Loches

As you can tell from our lack of posts, this has been a lovely but lazy week, but it was not totally inactive! During the time that we were not lounging in the sun and lingering over delicious meals we:

-made a delicious cobbler inspired by the extra-delicious raspberries from the weekend market.
-had a east-coast swing and waltz lesson (led by Leah of course!)
-gained a new love for scrabble
-went on a rousing bike ride through the Royal Forest (oh yes.) The many (many) hills ended with the reward of a nearby village filled to brim with flowers.


also some more castles.

Also, we had an adventure. One night during dinner we noticed some drifting sounds of nearby music, and decided to venture out in search their source. We and three others thought to ourselves "How hard can it be? It's right around the corner." After about two hours of wandering we realized that this was not the case, and that we were quite lost. Ross, our leader, confidently directed us into a park, which meant that we found ourselves on a little gravel path walking through seemingly endless dark fields, holding up our iPods for light. After what seemed like ages we came a patch of grass littered with piles of teenagers. Judging by that and the louder music, we figured we had to be close. At this point we were desperate to find any sort of civilization, and to escape the dark forms in the grass. Nearby lay what seemed to be our only option: an alley ending in a closed and locked 8-foot tall gate. After minimal debate (go back down the endless path to nowhere? jump a fence into a french reggae concert? hmmm) all five of us clambered over.  About five minutes after we had finished looking around, congratulating ourselves, and two of our group going to buy wine, we noticed the two police officers standing about 30 feet from the fence and about 10 feet from us, who had apparently been on break for the time it took us to jump over.

In other news, pictures are not going to happen at this point, but we'll try again in Barcelona.

Loches

Oops, didn't figure out the camera + computer today, so no pictures yet. We spent all day enjoying ourselves inside (out of the NINETY-SEVEN DEGREE heat. Finally it's warm.)

Paris, Loches

We finished up Paris by giving our whole last day to Versailles (which we were both honestly disappointed by, at least concerning the chateau - the gardens are spectacular and huge and we were very envious of the people who were exploring them on bikes.) By the evening we were in Loches with Maury and Gail (family friends from Emily's church) and a lovely little bevvy of their other house-guests. On Saturday we went to Loches' amazing twice-weekly market and got the best raspberries in the whole world (unanimously agreed upon within our group of eight world-travelers), and then went on to spend the last couple days touring the most beautiful chateaus in the surrounding countryside (all > Versailles). To round out the weekend we went to a wine-tasting, which included a tour and explanation of the wine-making process. That means we got to go under the mountain the vineyard is on, into the caves where the wine is stored. It was extra-cool and informative, and we'll post pictures tomorrow if we can get the computer to work! (Pics to follow of the other things above as well.) 

(In other news I am the Queen of Parenthesis -Emily)