Hello again,
So yes I did move host families on October 13th - wow that is 1 month today!! It has honestly flown by!! I am very fortunate, as I absoluetly adore my new host family!! - They are very kind and encourage me to play the sports and participate in the activities I would like to! They said I am just their adopted daughter - which was really cool. I arrived here the saturday morning and met my host Father and host brother!! yeah I have a sibling, he helped me carry my luggage upstairs to my room - I was a little afraid for him, thought he might break his back doing so! - I never in a million years thought that I could accumulate that much stuff! Then my host mother came home and I met her - she is very small, but very sweet. She even sowed my jacket the other day because Hannah ( the american exchange student ) had torn it, crazy girl!! lol anyway So after I said goodbye to Veronique, we ate lunch right away and during lunch they told me that they were going to take me to Versailles!! OMG!! How amazing was that - I hadn't even been here an hour and I was off to see something really unbelievable!!
- A little about my family: My host dad's name is Jean-Pierre and my host mom's name is Brigette. They have two sons; Jonathon is 23 and lives close by, here in Chelles, then there is Marc Antoine who is 17, he goes to the same highschool as I do here in Chelles as well. He is also in Terminale ( like grade 12). We live in a 3 story house, it is quite cute! I even have a back yard here! yippee!...I live in Chelles, Ile de France. - it is basicly a suburb of Paris, I am also really close to down town Chelles, so that is very convient for the bank and the post and such. As well to travel into Paris is just a 5 minute walk and then a 20 minute train ride. So all in all I am very content here!!
Now for the Marvelous and unbelievable pictures of Versailles... I am absolutely enchanted by that place!! When we got their we met up with our guide, who of course spoke french, but it wasn't too bad I understood some of it. She was very enthusiastic, kinda entertaining for me. ha ha ha Oh yeah... so as we are standing there waiting for the rest of our group with the guide, we stood outside the gates of the Palace of Versailles and anyway while we are waiting there are these men trying to sell fake doves, which you just wind up and then they fly - they look kinda cool actually, but anyway they are demonstrating them all over the place and they are completely uncontrollable and one of these damn little plastic doves comes right at me and smokes me in the side of the head... like of all things to happen the first day I meet my host family!! Jeezz!! It was really rather funny I guess, but I felt like a moron even though it wasn't my fault lol..
- So the tour we took of Versailles was completely organised with Brigettes work, I found this with basicly any adult I have spoken to about this too - it is really quite remarkable... Each company actually hires 1 person who all they do is organise trips and outings in and around Paris or to other countries, such as ski trips and that... that is his job!! And then the company will subsidize it so that you only pay a small percentage of the actual cost!! - jeez we need to get something like that in Canada I tell ya! It is pretty unreal.
Me at the gates entering Versailles, just after I have been dinged with the plastic flying dove.
The outside of the Palace of Versailles, just the left wing. This place was monsterous! And the arcticheture and detail was incredible.
Another extension of the palace, it has an identical one like it on the left too. Just like the two wings of the palace are indentical on the outside.
The beginning of the gardens of Versailles.
Again the gardens, here is the lake too. The forest all around is to create the illusion that the gardens go on like that for a long time (like forever), as they did back when Versailles was up and running, However today beyond the trees is just suburban area.
This is one of the many fountains you'll find in the gardens, they are very detailed and beautiful.
Huge skeleton man... I think that this is supposed to be King Louis XVIII, expecially cuz this skeleton has a massive nose.
This is the King's throne, it has a room all of it's own. I guess this is where people would come to see him or give him presents... I think. Sorry like I said I didn't catch everything the tour guide said, as well I forgot some of it.
This is in a room just before you enter the great hall of mirrors. It is very extravagant, the gold figures around this carving are actually real gold as is the majority of the gold trimming in the Palace... pretty expensive place! In the carving is King Louis XVIII, he was real short ha ha ha, so he rode ponies so that he would look bigger... I thought that was pretty funny.
This is the hall of mirrors, apparently it is very famous! Also very impressive!!!
This is me in the the King's bedroom, it was very nice, very beautiful... although I am not entirely sure why the king had his own bedroom, because if you've seen Marie Antoinette, he slept with her... so maybe he got up real early and went back to his own bed... I don't know, I am confused. Anyway it was a nice room!
This is the Queen's bedroom. Also really nice and impressive... has a secret door in it in which the queen escaped from the castle through, when the people of france were charging the Palace. Very pretty room, as were all of the rooms though... not a single one that I didn't like..lol
This is one of the first rooms you see actually when you enter the palace. And like all the other rooms in the palace, it has magnificant paintings on the ceiling. All of the ceiling paintings and the carving on the walls and ceiling all have specific meanings, I definately don't know them, there are a ridiculous amount of them and I can't imagine that anyone knows ALL of them. But anyway most of them have saints or gods, lots of symbols. - very beautiful.
Another one of the first rooms you'll see. This place was very amazing, here again on these doors, the gold is real, therefore the doors actually have glass pains over them, so that people don't touch the gold, I guess...
--- Sorry that the pictures are soo dark and really can not see much, it was a really hard place to take pictures and the paintings on the ceilings were basicly impossible...... there was very very little lighting in all the rooms, mostly just daylight through the windows. Anyway hope you enjoyed them, sorry there was soo many!! Sometimes I get a little carried away...lol
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