As promised: the weekend I realized I could never pass for a true French woman

(aka my chateau weekend. Kind of feels like forever ago by now, but that's beside the point.)

The first chateau was Serrant...a rather "small" chateau, even though there was a HUGE kitchen and dozens of rooms. And being the nerdy bookwork that I am, I nearly fell over when the tour guide brought us into the library. There were literally THOUSANDS of books in that room...12,000 in fact. There were the original copies of Les Fables de La Fontaine, of the encyclopedias that Napolean wrote after his travels...bookcases that were literally 16 shelves high, floor to ceiling. There were even the ladders to get to the top shelves. I had a completely Disney Belle moment when I saw that library...definitely ready to move into that castle!

After Serrant we went to Azay-le-Rideau. The neat thing about Azay-le-Rideau was that it was built on this little pond/lake thing...so it was almost completely surrounded by water! The intricacies of the architecture of all these castles completely boggles my mind! People just don't take the time to construct buildings like that any more...after I wandered around the castle (and saw a painting of a man that looked JUST like the villian in Ever After!) a couple of us walked around the grounds...and I found a tree to climb! Not as good as my Thinking Tree in Princeton (long story...) but it was fun all the same!

Villandry was the last chateau on Saturday, though we didn't go in - just wandered around the gardens. They were pretty impressive gardens, though! Perfectly manicured and maintained to the point of Art...and there were grapes growing in the vineyards. I gotta say, I love french grapes. They're so good...especially when pulled straight off the vine!

We stayed in Tours that night...following literally in les pas de maman (mum's footsteps) thirty years later...she studied/lived in Tours when she was in college! Watched the (depressing) rugby match that ended France's participation in the World Cup. I had so wanted France to make it to the finals...Nantes would have been INSANE for that game! ah well.

Sunday started with Amboise, the castle at which DaVinci spent the last 3 years of his life...I got a picture of his tomb! exciting, I know. My favorite part of Amboise was the Red Room. Red is my current favorite-color-of-the-moment and I walked into a room to see nothing but red. Red walls, chairs, bed, carpet...it was amazing! speaking of the beds...they're short. They're big, in the sense of being wide, but they're SHORT. i don't think even I'd be comfortable in them.

The title of this blog comes from our trip to my favorite castle, Chenonceau. Before we explored the castle, my girls and I had a pique-nique (so much more fun to write en français!) and had a ton of fun chatting and laughing like idiots. And it was during this pique-nique, grâce à (thanks to) the dirty looks of the french families around us, that I realized I could never actually convince the world that I was a french woman. I could perfect the language, the body and the look all I wanted, but my cover would be blown as soon as someone made me laugh. The french tend to laugh very discreetly and quietly behind their hands. I tend to throw my head back and laugh until my sides hurt and I'm nearly crying. Thus I'll either have to come back to the states...or live as a misfit for the rest of my life, as mum put it =)

Chenonceau itself was absolutely gorgeous...built first by Diane de Poitiers, the favored mistress of Henry II. but then...once Henry II died, his wife, Catherine de Medicis, kicked the mistress out of the castle and finished building it HER way. The result? a very amusing looking castle with two very distinct styles! but the castle is built literally into the Loire river like a bridge...it's so pretty...

and now I need to actually go do some work. I'll write about my fabulous weekend in Paris...sometime later!

à bientôt!