Just 7 months after being tossed out of my home, my family arrived in France to come and see how I was managing without them (fairly well, as it turned out, but we won't mention that). ALRIGHT, it was really good to see them and there were SOME things I had sort of missed a little bit. Maybe. :)
 |
| The big reunion |
Bronwyn didn't make it but otherwise, we were a REAL, full family once more!
 |
| Both families meeting each other! Hurrah!! |
Before running off to find the hire car, I had to get some decent French food into the tourists! Because even train station food tastes good in France.
 |
| Train station food! First ever French meal for little Nicky! |
The rest of the day was just a mish-mash of driving, finding the bed & breakfast, seeing a little bit of Loudun.
The next day was the first of MANY chateau-visiting days... this chateau is La Mothe Chandeniers, basically an old ruin with a moat around it, not far from my house.
Later we had a look around the battlements at Chinon which had an AMAZING view over the whole town and the river.
 |
| Don't lean backwards... |
 |
| On the battlements |
 |
| Chinon seen from the battlements |
Next up (we're still on day one, by the way), we drove to chateau de Rigny-Ussé - the chateau with the tower that inspired the fairytale Sleeping Beauty!!
 |
| Rigny-Ussé |
In the tower there were heaps of statues in each room depicting scenes from Sleeping Beauty, was really cool!
 |
| Prince Charming waking up Sleeping Beauty |
For dinner, we stopped at Saumur (ie. The wine town of the region!) for a SUPREMELY FRENCH MEAL!
 |
| Dad enjoying moules and frites (mussels and chips)! |
Day TWO! I showed everyone a bit more of Loudun, like the church (which had a cat in it, see below).
 |
| Church chairs apparently make great scratching posts! Haha! |
 |
| Chateau Azay-Le-Rideau |
Then we went to ANOTHER chateau! This one was at Azay-Le-Rideau. It had a MASSIVE moat and I really liked just the whole thing in general.
 |
| A bit of the moat seen from the tippy-top of the castle! |
 |
| A GIANT RECORD PLAYER! I don't know why it was in the backyard of a chateau though. |
 |
| Having fun in the souvenir shop... |
 |
| All the different soaps on the ceiling of a soap shop we saw (while looking through touristy places in Azay-Le-Rideau) |
And just like every Wednesday night, I went to Rotary - with a few guests! My current host family AND my biological family were there, so it was a fun night and all the Rotarians were over the moon to meet Mum and Dad!
 |
| Jacques teaching Nick about a a delicacy of the region - rockmelon with thinly-sliced ham! Heehee. (Nick hates rockmelon but couldn't say no because Jacques was force-feeding it to him) |
 |
| Jean-Pierre, president of the Rotary Club of Loudun, with Dad, a member of the Rotary Club of Subiaco - exchanging banners! |
Day three was meant to be "Gourmet Day", so we started at the fancy chocolate shop in Les Trois Moutiers. No photos, but we did buy stuff. Accidentally stumbled on the chateau Montreil-Bellay too, which was lucky because they did wine-tasting and Dad had been aching for some French wine! And of course, Mum wanted to see her twelfth chateau. It's a good thing me and Nick manage to entertain each other!
 |
| Chateau Montreil-Bellay |
Back on the road! This time to Villandry, which is a chateau but also has incredible gardens (better than Versailles, I reckon).
 |
| Cool things you see on the side of the road in wine regions |
 |
| Chateau Villandry |
 |
| Villandry |
 |
| Villandry |
We did a lot of driving around the countryside, and tramping around castles actually takes quite a while, so our days were pretty long and tiring (as holidays go). OH and not to mention all the hours we spend in the souvenir shops after seeing the chateau. Usually Mum bought the entire postcard section and sat around at night time writing hundreds of trees worth of travel stories to send to people back home.
 |
| Villandry |
After Villandry we stopped in Tours because it was sort-of on the way, and I showed the fam all the famous touristy things there! The cathedral, Fritz the elephant, the little bit of American territory in France, and of course SHOPPING! All my favourite shops!
