I met my friend Francois through a language exchange website in Dublin and I have been working on my French skills and Francois, his English skills for the past 4 months. This past weekend, Francois invited me to his home in Tours, France so that I could experience the 'real France' because according to him, Paris is not France.
I woke up at 3:30am (it would have been earlier if it weren't for my kind housemate Ciran who gave us a ride) on Saturday, picked up Francois from his flat and off we went to catch our 6:25am plane. We flew to Beauvais airport which is just outside Paris, took a taxi from the airport to the train station and took the train into Paris. From there, we took the Paris Metro (Subway) to another train station and caught the TGV (a very fast train) to Tours....we arrived in Tours at 2:45pm and were greeted by Francois's mom, sister and the love of his love, his dog Uria.
From there, we drove to Francois's hometown Savionnaire (sp??) which is 15mins outside Tours. Francois lives in the middle of nowhere in what we would call a 'country home'. They have a nice and peaceful house complete with a pond (with fish and wild ducks), well, pool, wine cellor and veggie garden, all of which Francois and his father built.
After getting the grand tour of the house, his mom made us Crepes...mmmmmm....and thus began the over-stuffing of my stomach over the next few days.
Saturday evening, Francois had a dinner party where 15 of his friends came over. I was surprised that I was able to understand most of what was said and even able to express myself in French, though, some things will forever remain, lost in translation.
We had a HUGE dinner...I stopped counting after 4 courses and I tasted the many different wines from the region. The French sure do love their wine! All his friends also had wine cellors so everyone that arrived also brought wine with them. Around 1am, I could no longer keep my eyes open and headed off to bed. A special Thank you to Valerie, Francois's sister, who allowed me to crash in her room.
The next morning, we woke up to real French bread...oh my gosh, you have never tasted real bread until you taste French bread....croissants...mmmm....real croissants, more crepes and pain au chocolat.
Sunday afternoon, Francois helped his father in their workshop while I talked to Valerie. Valerie and I got along really well because we're the same age and she's a dietician and everyone knows that I love talking about food! I also took a look at Francois's mom's neck as she woke up with neck pain, showed Valerie some exercises and read the x-rays of Francois's dad...lol....a chiro's work is never done.
After another filling lunch of wine and French food, Francois and Valerie took me to Amboise chateau royal. There, we had a guided tour of the chateua en francais. There were people in the tour that were Quebecois, woohoo Canada! The tour guide proceeded to explain some of the history of France and talked about the various rooms and such of the chateau....I started to to tune out as it's difficult enough in English to follow the kings and queens and their kids, nevermind in French. The most interesting thing about the chateau is that it's the resting place of Leonardo de Vinci! He was invited to live in the chateau by Francois the 1st and lived there the last 3 years of his life.
After our chateau visit, we went to Charlie's (one of Francois's best friend's) house. This place was definately in the middle of no where. You can't even see the next closest neighbours!
Monday morning, Francois took me on a guided tour of Tours. We walked around the old and new parts of the town and of couse, ate some more....another pain au chocolat...mmmm.....we even bought some baguettes....typical French!! Then we went for a drive along the countryside and along the river. It reminded me alot of parts of Canada. Lots of green space. Even the driving was great as they drive on the same side of the road as in Canada, unlike Ireland, where I think i'm constantly going to be run over.
In the afternoon, we went to see the second love of his life, his yellow car, at his parent's office. We caught our train around 5pm and began the journey back in reverse....train, subway, train, taxi, plane, taxi..bed!
I had a great trip, ate loads of food and had the real French experience. Thank you to Francois, his sister, his parents and friends who were super welcoming and patient with my charades games when I didn't know the words in French. C'etait impeccable!
Now, it's back to the grind and time to plan my final trip before I go home to Canada....will of course, keep you all up to date. See you soon!
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