We walk on streets of gold

5-24/25-11

Tuesday doesn't have any pictures because we spent the day in the classroom. We did have cheese tasting for lunch, but by the time he finished explaining the cheese processes I was too hungry to fool around with my camera. For future reference, I definitely prefer hard cheeses when it comes to France. The rest of them? Eh... I tried them. Most of them smelled similar to sleeping in a goat pen. There was one cheese that I'd assumed would taste pretty good, and I came away with the feeling that I'd just made out with a really dirty sheep. It took a bit of wine to flush that taste out of my mouth. Yowza.

Wednesday is where the excitement was at. We got to visit Versailles! We met an entomologist that works with AgroParisTech and INRA, and he showed us around his lab at Versailles. Then we walked over to the canals outside of the palace and had a picnic by the water. What a beautiful day! The weather was glorious and the sunshine felt so good that a few of us took a nap during lunch. And then a few more of us got sunburned. Good thing I packed aloe vera gel!

After lunch, we toured the Kitchen Gardens at Versailles. Since there is no royalty in need of a flashy garden to show off to the nobles, this garden is now home to a landscape architecture school. They have 12 full-time gardners to keep the place in order and students work in the garden for class. The current project is they're trying to restore the garden to its original prominence and grow all or most of the plants that the first royal gardner had listed as "necessary" in the garden's first guidebook. There are several cultivars that don't exist anymore and some have different names today than they did 300 years ago. So it's a bit tricky, to say the least. Regardless, they maintain the space very well. Grace and I had questions out the wazoo for the tour guide. It was so much fun being around plants again, we were almost giggling. Combined with her book knowledge of plants and me growing up around tons of varieties, we were having a grand old time.

Then. A few of us went to the palace itself. I took pictures, but they don't begin to do it justice. The palace was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn't believe how much gold was used on one house. Granted, this "house" is the size of a small village to begin with. But still. I'd almost wager that the reason the price of gold is so high is because most of it is decorating the gutters in France. It was such a splendid sight, all of it.

And when we left, we were REALLY hungry. Then we found McDonald's. As a sidenote, EU McDonald's is SOOOO much better than US McDonald's. No lie, I think that burger was blessed by the gods before it was wrapped. That was an amazing sandwich. My mouth is watering just thinking about it... :]