The End

So after the Loire Valley, I just finished up classes and said my last goodbyes to one of my favorite cities—Dijon. Before leaving, I took a tour up the tower in the Palace of the Dukes of Bourgogne. Here are some of the amazing views I saw while I was up there!

Dijon

Me up on the tower

A gargoyle over St. Michele

St. Benigne

Notre Dame

The last full day I had in Dijon, I walked around and still found more areas that I had never seen before and that I wished I had found earlier to have been able to explore them more.

Me inside what is left of L'église Saint-Étienne

Walking the streets of Dijon, one can find many little parks

As well as interesting architecture

I found this Theatre, which I had never seen before.

Finally, here is the view I saw every morning from my kitchen window.

After leaving Dijon, I spent six days at my cousins house in a suburb of Paris and just relaxed after classes. I spent one night in Dublin before leaving for Chicago. All of my flights went smoothly without any troubles, which was nice. When I was home, I saw some family and friends before coming back to Augustana. Now I am just preparing for fall term classes and my third year of college! I hope you have enjoyed this experience a fraction of the amount I did because I know I will remember this wonderful trip for the rest of my life. I can't wait to go back! (whenever that will be :)

Time to be a Princess

This weekend we went to the Loire Valley to shop for houses—just kidding —we were just looking at the castles. It was a beautiful weekend of visiting castles I don't remember visiting before and new ones altogether. Our first stop was Château de Sully:

"La Loire": Window in Château de Sully

Château de Sully

Then we spent part of the afternoon in Orléans to visit the town and get lunch. We walked around and went in a huge, beautiful cathedral.

Cathédrale St. Croix d'Orléans

In every town that we visited there was a plaque recognizing Jeanne d'Arc for whatever battle that was in that town. Orléans was no different from the other towns:

Statue of Jeanne d'Arc

Our last stop for Friday was Chambord, which I think we visited when I was six, but to tell the truth I don't remember it at all. Chambord is a huge, gorgeous castle, and each floor is designed for a different century because so many different kings spent time there since it is only a hunting lodge and not a permanent residence for the king.

Chambord

One of my favorite pictures I took from Chambord

We stayed in a hotel in the town of Tours and it rained the first night as we were walking back to the hotel after dinner. We ate at a Moroccan restaurant which was really good. Then on Saturday, we first went to Blois to visit the castle there. We also walked around the market in Blois and had lunch there.

Château Blois is different because there are four distinct styles of architecture from the different kings adding onto the castle.

Our next visit was to the royal lodging and donjon, which is just the main living area, in Loches. The royal lodging was used as a place to going hunting, but it was built for a kings mistress named Agnes Sorel. The donjon was originally a living area, but then part of it was changed into a prison.

Donjon (main living area) de Loches

It was a long hike up to the top of the donjon, but I made it, and the view was worth it.

The last castle we visited was my personal favorite, and I am pretty sure that we have been there before. I think I remember being on a row boat in the river with my cousins at Chenonceau. This castle was also made for a mistress, but after the king died, his queen took it for herself. We understand because it is absolutely gorgeous.

Chenonceau

Our favorite picture from Chenonceau: the four of us walking in the garden

It was truly a great weekend. We saw a lot, but it was not as hectic as the Paris weekend at the beginning of my time in Dijon. 

I loved seeing the sunflower fields along the side of the road as we drove through the Loire Valley.

At the beginning of my trip here, I thought I would have so much time to see so much and do so much and learn so much, but now I leave Dijon on Saturday and then I will be going back to the States shortly after. I am not ready to leave, but I am ready to be done with these hard classes. I have made some really good friends on this trip and met some amazing people. I will miss the people who are from other countries that I have become friends with, but I look forward to continuing the relationships with other Augustana students that have started because of this trip. If only I really could become a princess and live happily ever after in one of the châteaux here in France.

Last Few Chapters

Last Monday, I visited Cathédrale Saint-Bénigne which was beautiful but they were doing some restoration work on the North tower as you can see in the following picture.

Cathédrale Saint-Bénigne

It was beautiful inside, just like most gothic cathedrals, and there was a crypt, but it looked like you had to pay to go in, so I didn't go down there because it is a little creepy to me and I didn't want to pay for it.

Inside Cathédrale Saint-Bénigne

Then this weekend we went up to Lille for Augustana football game against the French national team! It rained in the morning, but by the time the game started at 4pm, it had cleared up and was hot and sunny. Surprisingly I had a great time cheering for our time even though when we would start the french around us would completely overpower us with their cheering. 

For the game we got VIP passes to get free drinks and have a free dinner with the team after the game.

Augustana football team and a random man supporting America.

We won the game 20-14! It was very exciting, and it was not as long as a football game usually is in the US, which was nice.

 On Sunday, we walked around Lille just to see more of the town, which is very different from Dijon and bigger than Dijon as well. I think I like Dijon better than Lille though.

A square we had lunch it; the French seem to like their large pots.

We went into a book "market", and there were a lot of old books and pictures and records and toys. It was also in a beautiful, old building.

There is a canal in Lille.

