Time flys when you have some one to speak English to.

June 26th


Alright so It's been a while. Let me give you the run down.

On Sunday Benedicte (my boss) came over from England to meet me and tidy up a couple of business things. She brought with her her Daughter Celine and her Friend Beccy, both 18 years old, just graduated from Highschool . So since they were mostly interested in just hanging out by the pool and getting a tan so they would look good in their Graduation dresses...I did a lot of that as well. It was nice to have some ladies to speak English too, and since Celine and her Mom are both fluent in English and French I had some one to translate for a bit so me and the Suaves would understand each other on more than just a basic level of "oui", "No" "Bon" and "Merci". That was nice.
Then on Monday I log on line, onto my AIM only to find a message left by Ben Richmond informing me that he had gotten into Angers 3 hours ago and would be waiting at the station hoping to God to find me and be picked up......he came one whole day before he said he'd arrive. So naturally I'm panicking, imagining Ben on the streets of Angers dragging his bags and his guitar around propping himself up on the wall of a sreet corner and falling asleep only to wake up and find all his stuff is gone. Of course Ben was MUCH better off than that. I ended up staying online untill about 1 am hoping he'd come on so I could give him a phone number and some directions to a taxi station. But he ended up staying in a nice cheap hotel and popping on line the next morning, thankfully at the same time as me. So I told him what bus he could take to the town closest to the Chateau and that's just what he did. Picking Ben up from the Bus stop in Jarze was very picturesque. Jarze is this tiny French town with streets just wide enough for a horse and buggy to go down, very small 2-3 story buildings crammed up next to each other amongst winding streets, basically no traffic, and there's Ben, waiting at the one bus stop in Jarze canvas Bags over his shoulders, Guitar case in hand. Not to mention his fake ray ban shades and skinny jeans. It was kind of surreal.
It was a full house. Benedicte and Co on the 3rd floor, me and Ben on the fourth and of course Mr. and M. Suave on the second. It was probably not very good for French learning purposes because I could speak English to most of the people in the house, and anyone that was French I had Benedicte, Celine and Ben to translate for me. But we had a lot of fun while Ben was here. Of course we did a lot of hanging out by the pool, but there was much to explore. We did a nice long walk in the intricate paths that run throughout the forest on the chateau's property. While doing that we cam across a honey farm type thing, where they have the hives in box's...we only got close enough to see what they were, not to mention see what they were, but since neither of us had brought our bee keeping suits we didn't advance any closer (insert Eddie Izzard Joke here). after the stroll in the forest we checked out some bikes and made our way through the countryside. My bike had a basket in the front so we brought some water and granola bars. First we just sort of took whatever rodes we felt led to go down, which (surprisingly) did not get us lost. We saw some cows that were very close to the road and lots of fields of things. Soon we turned around to try to head towards a small town. I had seen an old poplar tree farm earlier when driving with Benedicte so we ventured on to try to find where that was. Apparently Poplar trees were very popular a long time ago and they would have Poplar tree farms in the Loire valley and sell them for a lot of money. Soon they went out of style, probably having something to do with the fact that they break so easily. But there are these old unused poplar tree farms now, where there are these majestic white poplar trees in perfect rows, evenly spaces and eerily still standing. We biked past them and ooh'd and ahh'd a bit. Soon we came across Sermaise which is a town even smaller than Jarze and really doesn't even have any shops, it looked like maybe they used to, but now the only functioning infrastructure of the town is the mid sized church in the center. Me and Ben stopped there to eat our Granola Bars and drink some water, and of course do a little exploring by foot. After feeling good and rested we decided to continue on to Jarze and stop at the bar for an afternoon beer (hey it's France). Ben turned the corner saying "We'll go if it's not up hill the whole way". apparently you can't judge this just by turning the corner, because it ended up being a slow incline to Jarze almost the entire way, 4 Kilometers. It was sunny and I had just had a bunch of creamy French Milk and needless to say I got a little sick once we got to the bar....I know having a beer prob ably wouldn't be the best idea at this point, but it turned out to be quite the refreshing choice. There was a tiny dog of some kind at the bar that made our acquaintance immediately and proceeded to hang out with us while we watched a bit of horse racing. Fun stuff. The ride home ended up being a bit shorter because the way we got there was a bit round about since we went through Sermaise. Lovely non-the-less.
Upon our return there was much poolside reading and napping to be done until the girls returned home from Angers and Jean-Christophe and Mary joined us from their Cottage, we had a little shindig. And there was much rejoicing.

I have to mention that I've had many a new food in the past week. Let me know if you can top this:

Escargo (Snail) yummy
Rabbit, also good
Brioche (it's a kind of sweet bread)
Brick (It's a Tanzanian food with rice batter and ham and egg)
Frogs legs (which look exactly like what they are, and taste almost like nothing)

I've happily taken many helpings of each, they were all very tastey and I was happy to try them...I might have to have some snail again before I go. They taste similar to clam or oysters. Yum.

I also have been experiencing some films that I never thought I'd see unless stuck on an airplane with nothing else to watch. The girls brought some dvd's over from England, and we ended up watching "National Treasure" which wasn't a fantastic Movie but I was thoroughly entertained throughout. We watched "First Daughter" the first night that Ben spent here....it was a terrible Movie, but me and Ben had some good laughs about the whole experience. And then last night we watched "Bride and Prejudice" which is an English Made Baliwood film. I rather enjoyed it, you can only guess what Novel it was based off of...Rory from Gilmore Girls ended up being in it..that was a suprise. and Sayid from Lost was in it...I don't watch lost but the girls kept calling him Syid (I might be spelling that wrong and I don't feel like checking it).

So interesting Food, interesting Movies. People to speak english to and an epic bike ride around the country side. You might understand why I haven't entered anything in the past couple days. I've been busy having a great time.

I said goodbye to the girls and Ben this morning. So now it's back to me and the Suaves and the Dogs. Let me just say that it seems like I said goodbye to them yesterday and not this morning. The day has gone by so slow, I didn't know what to do with myself. I find myself passing the time by taking naps, which is usually helpful since I usually go to bed really late (after being online) and waking up really early to clean the pools. So it might take a bit to adjust back to the quiet and lonesome chateau. Thankfully more and more families will be coming as the month goes on.

I think I've made a bit of leeway (or should I say Leighway?) on trying to get home earlier. Not much but some.

Love to all.

Bon a nuit

Leigh