to say it!

7)You can purchase almost anything you need out of a vending machine! The ones we have seen so far…fresh bouquets of flowers, French fries, movie rentals, pizza, fresh espresso and cappuccino, and a “petit Casino” (no it is not an actual casino, but a supermarket here) -- dispenses all the household essentials from it’s vending machine including toilet paper!

8)Elevators are about the size of one normal person and carrying a bag...but it is not uncommon here to squeeze about 5 people in forcing everyone to hold their bags above the head in the only space free

9)Everyone, including the men, wears a scarf everyday. The general rule seems to be “the bigger the scarf, the better”. Some will have it wrapped so many times around the neck that it is hard to see the bottom of the face

10)Some products that we use in the States are actually manufactured here (ex: Loreal, Channel), but still manage to be more expensive here than after they have been imported to another country

11) The metric system. I believe it is a great system and wish I had grown up using it but I still cannot get over someone asking me how many centimeters tall I am ...isn't there a more efficient unit of measure than the centimeter??

this is my house key, seriously...it is almost at long as my hand. though it makes it hard to loose, it distinctly reminds me of something straight out of the 19th century

after visiting the Louvre, we crossed over to the left bank where we found a cute little cafe close to the Musee d'Orsay...then we took a stroll down the Seine. This was my first visit to this part of the city and I felt that it was a truly Parisian day...sigh...I often forget that I live in the infamous "Paris" b/c daily life does not often afford these pleasures, it was a picturesque treat.

and Italian sculpture

Venus de Milo....doesn't Jewel have a song about her?

a Michaelangelo (thanks for the strategic drapery!)a friend who was with me, learned while living in Rome, that it is said he snuck into the morgue to study the human cadaver for a better understanding of muscle forms. I love random facts like that :)

a crystal chandelier

another pic from Napoleon III's apartment

This is Napoleon III's bed...anyone tempted to see how comfortable it really was? One section of the museum has a model of his apartment, complete with gold incrusted everything and about 10 crystal chandeliers...a bit over the top if you ask me :)

conveniently for those of us who live in Paris, the national museums are free on the first Sunday of every month...so this week I made my first visit to the Louvre

the ceiling in the auditorium, it was painted by Chagall and though very pretty seemed a bit out of place in this gold and velvet ornately decorated building...but if you notice at the top of the painting is clearly the Eiffel Tower in blue

a clock on one of the largest fire places I have ever seen...C.S. Lewis said that the more we hate the contraints of time in our lives, the clearer it should be to us that our home is in eternity with our timeless Creator (paraphrased)

okay, does this remind anyone else of the Statue of Liberty head? I know I have been gone from America for a while (actually 2 months on Monday), but this is her...and appears over many of the doors in the Opera house

remember in the movie / play which box the Phantom demands to remain open for him?...this is it, number 5

"The Phantom of the Opera is here...." Today I visited the Opera house, which inspired the Phantom of the Opera, this is the grand stair case in the foyer..."Masquerade"

the lobby where the audience mingles during intermission...this hall is crazy b/c every few feet it was either an oppening to another hallway or a mirror, hard to tell the difference between the two...

"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you belive a rope to be stong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice [face of a cliff]. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?" C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Happy Belated Birthday to my beatutiful sister Carrie!! This pic is a few months old but it always makes me smile to see her face....love you girl!

"The Church is in the communication business. We have the most profound story of all time and yet we are lulling today's generation to sleep...Instead of telling people Jesus is the light of the world, what if we showed them the stark difference between light and darkness? What if we removed all the argumentative language and relpaced it with beautiful narratives, and let people feel the power of story?...when a story becomes personal and people begin to become unsettled and challenged by it, then they have been touched in a place where facts fear to tread. It is a place so personal that it can spark an inner transformation." Mark Miller; Experiential Storytelling

walking home last night we saw this sweet ride, a motorcycle with a side car...that would be a fun ride around the city!

Paris rooftops and Sacre Coure in the distance, seen from the 4th floor of the Pompidou

Matisse

Mattise's back sculptures are displayed on the 5th floor

This weekend I went to the 'Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee national d'art moderne, Paris'...this is inside one of the escalators that are on the outside of the famous modern building

so you are sitting in a cute little cafe in Paris, admiring the decor and this accordian brings to mind the music that is played for tourists all over the city, picturesque....then you see Homer Simpson on top of it, American pop culture shows up in the strangest places

Le Penseur / The Thinker