Wanderings

I’m sitting here in ana’s room eating Haagen-Dazs ice-cream. I shouldn’t – I’ve already eaten far too much today. YUM YUM. It was Vanilla Toffee Brownie. And yes, it was heaven. An had Macadamia Nut Brittle.

What did we do this morning? Well, the entire day felt like a big school excursion. We had a bus, and it was an hour and a half drive to Compiegne, which wasn’t too bad. I took drugs. In the morning before I left for breakfast spoke to family, and I saw jed and yiayia and papou on the webcam. Yey!

The bus has leather seats, and the back of the bus the seats were in a circle, with a soft-edged triangle-shaped table in the middle. Ana and I sat there with Emma and Melanie and Vi. Melanie reckons it’s really hard to get a good law job. Like I said, I took my drugs and slept for most of the trip. There were two toll booths on the way.

Compiegne descrives itself as “ville imperiale”. That’s because le chateux de Compiegne was originally built by Louis XV, and a lot of Royals lived there at various points. Napoléon the first lived there and renovated most of it; Napo III also lived there for a while. Interestingly enough, Josephine never went to Compiegne – she didn’t like it much (and thus stayed most of her time in Malmaison). However, Napo I’s second wife Marie-Louise had a whole suite of rooms there. There was the Chinese room, the Flower room, her bedroom etc. It was cool when we went to Marie-Louise’s rooms via a secret passageway in Napoleon’s study.

Anyway, Compiegne is gorgeous. It’s got this “little country town” feel to it. Ana and I were desperate to go to the toilet – we went into centre ville by ourselves, and a resteranteur actually let us use the toilets without paying and without buying anything from his store! How nice. But most importantly of Compiegne is that they have Chistmas Market! This beautiful collection of stores in northern-pole style, selling heaps of Christmas things. They had churros for 2.5. They had crepes for 2 euro. They had chocolat chaud, and vin chaud, and white vin chaud with cherries for 1.50. They had these long sticks of pure yummy sugar for 1 euro. Such cheap, delicious food! I guess as soon as you get out of the major cities things become cheaper. We were allowed one hour free time to shop around the market – about time you gave us scheduled time to shop Sylvia! I bought myself a mini santa, but that’s it – just some lollies as well. :P

There was also the normal Saturday morning market there! I saw some nice cheap boots, but ana reckoned they weren’t leather. Tossing up between a scrunched-up style or a more elegant loose style to look out for. Hmmm

Then we went to le Chateau.

List of rooms that we listed:

• Salle a Manger de Napo I
• Salon des Cartes
• Salon de Famille
• Chambre a coucher de Napo I
• Bibliotheque de l'Empereur (Napo I)
• Salle de Bain
• Secret passageway to Empresses' rooms
• Salle de Bain
• salon de Musique (appellé "chambre chinoise")
• Chambre d'Imperatrice Marie-Louise
• Salon de reception de l'Imperatrice
• Salon des Fleurs
• Salle a Manger de Marie-Louise
• La Galerie des Chasses
• La Galerie du Bal

It was OK. The woman was a bit psycho, she thought she saw someone walking around the castle without security pass and got onto the radio calling for everyone to sweep the castle. And then Vi felt faint, and Sylvia took her to lie down. We finished our tour, and we all went to lunch. Sylvia went away from Vi briefly to buy her a sandwich, and while Sylvia left the crazy tour guide woman called the ambulance saying that Vi had a “traumatism cranial” and rushed her off to hospital! Poor Vi was just feeling feint and ill, and then she was put in an ambulance and rushed off and forced to get an MRI when she didn’t need one. Sylvia came back from the boulangerie to be told one of her students had had a serious fall, and crazy woman drove her to the hospital. It took a while for Sylvia to convince the doctors that nothing was wrong, and Vi was eventually released but she is still now feeling a little crook.

Anyway, during that time we (me, ana, Amanda, Jen, Gemma, Jessye & Sarah) had lunch. We went to the closest café / restaurant to the chateux, and I got a spaghetti au trois frommages (spaghetti with 3 cheeses). I’m really getting into this whole every-food-under-the-sun with three cheeses! It was very nice. Miam miam!

Then we got on the bus – we were, for once in our lives, not late! We scored the back again – this time with Jen, Gemma etc. We waited, and waited, and waited. Then we were told that Sylvia was with Vi at the hospital! Katheryne left Vi’s side to give us Sylvia’s instructions – just go to the next castle anyway, and go with the free group tour. We rocked up – it’s called the Castle of Pierrefonds. It’s medieval! About time, all of the castles we’ve seen so far have been from an earlier period, they all look the same. This one came right out of a Disney movie. Once we arrived, we were told we could not go with the free group guided tour because there were too many of us! Fine by me, I say, so we ran around taking silly photos posing with the statues, and didn’t learn anything but had heaps of fun – and that’s what matters, right?

Ana and Amanda left early, getting tired. I wanted to explore more – I went with Laurence and Duncan and Jen etc. But then I got a little claustrophobic / scared with the whole no-clear-exit-marked, tiny-little-staircases, dead-people’s-tombs; some-ceilings-only-30cm-above-my-head, so I left early too. We all were meant to meet up at 3.55pm, according to Katheryne – but we were all there except her! She got lost… poor thing, looked a bit stressed.

Then we got onto the bus again - got the back (whoot) – then we drove to the hospital to pick them up, and then we drove back to Sevres. But it took from 4pm til 7pm to get home! There was hideous traffic – I asked Sylvia why, she didn’t know. There was a toilet in the bus – it was even smaller than the airplane toilets!

Once we got back Ana and I were moaning about how lazy we are – too lazy to go to supermarkets – then I got this spurt of productiveness. So I dragged ana down the street – we went to Franprix, which is closer to us but narrower range. We bought the icecream and some alcohol and then some water. The icecream is yum yum! I could be an obese person and eat it every day. Although feeling a bit guilty now.

So that’s about all kiddies! The people in Compiegne were so much nicer and warmer than the Parisiens. Because it’s the country and up north it was colder, but the people and whole community are so much warmer and nicer and more lovely. It was such a wonderful day not having to battle the metro, and being able to hear the person who lectures us, and to be left just to absorb a place at our own pace.

Well, that’s it for me people. Check out the pics that ana has posted up – I haven’t uploaded mine yet. This has quite possibly been one of the more enjoyable days of this trip.

Oh, and I had to buy new batteries for my camera. God, these every-day living expenses are killing me!

My love to all.