Goat farms, chateaux, brass bands and bulldogs

I'll start with the boring news first - the weather is yucky. It rained HEAPS today, and probably will for the rest of the week...

Yes, it's fog - I opened my bedroom window one morning to see this, and my heart sank
as I reached for my polar fleece jumper and ugg boots...

Then a few weeks ago, I went to a GOAT FARM! Catherine and I went because it was Monique's farm (who is a member of our Rotary club), and somehow our neighbours ended up inviting themselves along so it was a bit of a gathering! The best thing was that they have a 7 year old daughter so I was allowed to run around playing with and feeding goats like a little kid and pretend I was looking after her! When in actual fact she was terrorising all the kiddie goats.

Goat vs. Wendy

FOUND THE BABIES!



Only the most ADORABLE thing
I've ever SEEN! Including all my
baby photos!

Me with kids trying to eat me

I think it was the weekend after goat land (or possibly the day after - time is beginning to blur into a confusing mix of lazy days, school and voyages to faraway places, which isn't exactly a bad thing), we all went to Ranton (a tiny town just out of Loudun) to clean up Catherine and Marie-Anne's mum's house which they are renting out to holidayers. This included gardening (yes, that's right, I DID GARDENING!), building barbeques and watching Roland-Garros on TV (I watch tennis now. How things change).

Building a barbeque - well, a hot plate attached to a gas bottle, but
everyone calls it a barbeque -  with my host bro Gildas

 

Just so unbelieveably cool

Wild strawberries in Marie-Anne's garden

This is the closest thing I've eaten to a
 meat pie - bouchées a la reine

What else has been happening? Oh that's right, I went to stay in TOURS for the weekend! With my friend Emma, from the U.S. (an exchanger, naturally).
We had a look around Tours - the shops, La Loire (the river) and AMERICA! That's right, we went to America. The genuine United States of. The story is, there's of tiny square (with a fountain) in Tours which France gave to the U.S. because of something to do with some war...okay, I don't really know the story, google it - I JUST TAKE THE PHOTOS, ALRIGHT? But now it means, territory-wise, that we were literally in the United States of America!
HOW COOL IS THAT?

I AM IN AMERICA! Strike an American pose!

I watched her choir performance too (which sounds like it might be boring but it was bloody good OPERA!) - Mozart's Requiem, in fact. The soloists were amazing, in my expert-opera-singing opinion.

La chorale

La Loire river

Once I finally got to Emma's house (this was all only Friday arvo/night), I was introduced to "les filles!" (the girls) - ie. the two GOOSES of the house! AND they had a French bulldog. And two turtles. And a cat. And chickens. And a rooster. I was practically living on a farm! Good thing I was there all weekend, it took that long to get introduced to the WHOLE family...!

Les filles!

Cesar!

The next day was SHOPPING DAY. Thank god for big towns with shops, I was going to go insane soon. And I didn't even think I liked shopping that much, but apparently I do.

We went and saw THE GREAT CATHEDRAL too. I saw this little church that we were walking towards and asked, "Is this the cathedral?" Emma goes, "Nope. THIS is the cathedral!" (see photo)

Inside, one half is gothic-style and the other roman-style. And INCREDIBLE from out the front!



Found some cool shops (don't worry, I didn't buy a blue trombone although I
was seriously considering it. If there had been an purple tuba in there, well... SOLD.)

Found a bear!

That night, Joseph (exchanger from Canada) invited me and Emma to what he called a concert. I was like, sweet! Love a good concert. Aaaaaand turns out it was a brass band. Not even chill-out jazz you can dance to... the presentation ceremony of the final night of a brass band festival. But it's okay, cos they were REALLY GOOD!
There were bands from all around Europe - Switzerland, Wales, Netherlands, etc - you know some of the countries in Europe, I'm sure. I don't have any idea who won the competition, cos there were about twenty thousand different trophies and every band got at least one.
BUT! Here's something exciting! The percussion guy in The Cory Band (that was the band, go see - http://coryband.com/) was the NEPHEW of ROGER TAYLOR - the DRUMMER IN QUEEN! So he's practically a ROCK STAR!

The brass band - Roger Taylor's nephew doing his solo!

Next day we trotted off to the Amboise markets - also known as tourist central, no joke, there were poms everywhere - and passed the Chateau de Montlouis (a smaller town out of Tours where Emma lives - I just say Tours though).

Chateau of Montlouis

Next up: Chateau CHAMBORD! Very impressive. I can't be bothered writing anymore (sorry if you were desperately hanging onto my every word, waiting anxiously for an analysis of this particular castle), so here are my photos.

DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO NARROW DOWN 200 PHOTOS INTO 4?!?!

VERY!

Around the back of the castle

A REAL royal carriage!

Hide 'n seek

Ta daaaa! Chambord!

ALL the keys to Chambord (the old doors, that is.)

 Voila! That's my news for the last few weeks!

On a French-speaking note, I think I must be fluent now. Cos I understand everything that my teachers say in class, and I've started dreaming in French too! Although that's been happening for a while, so maybe it doesn't mean anything...?
Now all I need to do is start learning all the French slang and she'll be right (and I have to forget all this useless Australian slang)!

Ooh I also did a first aid course at school yesterday and today! It was pretty fun, and now I can do CPR (or in French: un massage cardiaque - NOT the most massaging thing I can think of, being punched in the chest), roll someone into the recovery position, do a Heimlich manoeuvre (but they don't call it that in French... it's just stopping somone from choking); the works!
Not to mention how good it'll look on my resume...!!!

Prunelle, my future host cat