Lesley and Steph have left. We had such a fun week! Now the stressful part of my life begins – next week is finals time. I can’t believe it’s already here! I have so much studying to do, because in some of my classes, the entire grade is based on the final exam. (This is apparently how the French do things – no papers, no tests, just one make-it-or-break-it final exam. Yikes.) But, first things first. Here are some highlights of my week with the girls:
After some trouble with lost luggage, lost people, lost minds, etc., we finally rendezvous-ed at the hotel and then had dinner at Café Le Depart by Notre Dame, which everyone who has come to visit me has been to, because it is delicious.
I hadn’t seen Les in over a year, and Steph in over 4 years, but I knew we would still get along very well when I asked them what they wanted to do and they immediately said: “shop.” We did a lot of that, and I continued to feed my obsession with Longchamp bags.
We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night when it gets all sparkly and amazing. Night time is really the best time to go – there are absolutely NO lines, and the city is gorgeous all lit up. We took pictures proposing to each other, and I think we seriously disturbed our fellow tourists. There was one snafu – it was terrifyingly windy. I’m really surprised we weren’t blown up against the grate or even off the tower itself, like the Kelly bag in Le Divorce. So, dear reader, beware of the gusty conditions if you ever find yourself up there.
Steph left on Thursday (Thanksgiving) morning, but Lesley was still in town, so we made reservations at this restaurant called Joe Allen, which had a special menu for Thanksgiving. We had turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pecan pie, and it was glorious. I missed my family, though. Just a little bit. Okay, a lot.
Last night, Les’ last night in town, we went to Kong, which is the restaurant that Carrie goes to in Sex and the City when she has lunch in Paris with Alexsandr Petrovsky’s ex-wife. It’s really cool, but kind of almost too cool. I felt like the wait staff was walking around and saying to themselves, “Alors, I am zo cool because I work eer and it eez cool, so zat makes me cool. Plus, I am French, weech eez zee coolest.” No, in all honesty, it’s a beautiful restaurant, with a glass ceiling and these Philip Starck plastic chairs with models’ faces on the backs of them. And the food is amazing!

Today, I went with the Accent Center to the Loire Valley to see two chateaux. We saw Cheverny and Chenonceau, and they were both magnificent! My favorite thing about chateaux is that they are all so different from each other. I’ve seen five different ones here now, and I keep expecting it to be more of the same, but I’m always surprised!
Cheverny is a chateau that has been owned by the same family of nobles for hundreds and hundreds of years. The current owner (part of that same family) is only 41 years old and is a Marquis. Sixteen of the rooms in the chateau are open to the public and he and his wife and their three kids live in the other 34 rooms. Life is rough. The five-year-old son will inherit the chateau after his parents kick the bucket. Talk about winning the genetic lottery.
Cheverny is also famous for its stag hunts – they have one every Tuesday and every Saturday, and so they have kennels with over 100 hound dogs. Apparently each dog has a name, and the guy in charge of the dogs (pretty sure it’s not the Marquis) knows each of them by name. Although it was Saturday, we didn’t see them hunting. We smelled them, though, which just wasn’t as nice.
Chenonceau is the other chateau we visited. It was a royal chateau and at one time it belonged to Diane de Poitiers, Henri II’s mistress. Old Henri was quite enamored with her and so he gave her the chateau, but when he died, his wife, Catherine di Medicis (who was very jealous of Diane and also much uglier) made Diane leave and then she took over the castle. Ah, intrigue. During World War II, the owner converted it into a hospital, and one half of the chateau was located in occupied France, and the other half was in the free zone. I thought that was pretty cool. Now it’s decorated like it was back in the time of Catherine and is completely fabulous.
It was a good day. Now I have to get some sleep so I can study my face off for the next week.