Hey there, long time no talk

It has been a long time without internet, which is good and bad. Good for us and not being pulled into this infinite abyss, bad for you because you dont get to know what we are up to. But I have a little time now and thought I would let you know what is up in the lives of the three of us.

Paris
Paris was beautiful, like last time but now we got to explore more than just the tower. We met up with Rachel, as mentioned, late on the 13th. On the way to go find her at the metro station nearby, Amy and I ran across some amazing street performers who could do handstands and flips and hip hop like no one Ive seen. We did find her after a little bit of confusion... which is good because I wouldve hated to call her parents to tell them that we lost their daughter in Paris. The hotel we stayed at was ok... I probably wouldve had a better opinion of it if the lady who ran it werent such a b$%c& but I wont delve into that. For those of you who havent been there, Paris is pretty large and city like. Not overwhelmingly huge (at least the city center area isnt) and we did manage to walk across it in the pouring rain one night from the eiffel tower to our hotel. It was fun, but I wouldnt recommend it on a daily basis; plus, Im pretty sure my cold started the next day... just saying. Anyway, we didnt so much go into all of the sites we are supposed to go see. We tried, I promise, but I think the stars were aligning against us. The friday we were there was a bank holiday, which we didnt realize until we were wondering why a lot of shops were closed, and after searching quite a bit for the Catacombs (due to a faulty map we were directed to a prison, which is close but not quite the same thing) we found them to be closed for the holiday. The Louvre also closed early. So the next day we went back to try to see the catacombs before catching our train to Rennes. Not a good idea. The Saturday after a bank holiday. We waited in line for an hour and a half, just to have to give up once we were about 15 minutes away, because we had to go catch our train. Maybe we didnt go inside the big stuff, but we did see it from the outside and got to lay by the river eating ice cream, which to me is just as good if not better.

St Marcan, near Mt St Michel, Nearish to Rennes
Our trek to St Marcan was an interesting one to say the least. Long story short, we ended up in a town about a half hour away from the one our hotel/B&B was in with no way to get there (no trains, the buses had stopped, and no ferry). After walking around the town, and every hotel being full, we were literally talking to a car rental place to rent a car just to sleep in for the night. Luckily we got ahold of our B&B before we did that, and they told us to go to Dol (nearby) and they would pick us up. Oh holy day! The couple that run the B&B are a nice older english couple who decided to do this with their time after retiring and are super sweet, and the town that the B&B is in was barely a town, mostly surrounded by farms and fields. The buildings were quiant little stone buildings that looked like they literally came out of a movie.
Mt St Michel is a monestary on top of a random hill of metamorphic rock (i believe) surrounded by tide flats. The man who runs the place drove us out there (getting up to 90mph on small country roads... now we're talking!) and back. Lovely people! When we got to Mt St Michel we wandered around a bit, went into the monestary (where there was a service going on because it was Sunday) and decided to go to the Alligator Bay down the road (a sort of reptile zoo). You will have to ask Amy and Rachel more about that because I stayed outside when they went in... but I will tell you that there was LARGE tortoise humping going on. mmmhmm youre interested now, I know it.
Oh and one of my favorite parts- the B&B served breakfast all fancy like. In a dining room. With specific seats for each room. And juice and coffee and croissants and rolls brought out to you. Yeah. And it was the earliest we got up on the trip, other than for the 3am bus Amy and Rachael and I had to catch early on. And the 5am time we had to be off the train in Paris last time we were there. But other than those...

Blois, in the Chateaux district
France has a lot of castles. We saw a few of them. I like castles. Because Im running lower on time, I will start skimming a little more. Sorry. Anyway, we went to see the last residence of Leonardo Da Vinci, where he passed; got to see inside of his house, some of his inventions, the underground passageway that connected his place to the castle, his gardens, things like that. That man is genious, btw.
We also went to the largest castle in Europe, the grounds of which cover an area the size of Paris. The chateau is magnificent, with paintings and carvings everywhere. Lots of Kings and Queens were quite ugly. But regardless, we got to see the bedrooms of said kings and queens, as well as lots of other rooms. Chambord (the castle) has 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces, and 426 rooms... as well as lots of fields and forest with wild animals. Now thats my kind of a house.
Ack i should go soon! We also saw a light show at the Blois castle. It was cool.

Carcassonne
And now we are to our last location in France. We are staying within the walled cite, which is very cool. Walking around, the streets are small and windy and have shops on all sides. We spent some time yesterday after sunset walking around the edge, overlooking the city, and today was spent mostly inside around. We are good at killing time.

We leave tomorrow for Barcelona.

I have to go, but hope fully will have more internet later

Laura