 |
| The whole family in America! |
The morning of our last full day in Loudun, we had a look around town and saw Loudun's most famous monuments - la Tour Carrée and la Porte de Martray, plus the old fortifications which look out over the town.
 |
| La Tour Carrée! (The square tower) |
For lunch, we went to Loudun's fanciest restaurant and had a supremely gourmet and delicious lunch with Catherine, my host mum and counselor. This human dictionary did a pretty good job at translating everything, too, you're welcome tourists! Surprisingly (or maybe it's just me that's surprised), everyone got on really well despite the language barrier and I think Mum and Dad feel reassured that I have the best host families in France - naturellement!
Straight after our massive lunch we were off to my first host family's house, the Baylarts, where Sylvie fed us one of her amazing cakes despite us all being completely stuffed full. Unfortunately, Frederic and Caroline weren't home so we couldn't see them whole family but even so it was really good to speak to Sylvie and Simon who I hadn't seen for ages!
 |
| Nick loves old churches |
Lucky last old building (probably a good thing, otherwise Nick would have just gone home again out of boredom)! Even though I'd already been twice, we went and visited Fontevraud Abbey. I already wrote a blog post about it so I'm not going into massive detail or putting a billion (more) pictures up!
After that, we just chilled out around town and packed for our BOAT TRIP that week! Then left in the morning for Saint Pierre des Corps to return the car and get the train to Orleans!
Got to Orleans!
 |
| Cathedral in Orleans |
Dropped our stuff at the hotel, then went to have a look around town for the day. It's a really cool place, about the same size as Tours but practically everything is Joan of Arc themed, because this was where her first battle (which she won, obviously) was. And that weekend happened to have a giant braderie (an antiques/secondhand sale) in one of the main squares so the place was crawling with people.
 |
| Orleans Cathedral |
Later, I went and met my friend Héloise who I met at Annecy, a French exchanger who was in the US the year before last. It was cool to see her again and she showed me all the nooks and crannies of Orleans, like cafes on boats and head-in-hole cardboard cut-outs!
 |
| I'm Joan of Arc! |
 |
| An "audience participation" zumba demo! |
But Orleans was just another leg in the journey to get to our much-awaited boat - so we left the next day for Dijon! And thus, we arrived in the city of mustard and houseboats.
 |
| The famous Dijon mustard shop - OF COURSE it was closed so we never got to go in... |
But again, only stayed the one night in Dijon. Our boat was leaving from St Jean de Losne (about half an hour's drive out of Dijon), so we caught a taxi from our hotel.
 |
| Dijon by night - we weren't there long enough to see much of it by day |
Waiting on the jetty for our boat...waiting...waiting...STRANDED AT SEA!
 |
| And the Crusader 5 sails in to save us! HURRAH! |
After a sailor quickly showing us round the boat, how everything worked etc., we were OFF!
 |
| The captain being ridiculously pleased with himself, even with a stupid hat |
 |
| SECOND-IN-COMMAND! |
Then we got to the first LOCK! These things were frankly terrifying. Normally, boats travel downstream so they start at a high level of water, stop in the lock and you hook the rope over the pole thing, letting it out as the water level drops. Easy.
BUT OF COURSE, we literally went against the tide and drove UPSTREAM. So that meant I (being the most agile AND the cleverest, naturally) did a leap of faith (or twelve) to reach the ladder and scale to the top to secure the ropes. And then we floated up and sailed away into the sunset.
 |
| A lock! |
 |
| Me taking photos of the crew from land |
 |
| Ahem... lock number one was a bit tricky... |
 |
| Riding bikes into town! |
 |
| Award-winning photo #47 |
 |
| Award-winning photo #6538206 |
 |
| YEAH MUM! |
We also rented bikes with the boat, so whenever we stopped at a town we could ride off and buy food, go to restaurants, look around etc. They were all pretty tiny picturesque towns with maybe TWO boulangeries if you were lucky.
