The outside of the gates was all gold! I mean, I think it was real gold, but then I have to wonder why someone hasn't already stolen it if it were real gold. So I don't know if it was real or just redone in gold paint.
Our group started by touring the gardens. [Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France spent hundreds of thousands of Francs on her beautiful gardens, during her reign]. They gave us half an hour to tour the gardens. And the gardens are HUGE! I mean, it's not like there was much to see at this time of the year. No flowers, no greenery. It was all wintery and dead. But still... It's a fricken maze. My friends and I only had enough time to walk down to the big lake and take pictures and then to run back through the maze! I remember I couldn't decide which group I wanted to stick with! I had my group of girls: Leonie, Aarohi, Shivani, Hope and our only guy, Gio. Then there were my two friends Bryan and Camilla with whom I always went with. It was our group of 3! Luckily almost everyone went down to the lake. Great group pictures!
Of course, it's a long way from the lake to the castle! And by the time we had finished taking pictures, our group leaders (who at this point were starting to get on everyone's nerves) started yelling at us to get back to the castle. But we didn't want to walk the long way up we came. It was boring and straight. And so as soon as people started saying "Carima's coming! It's time to go back!" people started asking if they could take the routes through the garden instead of on the trail. She said no and started ushering people up the path. However, Bryan, Camilla and I darted for the nearest garden path. Some of the other guys saw us and came running after us. Carima didn't see Bryan, Camilla and I, but she did see the other guys and she got mad at them (although they got away). Naturally, we kept running too although it was too late anyway. We were already gone and it would waste time for her to come looking for us. We were heading back to the castle anyway. It was free time: they should trust that we would make it back to the checkpoint on time.
As we walked, we realized that it was like a maze. If you've seen the 4th Harry Potter movie [Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire] -> (loooove Harry Potter!) then picture the maze at the end of the movie in the last challenge. It's got high walls of green and long passageways.
Now take away the greenery:
AM I RIGHT?!
And so we were walking, and soon we realized that we were going pretty slowly and so we started to run! And Camilla and I started to think we were lost. Somehow, by just going straight, we ended up walking away from the castle again. (How we figured this out- I'm not sure... I lost all my sense of direction. It was Bryan who noticed.) The other's behind us were long gone at this point and had gone the wrong way- I'm sure. So Bryan pulled out his map and started to lead us down paths (that changed direction!) Camilla and I were sure were wrong! I couldn't make sense of it in my head which direction was the right one or how going right would lead us to the castle. I assumed we would come out on the side of the long, straight walk path that everyone else had taken but instead Bryan lead us right in front of the castle steps. By turning right, instead of coming out to the right of the maze garden, we ended up coming out straight as though we'd never changed direction.
Also to our surprise, we were far ahead of everyone else including Carima! We climbed the steps and waited at the checkpoint a good 5 minutes or so for everyone to arrive. The guys who followed us into the maze came out on-time too but admitted they got really lost and confused!
We then went inside the castle! I don't really know what to write about it.... It used to be someone's home, and now it's a museum. So the first couple rooms had lots of paintings of the Royal family and glass cases showing layouts of the castle grounds or miniature versions of the rooms. There were also a couple informational videos on the history of the castle; how it was built, who lived there, and what happened to the last Royal Family.
History: I think the history of this royal family in particular has to be one of the most interesting stories I've heard. Louis XVI didn't want to be king in the first place. He found the duties of it all boring and uninteresting. How's that for a King? To be totally uninterested in the affairs of his nation! Second, there was Marie Antoinette who was Austrian. She was forced to marry the 16 year old Louis at the age of 15 in order to form an alliance between France and Austria. Young, right? But if you think that is young... Just 4 years later, at the ages of 19 and 20, they inherited the kingdom in a terrible state of poverty (one that even a good king would have trouble handling). Even with his complete and good education, Louis XVI was not prepared to handle a situation this financially grave.
Moreover, his wife, Marie Antoinette, was a terrible queen (although I find her to be fascinating)! Some may say she was selfish and irresponsible with her money although others argue she was young and bored with her royal life. Recognized as one of the ultimate "girly girls" she spent extravagant amounts of money on clothing and jewelry and entertainment in the castle. She also completely redecorated the castle grounds and is responsible for the decor and artwork throughout the castle as well. (I saw a movie on her awhile ago with my aunt in Australia. The movie is called Marie Antoinette and gives us a close up and interesting perspective on her life. After seeing the movie and hearing all of the stories about her... much like other people as well, I can't decide if I like her or not!)
At the beginning of the French Revolution, the castle was raided and the royal family (Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their 2 children) were forced to evacuate and flee. Later on, both the king and the queen lost their heads to the guillotine. Of the 2 children, there was the eldest Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France aka Madame Royale and her little brother Louis XVII. During the revolution, they were both imprisoned with their parents. However, Louis XVII died of tuberculosis at the age of 10 while in prison and Madame Royale was exiled (heiress to the throne). She lived in Vienna after that (I assume with her mother's family). After the revolution had ended and monarchy had been restored in France, she was able to return and was given the title Dauphine de France. She maintained her ties to monarchy for the rest of her life.
This is where you can read more about them if you are interested:
And this is the movie, Marie Antoinette, if you want to watch it too! From what I remember, it was good. I has been 6 years since I've seen it though.
