European Escapades: Malina, Malina, Malina and the Loire Valley~ October 15th and 16th

Sunday, I attended the play, Le Dindon, with my group and of course I was extremely late, so I was exiled to the stairs. I really need to work on being on time, here. Damn metro, missing my car has never been so easy. Anyways, the only really important thing about Sunday was that Malina, my third roommate of the semester, arrived from Germany.

Let’s just say that Malina is my German soulmate. I’m going to miss her spunky butt! Over the summer Malina had met a Parisian, Edouard, in Montmartre or the le Marais. I’m not really sure, but either way, she made friends in Paris and I think that I wrote about this already, so there is no need to describe it other than the fact that I was awkwardly hyper after two hours of sleep for my field trip to the Loire Valley.

Friday and Saturday I visited the Loire Valley with my school group. We had the same bus driver, Omar, so we basically lived on the Omar bus for the two days once again. We travel in style here.

One of our first stops was Ambroise. Isn’t he just a sexy beast?

(I love the photobomb, Lynne. Also, it is now a joke as to how many colors I can wear after buying this new sweater. The new record is nine. I need a stylist.)

Friday, was frigid. I don’t think I have ever been so cold. In fact, in Blois I had to buy a sweater. Weather.com did not predict the right forecast for this trip! In Blois we spent a few hours looking at the chateau de Blois, which was the palace of Louis XII.

(Erin, Kelsey and I in one of the wings of the château with a nice view of it in the background.)

(Crazy Beautiful Staircase. This château has three styles of architecture because of the three periods it was built in. This was my favorite section.)

We also had a guided tour of a vineyard. I can now regale you with facts about wine, but usually I just prefer to drink it, which is what we did. This vineyard, Moncontour, specialized in white wine, so we were able to taste three different kinds of white wine at our wine tasting. C’était délicieux! Of course I had to buy two bottles of my favorite wine and I am attempting to bring them back to the United States for everyone to have a little taste of the Loire Valley.

(An area of the vineyard along with one of its five guard dogs. These rotweilers were huge, but they were the biggest sweathearts ever. BEWARE!)

(The Vineyard.)

(The Vineyard.)

(Our tour guide (right). Let the wine tasting begin.)

(YUM)

Saturday was all about le Donjon in Loche. The joke is its “The Don Juan”. Its just a really old chateau and prison from the middle ages, but it had some amazing views from its ruins.

(On the way to le Donjon I fell in love with this wall.)

(Just being ridiculous.)

(Sitting on the wall at the top of le Donjon and fearing for my life through the see-through grated floor.)

(The View.)

I also saw the châteaux Chenanceau. This castle helped influence Disney's design. It was gorgeous...on the outside.

(Walking the scenic route back to the bus.)

I returned to Paris Saturday night where I met up with Malina and Erin at Edourd’s apartment where I also met Etienne, Jerôme and Alexie. It was a great night filled with wine, language barriers, music, Edourd’s amazing cooking at 4 in the morning and conversation. It was a night and morning well spent in Paris. Collette was not too fond of us returning at 7am, but c’est la vie à Paris!