Chateaux with an 'X'

This weekend, as we were driving back from our adventure in France, Russ pointed out something interesting.

"You know," he said, "when we post the pictures of this weekend, no one is going to know about KFC."

And he'd be right, except I'm going to tell you.

We all know that social media is a highlights reel of our friends' lives, right? The beautiful pictures don't do justice to the chaos that is brewing behind the scenes, and it is dangerous to compare your life to someone else's highlights reel. So in the spirit of "keepin' it 100" with you, my homies, I am going to tell you not one, but TWO stories about how our weekend in France REALLY went. And then, I will show you the beautiful pictures.

Story #1: I was starving. (Par for the course. I am almost always hungry these days.) And since we were in a time pinch, we decided to pull over at a KFC in the middle of France. What was a KFC doing in the middle of France? I don't know. The Colonel gets around. Anyway, there was a lot of cars in the lot and nowhere to park, so we decided to drive through. However, the ensuing conversation with the garbled intercom voice started off poorly.

KFC: Garbled French.

Russ: Un moment, s'il vous plait.

KFC: Un menu?

Russ: No, un moment, s'il vous plait. Un minute? Un minuit?

KFC: Garbled French.

Russ: Je voudrais un menu avec chicken fingers.

KFC: Garble garble garble POULET garble garble...

Russ: Uh...

The conversation went on for a few more exchanges without improvement until Russ finally just blurted, "Desole!" into the microphone and sped off. No chicken for us. Now to ME, this wasn't that big a deal. I've been thwarted by my lack-o-French on many occasions. But Russ has a head for languages, and he was unused to the hunger pangs of chickenless defeat. I could tell that he felt really, really awesome.

Story #2: We went to dinner at a cute little bistro in Chartres. They had a menu for the evening--starter, dinner, dessert--and we signed up. Well, turns out we forgot that we have a 3-month-old who was definitely not sleeping. Rainy charmed the owner/chef during the appetizer, but then proceeded to get sadder and sadder, louder and louder until Russ finally took her outside 30 seconds before our main course arrived. I was trying to hurry and shovel molten hot potatoes into my face when the owner/chef lady came back out and asked, "Ou est le papa?" She beckoned Russ in and proceeded to bounce Rainy around the restaurant so Russ and I could eat. Alas, four minutes later Rainy became disruptive enough that I reclaimed my grumpy offspring, threw a blanket around her, and went to go pace up and down the street until she stopped crying. If I happen to be making it sound like I was handling this coolly, please rest assured, I absolutely was not. I was embarrassed, frustrated, sweating, and still hungry. Rainy calmed down almost immediately in the dark street, but I was still too embarrassed to go back for try #3, so we waited outside, huddled on a narrow stoop until poor Russ had gobbled up his dinner, gathered our stuff, apologized to the waiter, paid the check, and hauled everything back out of the restaurant. In the meantime, there's me: hair ratty from putting my head under the blanket while trying to feed the baby, huddled in a dark doorstep with an infant, and people are walking by giving me concerned looks. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth pedestrian looked at me that way that I realized they were trying to decide if I was panhandling. They were looking for a cup to give me coins. Yes. That, too, felt really, really awesome.

So, when people ask how our weekend went, I am going to feel justified in saying that it was really, really awesome. ;)

And, of course, parts of it were! Like our AirBnb with the amazing view and the landlady who kept calling Rainy "Pluie." Like the carpets of snowdrops in the woods along the Loire. Like visiting chateaux that were so impressive, you spent a lot of time shaking your head that anybody would ever consider them "hunting lodges."

And now, the beautiful pictures:

While Russ interviewed potential Amazonians, I took Princess Poo Poo Pants to the Palace.

Then on Friday night, the real fun began. We drove down to check out Chartres.

Chartres Cathedral is about as quintessentially Gothic as they come.

Saturday: Chateau du Chambord. The King's "Hunting Lodge" was so big, they couldn't heat it properly. So, instead of anyone living there, they brought everyone and everything (and I mean everything--dishes, furniture, several hundred people, everything) with them each time the King visited. Which, apparently, wasn't very often in the end. I'm not sure why; just think of the amazing games of sardines you could play in a house that has more than 50 staircases!

Rainy was a trooper.

This is the view from our Airbnb's living room window. Not ugly.

We stayed on Île d'Or, the island in the middle of the Loire River, in the attic apartment of La Porte Bleue.

(The little pale house with the blue door in the middle of the top left pic).

You know you've found a winner when your apartment key looks like this.

The last stop on our adventure was Chenonceau... a castle built on top of the River Cher. I was totally enamored.

It has a long, interesting history: designed by a woman, fought over by queens and mistresses, used as WWI hospital, and no joke, there is a spooky black-walled bedroom on the top floor where a queen came to mourn her murdered husband. My favorite story, however, was that during WWII the chateau was a line of demarcation between the Germans and the French. The Germans patrolled their bank, but the groundskeeper had the keys to the chateau and worked with the Resistance to sneak endangered people through the castle to freedom. Ten kinds of fabulous, right there.

These days, the staff of the chateau keeps the home fire still burning, literally. Huge logs in huge fireplaces. They also have fresh floral arrangements that are ridiculously gorg-eautiful-tastic. So, pretty much, I'm moving in. Just so long as I don't have to sleep in the creepy black bedroom...

THE END.