Right now, we’re on the 7:50 train to Tours for our 2-day trip. We’ll be visiting some well known castles later on. After Tours, we’ll be coming back to Paris and my friend Nikki and I will be staying in a hotel until her mom comes. Then I’ll be going to Arlette’s (host mom’s) mother’s place to hang out with Juliette (host sister) for the week. On Saturday, Juliette and I are taking the train back to Besancon. Then there will be four weeks left of classes at the CLA. When we get to the hotel, I’m going to look into changing my flight home a few weeks earlier to avoid having to worry about running out of money. When I bought the ticket home, I thought the 2 weeks would give me a bunch of time to travel and see France. It does- but money certainly helps experience the culture and the country to its fullest. I need to figure out plans for the rest of the vacation, and see what Juliette and I could do during our week in Paris.

~Tours, France~
Right now I write from the hotel Terminus in Tours. Quite the name for a hotel! It’s right next to the train station (very handy, seeing as how I didn’t exactly pack light, and get to drag all my heavy luggage everywhere with me!) We just got back from our last dinner together at a nice restaurant downtown Tours. Right now Keena, Brad and I are chilling in the hotel room, and i’m busily arranging my things for tomorrow. I’m excited to be going back to Paris, because there’s still a lot that I planned on doing that I haven’t tackled yet. Some things include:
-The Musée D’orsay
-Louvre
-Eiffel Tower
-Arc de Triomphe
-Sacre Coeur
-Notre Dame
-Meet up with Alexandros (Greek/French friend from Besancon)
-Try and get a hold of my friend from Michigan and great aunt who both live in Paris
And then, of course, there’s the dessert place Sarah was telling me about that seems fairly priced (15 Euro for a huge plate of tons of rich desserts for several people) but of course I forgot the name of the restaurant.
Also, I’d like to get a few more small souvenirs (I can’t forget about wine) and I plan on taking a bunch of pictures of the city as I go exploring.

These past few days, we visited chateaux (castles) in the Loire Valley- Amboise, Blois, Chambord, and Chenonceau. The entire week we’ve been eating very rich meals (several courses, France style) and plenty of wine to wash it down. Tomorrow our train leaves for Paris at 12:09, so I’ll probably wake up around 8:30, grab some breakfast (petit dejeuner), finish packing, and get all my stuff together.
This week has really been exceptional.