We went to the zoo since we had time and it was in the park.

Someone carved a whole little village on this fallen tree.

A beautiful building in Lille

Lille was a nice, relaxing weekend because everyone was tired so we didn't want to go crazy on trying to see all of the sights. Instead we just hung out and played a French card game and enjoyed our weekend.

This week is different because there are new students here, so on Monday we didn't have class because the new students were taking the placement test. We slept in on Monday, and then just hung out with some friends at the residence hall, and then saw the movie Joséphine, which is a romantic comedy: it was cute. Today I had class again with new professors and they moved everyone up a level, so now I am in level 6 which at first sounded scary, but it really is not that different and it is only for a week and two days now, and there is only one more test to take, so I think I can do fine for a short time in level 6.   I can't believe that I am almost done here! Time is going by so quickly and there is still so much that I want to do and see! I am just going to enjoy the time I have left here and make the best of each day.

Memories and New Experiences

These past few weeks have been routine and semi-busy since I am in class for most of the day. Classes are still going well; this week is the last week for many of the students in my class, so next week I will have many new students to get to know. It will be interesting since I feel like I am just starting to get to know some of the people in my class. On Thursday the 18th the whole program had a picnic for everyone to get to know each other. It was fun, but it started to rain, so we didn't stay for very long. Then on Friday the 19th I visited some museums by myself: Musée de la vie Bourguignonne, Musée d'Art Sacré, and Musée de Beaux Arts. All three were very interesting, and very different from each other. The first one was a little scary for me because there were mannequins that looked very life like, and I had a flash back of being in the wax museum in Texas in the President's room when the power went out just like in the scary movies. Thankfully, the power didn't go out this time and if it had, there wasn't any music playing to do the scary winding down when the power goes out. I ran into some people from my French class at the first museum, which was a fun surprise. All of the artwork was beautiful in each of the museums. Then on Saturday the 20th some of us Augie students had a BBQ with the Brazilians in our classes, which was really fun. There was a lot of good food, and we had to speak in French since we don't know portuguese and only a few of them know a little english. We had a great time eating, talking, and listening to music as well as each other talk in our native language. Then I went to the movies with a few other people from Augie: we saw Marius, which is a love story—Marius has always loved the sea, and he falls in love with a woman named Fanny, and it is sad and good and girly. Then on Sunday the 21st the Augie group went to Annecy! We spent five hours getting there (with an hour break in Lyon) and when we got there another Augie, French professor met us at the train station. We walked around and had lunch and went by the lake and just enjoyed the beautiful city. While we were there, we took a boat tour on the lake for 2 hours, and it was just the most amazing scenery with the mountains surrounding the lake. It reminded me of how great our God is that he created the mountains. It was a wonderful day of breathtaking views, but when we were leaving there were some problems with the trains and we were delayed 40 minutes in Lyon and didn't get home until 1am. Then we went to class on Monday, which was hard after not much sleep.

The quaint courtyard in Musée de la Vie Bourguignonne

Me facing my fears of the mannequins in the museum (thankfully they were only on the first floor, so I was fine on the second and third floor looking at art and displays of different stores).

Musée d'Art Sacré

Interestingly, they had modern and traditional religious art next to each other.

Me inside the Musée de Beaux Arts, there were many different styles of art from different time periods.

Annecy!!

There is a beautiful park that we sat in before our tour.

Beautiful mountains

An old castle that we had to walk up hill to see

Beautiful Lac d'Annecy and mountains

On the tour boat

This mountain is called the sleeping Indian although it is a little hard to see in this picture. On the right of the picture is the "head and feathers" and on the left is the "body" lying down.

The group in Annecy, our professor's hometown!

Relaxing Weekend

This weekend, we went to a small town only 20 minutes away, by train, called Beaune, and there we walked around and did a wine tasting. We also went to the firemen's ball in Dijon on Saturday night, which was very hard to find considering that we asked directions three times, and people would sometimes point us in the wrong direction. There were mostly older and very young people there, so we did not stay for very long; plus it was cold outside, since it was late and just in a little courtyard outside the fire department. Then on Sunday it was Bastille Day and we spent the whole day on the beach relaxing and waiting for the fireworks! The sand was really hot and the water was really cold, so I spent most of the time lying on the beach chair, which I rented for a euro, reading. It was a nice weekend of not running around to see all the sites, like in Paris. The fireworks were great, and before they started many people where just shooting off fireworks from their home, so we saw many little firework shows before the big event! Unfortunately, a woman sat in a chair right in front of us, so it was harder to see the lower fireworks, but it was still a great display. They also played music with the fireworks, but it was a little too loud for me. Once they were done it was chaotic trying to get home because the streets were so crowded, and we were stuffed to the max in the bus, but we had a great time anyways.

The little town of Beaune was very cute to visit.

Wine tasting at Marché aux Vins

It was a self tour of the cellar with information on the walls and areas for tasting wine.

Outside was the vineyard

Beaune is also famous for an old hospital that is now a museum.

Most of the Augie group at Lac Kir in Dijon

We stayed all day to watch the fire works!