Quality Host-Family Time and the End of Tours

I've gotten a little behind in posting since the final few days here in Tours have flown by! I really can't believe I'm setting off for Strasbourg tomorrow morning. I'm actually quite wary about leaving Tours--I'm all settled in here, I know the city well, I'm comfortable with my crazy colorful host family... and tomorrow I'm getting plunged once more into the unfamiliar. I guess that's a part of life, but I'm still a little hesitant.

Anyway, here's a few notes about my final week in Tours:

Monday was really special because it was the first time that I've really spent time with my host family outside of eating dinner or just conversing in the kitchen. After my classes on Monday afternoon, I walked directly home and hopped in the car with Ardiana, Miyu, Miyu's Japanese friend Arisa, and my host mother. We drove to a "fun park" located about 10 minutes outside of the city to play mini golf!

Okay, mini golf is a little different in France. Each course has a surface of concrete instead of grass or turf, which makes it terribly difficult since the golf ball never stops rolling until it hits a side barrier (none of which are close to the hole). The game took quite a while--over an hour--and our scores weren't too pretty, but it was still really fun.

After mini-golf, we all drove back to Tours and got ice cream at the best gelato place in Place Plume. (Nutella ice cream for me!). Miyu's friend Arisa departed soon after to meet her own host family, and the four of us returned home.

Old-town Tours, Place Plume: there are lots of cafés and ice cream shops

The ferris wheel of Tours at night

Together, we all made dinner--pastry topped with chicken, cheese, peas, and an egg-cheese quiche mixture--and it was quite cheerful in the kitchen. When the quiche was ready, the four of us ate together, chattering away happily. Miyu understands a few French words by now! The rest, I translated for her.

Once dinner was over, we all decided to watch a movie. My host mother has a huge collection of movies, but we ended up settling on a movie that I wouldn't have originally chosen, but it's a classic: Doctor Zhivago. Made in 1965, it's a romance set in Russia, and it's actually the 8th-highest-grossing film in history according to Wikipedia! We watched it dubbed in French with French subtitles, and I'm happy to say that I actually understood most of it!

Although it wasn't anything super French, I really enjoyed the host-family time on Monday. I also learned a lot of diverse French vocabulary about golf and cooking and Russia.

Fast-forward to Wednesday afternoon: my friends and I decided to hop on a train to see yet another chateau right after our classes finished for the today. So 12:25 p.m. yesterday found me running with Bridget and Julianne across the city to catch a 12:32 p.m. train. We made it just in time, luckily.

The chateau we visited is called Azay-le-Riddeau. It's a little like Chennonceau in that it is set partially on the river. It was quite a pretty little castle, but emphasis on the "little" : it didn't take us too long to tour.

As we tour more and more chateau, I've noticed that it's become  easier to devolve into the stereotypical loud, silly American tourists that others expect of us. In the beginning of this month in Tours, my friends and I were pretty quiet while visiting castles, sometimes following the tour guide and speaking softly in English.

Wednesday, though, was a different story: some of the novelty of so many chateau had worn away and we hopped from room to room at a pretty fast pace. Luckily, Azay-le-Riddeau was pretty deserted because we were being just silly at times--for instance, we were literally petting all the walls of the castle (many rooms had walls covered in midnight-blue velvety material which was so soft! And one room had walls which were made of braided corn and smelled slightly like tea). There were also quite a few crazy pictures taken posing next to lion statues and so forth, we were just having fun. We weren't complete idiots though. I still learned a lot, and the detail in the castle was amazing: one room featured a fairly large wooden cabinet dating back to 1580 whose craftsmanship was unbelievably beautiful, and another room contained huge old oil paintings of kings and feasts and medieval times, which I loved.

My friends being silly

 

 

Yesterday was our last night together as a Holy Cross group (seeing as 8 of us will be traveling to Strasbourg tomorrow and the other 4 are leaving for Dijon--including Julianne, Bridget, and Christian, unfortunately). So for one final time, the twelve of us went out to dinner at a brasserie right near the fountains of Place Jean Jaures. After the nearly two-hour dinner, we went to the Guinguette to chill and drink a little (the Guinguette a huge, popular outside bar on the Loire river, centered around two ancient willow trees strung with colorful lights--a very cool place on summer nights).

And today was the last day! I didn't do anything too exciting to say goodbye to this city, after class today, my friends and I did have one last lunch together at Mamie Bigoude... oh, those delicious crêpes with chocolate and macaroon pieces...

I feel like I know Tours so well now, it's very bizarre to leave for good. This past year, all I've been thinking about is my time in Strasbourg, and I never gave much thought to the month I would spend here, but now I'm so sad to see it's over. I just have to remember that tomorrow is going to be a new adventure!