 |
| Me and Nick just chillin' |
Most of the time we just coasted along, enjoying the scenery. It was nice not to be in a hurry to catch a train or see a museum, and be able to just talk properly with my family for the first time in a long time. I don't know if it did much for my French-speaking though!
 |
| Nick eating escargots for the first time! SNAILS ARE SO DELICIOUS! (And he liked them, too!) |
 |
| I already loved snails before this photo |
 |
| Good morning! |
 |
| Moored next to a restaurant (where we ate snails) |
 |
| Breakfast time on the boat! |
 |
| Still waking up... DON'T DRIVE TIRED! |
 |
| Roofs like this are typical of the region |
 |
| Looking for lunch |
 |
| Flying the colours! |
Then, as I'm sure most people have heard by now... we stopped in Gray for the night. Being the rope-tying crew person (second-in-command, actually), I jumped off the boat as we were at the jetty in Gray to moor it. But I misjudged it slightly, the jetty was slippery and I wasn't wearing shoes (I'm on holidays! I don't need shoes!) - so I fell over and rolled my ankle. Pretty badly.
 |
| The cripple |
My ankle swelled up like a BALLOON (bigger than a tennis ball - I won't put up a photo in case people are queasy and vomit but I took heaps of pics) and was black and blue and purple and yellow.
Luckily, all the biking enthusiasts in the family (ie. Dad) pedalled to the pharmacy for an ice pack and pressure bandage so I could miserably hop around the boat. My ladder-scaling days were OVER.
So that was Wednesday night... I was crawling around until Monday, when we finished the boat trip!
 |
| A grey morning in Gray |
Mum took over Nick's job of bow-rope-thrower, and Nick took my job of ladder-leaping - HEART-BREAKING! I sat around and took photos (so nothing really changed).
 |
| Mum hard at work
|
 |
| Seriously, all the traffic on the road! |
A couple of days we had to traverse tunnels which was exciting! It was nearly 700m, which is kind of long if you're Dad trying to drive perfectly straight in a boat which isn't very...good at turning.
 |
| Entering the first tunnel |
 |
| Second tunnel |
Hopped off the boat (haha - get it?) for a drink and lunch some days, otherwise we just moored on a bank and ate v Frenchly on the roof of our boat (cheese and bread, usually. You'd think we were farmers).
 |
| Crusader 5! |
 |
| Morning on the side of the road |
 |
| Smoooooke on the waaaaater |
 |
| Dangerously delicious brioche |
 |
| A rotating bridge |
 |
| Leaving the boat - if I can't get a piggyback from my little brother when I can't walk, when can I?! |
So that was the end of the boat trip! It was a really great week, despite not being able to walk for most of it. Went to the hospital in Epinal... got a cast to the knee. And crutches. And injections I had to do myself to avoid blood clotting. But apart from that!
We stayed in a hotel for a couple of days (mostly so my cast could dry) and then we all got the train back to Tours (couldn't go alone because was unable to be on crutches and pulling a suitcase at the same time). Then Mum and Dad and Nick went on to Paris on the train...TO DISNEYLAND! Without me!
 |
| Room service pleases everyone |
The plan was that after the boat, we caught the train to Switzerland to stay with Jamina, an exchange student who stayed with us for a few months and also to visit our first exchange student Kristina who'd just gotten married! And after that, a few days in Disneyland/Paris in general. But unfortunately, that didn't happen. At least, not Switzerland. But the family went and had a great time in Disneyland without me, and I had already seen everything in Paris either way...
 |
Waiting in the rain for the bus to get us to the train station... which
ended up being in the middle of a paddock. A TRAIN STATION. |
But it was a good holiday and at least I got to see a bit of the East of France and a couple of big cities (Orleans and Dijon) which I probably wouldn't have gone to otherwise.
I got a few days rest (seriously, hopping around on crutches all the time is EXHAUSTING) after I got home and then it was back to school - holidays OVER!
More bloggy sweetness to come soon!
