France-Day 21: The Final Day!

So today was our last full day in France! It was a pretty good one though! I slept in a bit, then in the afternoon mom and I went to go look at a 'viewpoint' of Cahors. We walked up from the base of a hill (or hilltain!) to the top, and you could see all of the city, it was really cool! Then we walked back down another way, and went up the road quite a distance and through a lovely park to get back to the car. I love hiking and climbing- my mom and I call me a mountain goat. For some reason, despite my lack of grace on flat surfaces, if you put me on rough terrain my feet just know what to do. I was jogging down steep rocky paths with no trouble at all! It was really fun, and I always feel at home when I am hiking or climbing on natural feeling paths.

On the way back to the house mom and I stopped by a bakery (where I got a baguette!) and my mom bought some posters from another place. We also stopped at the gate of the old wall that surrounded Cahors back in medieval times. There was a lovely garden and a cool tower by it. Then we headed back to the house (and I took a nap!) After that we worked on packing for awhile.

Eventually we all went down to the meadow, and the adults had some drinks. I went back up and continued packing for awhile, and then it was time for dinner. We had potatoes with truffle butter, and duck. It was pretty decent. Then we settled down in the living room and ate creme brulee, and went through all of the photos we had taken on the trip on the tv screen, which was nice. The whole night went without any major incidents, and was retty peaceful- good for our last night here!

Anyways, I have to get up at seven am tomorrow, and leave for the airport at 8:30. By tomorrow night (if all goes according to plan) I will be back in America!

See you all soon!

Goodbye France!

   

France- Day 20: Market, baking, and sushi

Hey everyone! Sorry about the lack of blog post yesterday! I fell asleep when I didn't mean to, thus it never got written! Not much happened anyways! We ran to some grocery stores, and my grandparent had a party that I avoided the large majority of. I wasn't feeling to well.

Frankly I haven't been feeling to well the last few days. I've had some really bad headaches and my stomach has been acting up. I've also just been really exhausted. I think it is a combination of the heat (it has been consistently around 100 degrees the last few days), physical exertion, and stress.

God- it is vacation! I shouldn't be stressed, but I am so sick and tired of my grandfather! He is I is a grumpy, hypocritical, self-entitled old man. I mean for one, he complains if he starts angrily ranting about his own opinion and we stop him, but- by the gods!- if anyone tries sharing an opinion he doesn't agree with all Hell breaks loose!  For instance, I worked really hard to make really nice chocolate souffles for dessert today, and he knew I was making them! But when they were in the oven he blows up about this whole thing where chocolate doesn't go well after sushi (what we had for dinner). I pointed out that at home we always have chocolate mousse after our sushi and I like how it goes together well. Then he started yelling at me about meal compositions and oh he's been all over the world so he knows best! and "when have you ever seen chocolate served in a sushi restaurant?" and all sorts of crap like that! And whenever I tried to speak he just yells about how I should start listening to people who are more experienced than me! Here is the issue with that logic though- if there is anyone in this house who actually listens to anyone other than themselves, it is probably me, whereas the only person my grandpa ever listens to is himself.
Anyways, after I walked away from that to check on the souffles, he went upstairs and didn't even bother to try them. His loss though, they were really good!

I'm so sick of this! I'm so sick of being disrespected and not being able to stand up for myself! When I try I get yelled at by him, or my mom and grandma continuously say just to deal with it and not fight back. I can't do that though, I'm sick of laying down and letting people walk all over me!

Its so frustrating though, because I have managed to be in a good mood for the large majority of this trip, and this just ruined my mood, and has left me feeling really down again. Whelp, guess I'll just have something to talk to my therapist about when I get back. -.-

Anyways I am just going to do a quick run-through.

