Excursion: Ecouen

Today was:

1. Our Ecouen excursion

2. Gorgeous weather-wise

3. Thursday, June 2^nd 2011

4. Photo scavenger hunt in Paris day

5. A day where I counted how many stairs I walked up/down...I stopped counting at 2000...

6. My second to last full day in Paris

As you can see, my day today was full of excitement. We had to be out the door around 7:30am to meet the group at Gare du Nord to go to Ecouen. It was a really neat chateau! Dr. Hudson led us there via a path in the forest and it was stunning. It reminded me of Belgium and St. Louis...I miss the trees! We hiked for 15-20 minutes to get to the castle and then entered into the museum (Ecouen is now the Museum of the Renaissance). It had a lot of really neat exhibits and I learned a lot about the Renaissance in France. I also learned a lot about weaponry and took some pictures for Erik and Jack to see. I’m pretty sure they would have been in heaven with all of the swords, maces, guns, and mini cannons.

After the museum, the group had a picnic lunch outside of the chateau. It was a beautiful day with a lot of wind but we had a lot of fun! My lunch wasn’t very good (I didn’t have time to go to a good grocery store), but I suppose an apple and an apple jam sandwich are better than nothing, right?

It was another 15-20 minute hike back to the train station after our picnic. Everyone was super tired on the ride home! It must have been all of the learning and walking. J When we got back to Paris, everyone split up to do their own things. A group of 8 of us decided to do a photo scavenger hunt to celebrate our last few days in Paris. For some, today is was their last day! Crazy, I know! It was a good way to test our knowledge of the city and have fun. Caleb, Sarah, Lacey, and I were on a team and Paul, Erin, Mckenna, her friend Lorraine, and Toni were on the other team. We had to take pictures of things like:

- A gypsy trying to give you something

- A homeless person asking you for money

- Someone who’s obviously foreign/a tourist

- An Asian tour bus

- A street artist/musician

- Someone’s tomb

- The Eiffel Tower

- Moulin Rouge

- Arch de Triomphe

- A couple making out

- Playing on a playground

- A building with Renaissance era architecture

- A perfume shop

-Someone smoking

- Jardins de Luxembourg

- A metro sign

- A street sweeper

And so on. The only rules were that you had to have at least one person from your group in every picture and you had to be back to the Institute building by 5:15pm. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the pictures on my camera or I would have some fun ones to share. I did get one though! I hadn’t been to the Moulin Rouge yet, so Sarah and I went for the scavenger hunt. Kind of anticlimactic but I think you should at least see it if you’re ever in Paris. It was a fun way to spend the day!

After the scavenger hunt, I headed back home to Croissy. I’m pretty sure I walked at LEAST 5-6 miles today between the hike to Ecouen and running around Paris for the scavenger hunt. My feet are feelin’ it! I came home to find Madame tanning in the front yard. She’s seriously one of the fittest people I’ve ever known. Not many people can pull of a bikini at 63 years old! But she asked me about my day and showed me the book she was reading. She’s a sweetheart!

My body was dead after walking around all day, so I came straight upstairs and napped for 45 minutes until dinner. Madame made omelets with zucchini (I think...), salad, and rice. For dessert, we had prunes and chocolate pudding (separately, of course). I learned that I don’t like prunes at all and that I must have a really good poker face because Madame kept offering me more. At least I can say I’ve tried fresh prunes! Monsieur is out of town with Hugh, so I think she wanted to prolong dinner so that she had someone to talk to. It’s hard to believe that it’s one of my last nights here! I think I’m going to miss it.

Other than that, I’ve just been trying to get packed for Nice! I leave tomorrow night and I want to be ready with my stuff tomorrow morning. Hopefully I don’t forget anything! Oh, and I decided that I don’t want to bring my computer to Nice (I don’t know how safe it would be in our hotel), so that means no blogging until next Tuesday. Sorry! L I’ll try and get wifi on my iPhone at the hotel so you can e-mail me if you need to, family. Sound good? I’m sure I’ll have an amazing post when I get back! The weather forecast is looking crummy but hopefully we can get a lot of beach time in. I hear the ocean is beautiful there! We’re also planning on going to Monaco and maybe a bike ride but we’ll see. Until next week! J