02 August 2008

day 33: versailles--the end is nigh

Date: Friday, August 1st, 2008

Today we went to Versailles and were lucky enough to have a great private tour. I kept thinking the weather would be atrociously hot and sticky--mostly because the last time I went to Versailles, it was atrociously hot and sticky--but we were so lucky! It had rained a bit the night before but things had cooled significantly. Not only did we get to view some rooms that weren't open to the public, there was a light breeze that kept viewing rooms with a million other people more than tolerable. Our tour guide was really interesting and pretty funny, too. We got little headsets to wear while he spoke into a mic--it was so useful!










We got to go to the upper level of the chapel and man, did we feel special! The tour guide had a special key (that looked very old) and we climbed a spiral staircase to the gallery of the chapel. Afterward we walked around the garden at our own paces--the huge, vast, enormous, gargantuan garden.









A group of us decided to head back pretty early because we still had souvenir shopping to do, or we were tired from the night before. I had to do some souvenir shopping because I still hadn't done any that day... I managed to get all of it done and started on a few postcards. Christine was helping a man with the dorms inspect our rooms and she sat in my room to chit chat for a bit. After that, I had to get ready for dinner--we students decided we were going to dress nicely for the last dinner.

As for the last dinner, it was much nicer than the other ones we had dined at and we were given the opportunity to choose our own entrees and main dishes. Escargots was on the entree menu and I (as well as a whole bunch of our group) decided we had to try escargots while we were here! It actually wasn't bad! Here's video proof that I ate it:



It looked a little too much like snail (which is not very appetizing to me haha), but the basil and butter sauce that it was drenched in was fantastic. It just tasted like clam (the texture and consistency is similar) except in basil and butter. For my main dish I elected for fish--since I usually don't eat fish--but I ended up eating more of Rucha's duck than my own meal, hehe. There was an accordion player who came multiple times to our room; we had bottles of wine uncorked on our tables but those were taken away and replaced with lots and lots of classy bottles of Coca Cola--in glass bottles!

We took pictures, we danced, we laughed, we acted like children, we played with Professor Herbst's children. It was a lovely end (despite the dessert mishap...) to a great trip with people I will never forget.

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