We went to the market this morning, and that was nice. It was hilarious because we went separately, and both my grandma and grandpa got eight croissants for us, so we ended up with croissants all over the place! My grandma gave me a euro for a baguette, which was nice. You know, my grandma is hard to handle sometimes (due to her paranoia, and ability to turn any conversation into talking about her) but this year she has been pretty cool. Anyways, I walked around the market a bit, and then we went back to the house. I wasn't feeling very well, and I wanted to take a nap, but I needed to prepare the souffles because they needed to go in the freezer so they would be ready for dinner. After that I took a long nap. Then I read for awhile and helped my mom make sushi. It also started storming like crazy, which was actually a good thing because they have been in a pretty bad drought while we've been here. before this it had only rained once, and only lightly for a few minutes, combine that with almost one hundred degree weather for pretty much the entirety of the last three weeks and you have a serious problem. Anyways, the sushi was really good, and other than that blow up about the dessert, the souffles turned out really nicely as well!

Anyways, that is about all! I am going to leave you with the pictures or the last three days! I hope you enjoy them!

France-Day 18: Not much happened again

Today was pretty boring again. We dropped my aunt and uncle off in town so that they could go to a fancy restaurant at 12:30, and then my mom and I hit a few stores. We wen to a couple grocery stores and I bought a few more snacks to bring home as souvenirs. Then we stopped at a bakery thing. We had some weird quiche for lunch (it wasn't all that great) and then I had a yummy strawberry tart for dessert. We went to a couple more stores, and found out with great disappointment that they got a lot less interesting in the past four years. It made me sad, but I don't have any  money left, so it was probably a good thing. 

When we got home I accidentally took a several hour nap, because my body has become really exhausted over the past few days. Then I had some dinner, and took my math placement test for school. It told me pretty much exactly what I expected. 

I finished filling out a few more forms for school, worried oer a few other things, got bugged (an very annoyed) by my family about making more lemon bars tomorrow, and here I am. The thing that frustrates me about making lemon bars is that they are so simple and boring! I wanted to make more interesting things while I was here, but everyone is insisting on the lemon bars so it is taking away from my time to make for interesting foods. I'll just have to deal with it though.

Well, that is really about it for today. I still need to finish editing the post from yesterday, but I'll get it done eventually.

I really am about ready to go home. I want to see my friends again, and we aren't really doing anything interesting for the rest of the days here. well, just three more days )plus a day on the plane)

Goodnight!

France-day 17: Moonlight Ride

hey! Sorry I didn't get this written last night, I didn't get home until almost one in the morning, and was dead exhausted, so I figured it would be okay to write it in the morning!

So in the morning my mom and I biked down to the market. I bought a baguette and a croissant, and we got some strawberries to eat. We sat at the cafe for a bit (and mom had to help my grandpa get some groceries). After my grandparents left my mom and I stayed in town. We went to another antique market, and I got some fancy pins! They are really cool. After that we went to a grocery store to get something to drink, before wandering of to look at some parks. First we stopped at a little spot they call "the Sorcerer and Dragon's garden." It had a bunch of plants that 'witches' were said to use in medieval times. It even had mandrakes! There was also a cool metal dragon statue.  Also, a cute cat was wandering around the garden, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't part of the design! After that we wandered up and sat in a park for awhile to munch on some food that we had bought. We walked around for a little while (accidentally buying some more clothes... whoops!) but it was insanely hot, so we hopped back on our bikes and returned to the house for a nap.

A few hours later, we got back in the car to drive out to a place with horses. We were supposed to be there by eight, because we were going on a moonlight ride. The people had several dogs, a sweet cat, chickens, and a peacock! They had a legit peacock! Apparently they are good for protecting chickens, because their alarm all is extremely loud so that the owners can come and ward off attacking animals.

The horse I was supposed to ride was named Darius. He was nice, but he preferred walking slowly, and didn't like to go unless he was behind another horse. His trot was really nice though, which is good because I am not used to trotting horses (due to my horse being a Tennessee walking horse.) He also took specific instructions to get him into a canter, which was challenging, so it took me three tries to get him to canter, but I got it to work in the end, and once he did, it was really fun!

The ride was really pretty! It was out in the country side and through a lot of forests. We got to see the sun set, and got to ride under the (almost full) moon for awhile. There were some parts that were pretty crazy after it got dark though! Like a few times we would go through forests were you literally couldn't see anything, and we would be trotting! Thus, we were blind, and going pretty fast! It was exhilarating!

