Chateaux, Wedding Dreams, and Why I May Have Chosen The Wrong Major

Hello everyone. I have an announcement to make. I have begun dreaming of my wedding. It's true. It's sad. It's gruesomely girly. But alas, I must admit, I have commenced the wedding dress oogling and wedding venue hunting. And so far, first up on my list of perfect places to have my wedding: the château de Chenonceau, in Touraine, France, about 2 hours by train from Paris.

First of all, look at how fabulously this château is located - its on a river for goodness' sake! My picture definitely does not do it justice, but look at how amazing it is - the entire castle spans the width of the river, and thus every room in the house has a water front view, literally! Not to mention the two main galleries that span the length of the castle are absolutely gorgeous, and impeccably maintained. These days the upper floor gallery houses a collection of modern art. And this is where I'd like my reception, please...

The main ceremony down here, in the first floor arcades. Glorious. (Sorry for the weird sizing, I got this one off the web.)

I think what I love most of this château is the mix of modern and historic beauty that emanates from every room, every window, every decorative piece. In truth, give me a mix of modern and historic anywhere and I would fall in love with that place - it is truly my weak spot in decorative style.

A couple more photos of the interior decor. (Try to ignore my ridiculous friends and enjoy the marvelous paintings on the walls of the 2nd floor gallery.)

How about wedding photos in this perfectly manicured shrubbery labyrinth?

Or this picturesque leafy passage?

Or this magnificent tree-lined driveway?

Or this adorable country garden/cottage?

Anyways, you can see I've really fallen in love with this château. Luckily, I get to go again (with my parents!) in a just a couple weeks, so I get to fall in love with it all over again. And dream my girlhood dreams. Next I'll be clipping wedding dress photos out of magazines and pasting them on my wall - oh my. But a girl can dream, no? (The French would say, mais oui, bien sûr!)

After our visit to Chenonceau, we went to Clos Lucé, home of Leonardo Da Vinci (or "Léonard De Vinci" in French) where he spent his last days. Today's its a cute museum with lots of cute Da Vinci memorabilia (like quotes, one of my faves shown below) and peaceful garden views (also below).

"It is easier to be opposed (to something) at the beginning than at the end." Joey, if you're reading this, this one's for you.

But my favorite part of the museum was by far the entire basement level devoted to models of Da Vinci's inventions, visualized on paper by the brilliant thinker himself, and rendered in real-life by IBM, using period materials. I unfortunately don't have any photos of my own to show you (I was too enthralled by the models and informational plaques next to them to remember to take photos, apparently), so I've included one from the web below. This is a model of some flying machine that is artfully placed in his garden/backyard.

Which brings me to the third point of my post: after browsing the Da Vinci museum and spending 10x more time and energy in the model display wing than the entire rest of the museum, I realized something - I should have been an engineer. How else can one explain my inexplicable fascination of his totally awesome machines and devices. Drawbridge anyone??

Perhaps it was lucky for you all that I didn't take any photos of the models, or else you would have to suffer through me crying "Oh oh!! Look at this water scooping thing!! It's so cool!!" and "OMG! Look at how awesome this turny handle thing is!!" every ten seconds like my poor friend Nico did (thanks Nico for your patience).

Anyways, moral of the story: if I could turn back time and return to freshman year of college, when I was young and impressionable, and still had time to choose my major, I would choose engineering. Maybe. If only so I could play with models like these too. Yeah right.

Well, thanks for reading and I apologize for the lapse in posting this week. What with travelling all weekend and Fête de la Musique on Monday, I have been completely pooped. But this weekend I plan to go to Giverny to visit Monet's house - it should be a nice afternoon I à la compagne. I'll upload more pictures then.

Till then, salut!

Ah Paris, que tu es belle!

I've just arrived in Paris today - quite proud of myself as I managed to find my way from the airport to my homestay without much problem, except that it took me a bit to find the house number because, voilà, I didn't look high enough on the building to notice the sign. Luckily two very polite French children let me in and showed me how to use the intercom to phone my family. Mishap numéro 1. We'll count how many more I make before my month here is up :)

First thoughts upon descending into Charles de Gaulle airport this morning: "Man, this land is FLAT." Far different from the hills and valleys (and water) of the Bay Area, the areas surrounding the city are flat and mostly covered in farmland - adorable patches of land laid out like a patchwork quilt with little clusters of houses sprinkled here and there at the intersections of its seams. Caught my first glimpse of the Seine curving through the city as well - can't wait until Sunday's bateau mouche cruise on the Seine with the other SBC students.

One site that doesn't change from country to country that I've visited - the suburbs. In China, in the U.S., and as I saw today, in France too, suburbia looks much the same - manicured, planned, curving streets and cookie-cutter houses - and I get the same Truman Show/Stepford Wives feeling everytime I see these communities from above. It's very interesting the way people spread out from cities into the suburbs in similar ways all over the world, it seems.

No pictures yet today - I was too jetlagged to do any sightseeing save for the 20 minute walk over from the shuttle bus stop to la maison, but tomorrow, armed with just my camera and a map of Paris, I plan to venture out into the city without any agenda at all but to see Paris. First stop - likely the Galeries Lafayette, birthplace of the modern shopping mall (haha, yes i know), which is just a couple minutes' walk from my place.

My homestay family, the Charoys, are very nice people, and I adore the father, Bruno, already. Today, after my nap, I woke up to find him getting ready to bake chocolate cake. He let me pour the sugar, butter the pan, and lick the spatula. Wonderful man :) He has a French cooking degree too - I hope by the end of this month I'll have picked up enough French cooking skills to keep myself fed when I get back to Berkeley this fall.

I feel my French improving already - Bruno and the rest of the family are incredibly patient with my choppy French and don't hesitate to correct my conjugations and agreements, etc. We talk about politics and world news a great deal - the French keep very well informed, and apparently they are big Obama fans. I'm going to learn so much this month - keep you posted!

A bientôt!