I wasn't really talking to anyone, so I was just making up a story in my head, about a Lady-Knight who was helping escort people to a fort. It was a pretty cool story, and it made me happy! It was mostly character development though, so it isn't worth writing here.

Anyways, after a scary drive home on tiny winding french roads (In the dark! And on the small roads they don't have street lights!) we got back safely. I had a bowl of cereal, because I was hungry, and then I crawled into bed! That is all I've got!

-Also, I will probably add in pictures later today, so fee free to check back on this post!

France- Day 16: Underground and in the air!

Please excuse me if I am blunt, forget things, or make mistakes in this post. I am exhausted, and close to falling asleep at my computer. Today was really cool though!

We got up early, and my mom and I got into the car to head to the "Gouffre de Padirac" (The Padirac chasm). There were some pretty sights on the way there, as a lot of the drive was on the tops of hills. you could see really far- it was cool. When we got to the padirac chasm, there was actually a huge line that took an hour to get through, but in the end it was worth it! We descended down into a thirty five meter wide whole in the earth, to get to the bottom of the chasm, which was inhabited by all sorts of cool plant life that grew due to the strange light levels and humidity. Then we went down more stairs, and followed the start of a subterranean river (that had carve out a massive underground chasm. It was amazing! Eventually we got on boats and sailed down the underground river.

At this point we were 103 meters underground (And I was no longer allowed to take pictures once we got on the boats. You really should google pictures of the place- it is fantastic!). Boating down the river was amazing! The water was all crystal clear and peaceful, and the caves were beautiful. There was a huge stalactite (called 'Le pendeloque') that was 60 meters tall- one of the tallest stalactites in a public cave. eventually we left the boats and continued on foot. it was fantastic! there were crystal clear lakes with small calcite dams. You could hear that water was falling over the dams but the water was so clear and the lakes were so still that you couldn't see it.  Where light was shone into the water it was a beautiful blue, and where there wasn't light it reflected what was above it so perfectly that it looked like the water was insanely deep. Other times it barely looked like there was water there at all!

There is a huge vaulted area called the Great dome" that is 94 meters tall. There is only 9 meters of rock between the the surface, and the top of the dome. It was massive! There were all sorts of formations on the walls, and another beautiful lake at the bottom (with a beautiful drizzling falls back into the lower river)  there was also a beautiful formation (called "stacks of plates") at the edge o the lake. We got to climb up (on stairs) to near the top of the Great Dome and look down at everything. It was really stunning!

After that we wound our way back out of the chasm(and back into the sun!) I know it was a guided tour and all, but it would have been really cool to have been able to explore more. For some reason I feel really good in caves, and I just adore them! I think it would be cool to go cave exploring some day! Also, we bought a book about the Chasm, so I can show you guys all about it when I get home!

After that we hopped back in the car and headed towards Rocamadeur, which is a beautiful city, church, and castle built into a cliff! We climbed down into the city from the top. We looked around a lot, it was pretty cool, but full of tourists and really hot. (I had also been there several times before, so the sights weren't new to me. The architecture and location was cool, but the atmosphere wasn't as lovely as the village (St Cirque de Lapopie) we visited a few days ago. It was still really fun though!
We stopped in all sorts of little shops, and also stopped to eat (I had fish and chips). I found a jewelry stand for myself, and got a few souvenirs for people (that I am really excited to give! They are surprises though!!) Anyways, eventually we hiked back up the cliff, stopping to get some tasty ice cream. I hadn't had much to drink, so dehydration and heat was really getting to me.
 On the way back to the car I had to stop to buy water, and my mom came back and picked me up. I was light headed and felt dizzy and tired. The drive back was beautiful but scary! It was full of windy roads and huge drop offs!

I was exhausted when I got home and my legs were really sore from walking so much. We had hamburgers for dinner. Mom and I were originally supposed to go on a moonlight horse ride, but it was cloudy, so it got postponed until tomorrow! Anyways, I'm tired now, so goodnight!