However, inside the castle... It was just weird to be there. After knowing the whole history of it all, and then to be there and to see their bedrooms, their dining rooms, the famous Hall of Mirrors, I don't really know how to describe it. This used to be their home and part of their everyday life and there I was in the centre of large passing crowds touring through it.
The Palace Chapel
The King's Bedroom
The Hall of Mirrors
The Queen's Bedroom
We weren't really given much time to explore the castle because we also had to use our free time to eat. It was a shame really because our objective became more about making sure we had at least seen and gotten a picture in each room rather than enjoying our time to look so that we could give ourselves time to eat. We raced through the castle and then we raced out of the castle and up and down some streets until we found a kebab place. We ate our kebabs on the ground in front of the bus! It was so cold! My hands felt so frozen I could barely move my fingers to eat! They were swollen and ugly and bluey purple too. What a pain.
Here are the last pictures I will put up of Versailles because after that, we spent the whole day in the bus. It was time to finally leave the Paris/Versailles area and head down south to Spain and to where my hands wouldn't become frozen and stop working!
On the bus, I sat next to Amit and we talked for a couple hours and then everyone on the bus fell asleep. I'd never heard the bus so quiet in the daytime before. Normally the Latinos were going crazy playing Spanish music and dancing and pretty much having a party in the back of the bus (it did cause a lot of problems, the bus driver wasn't happy with people out of their seats and moving around all the time and we kept getting in trouble.) But I decided to take advantage of the quiet on the bus so Amit went to sit with the girl that he liked and I stretched out over the 2 seats and fell asleep for an hour or so. Then people started to move around in their seats more. I talked with 2 girls behind me, and then my friends from the front of the bus came to sit with me! Soon we were 3 squished into 2 seats and I was so happy because it was all my friends together and we were all having fun.
Then the Latinos woke up and everyone was singing popular songs and dancing and our Autocars leader, Sarah, was filming and getting countries to sing songs to the camera! It was all great until she asked me to sing something, but I couldn't think of what to sing! So I shrugged and said "Je ne sais pas quoi chanter!" And she looked at me and gave me a look like "at least try to join in, come on." And I started asking my friends before she rolled her eyes and walked away. That was when I first noticed the Autocars girls had a problem with me.
I don't like to disappoint people, or to feel left out of something. So I decided to go and find the other Canadian girl. She was at the front of the bus. We were prepared to sing a Hedley song because it's a Canadian band but before I could return to my seat at the back of the bus, Carima was telling everyone to go back to their seats. Since I was sitting down and everytime she called, most people grabbed a seat closest to them and so I thought it would be fine. But then Carima walked down the aisle and told every single person, one at a time, to stay in their seats. I didn't have a problem staying where I was except the Canadian girl was starting to get sick and was falling asleep and then there were just Asians around. The Asians don't talk! Most of the party had settled down now too and so I couldn't easily sneak to the back of the bus.
I asked Carima if I could go back to my original spot and she said no I couldn't because there was no space. I said but it was my spot before and it's where all my friends are. But she wouldn't let me sit in a row of 3. So I waited and I got really bored. I thought about trying to run for the back but every 2 minutes she turned and looked behind her with really mean eyes! I was too scared to try to run.
I tried asking her at one point if I could go to get my phone to give me something to do. At least with my phone I could text and use Facebook and my email. But she didn't want me to go to the back. And so she kept pretending like she couldn't understand me and kept repeating herself "There's no space at the back of the bus!" I kept saying "I know but I just want to go to get my phone." And then she "wouldn't understand" me. Eventually she started saying "Where is your phone?" and I explained to her for the hundredth that it was at the back of the bus and she offered to go and get it for me. But why couldn't she just let me go to get it? So I told her it was in my purse and I didn't know exactly where my purse was. She had to accompany me to the back.
So she came with me and now it had been a good half hour or 45 minutes since I had left. When my friends saw me, they were saying "Courtenay! Where did you go?" And I said I had to sit at the front because there was no space. They were saying "No, here it's okay! We will make room for you!" They were moving over to make room when Carima snapped at them saying it wasn't allowed. I quickly grabbed my phone and I sat at the front of the bus texting everyone at the back and Facebooking. It wasn't nice. Plus, every time Carima looked back, she shot her eyes directly at me and I could tell that she didn't trust me to stay in my seat. That upset me.
That night we all slept in these cabins in Dijon. It was nice :) Lou, Leonie and I had our own cabin as did everyone else and they were all arranged in a square so that in the centre, there was a covered porch with lots of tables and a fire pit. Really, it looked like a summer camp!
If I thought the autocars girls didn't like me at first, I was sure of it after this. Lou, Leonie and I were assigned 2 cabins and we didn't know which one to take. So I went up to Sarah to try to explain to her the problem but she ushered me away saying she'd already given me my cabin number. Then I found Carima and I said to her that we were given 2 cabin numbers but she didn't listen to me either and told me angrily to wait. And so I did. Leonie and Lou were looking at me and wondering what I was doing. I tried talking to Carima again and she played the 'I can't understand her so I won't listen to her' game. I hate that game. Especially when I know that even if I'm speaking in broken French, people can understand me! I tried Sarah one more time who didn't give me a second glance. That's when I found Leonie who then went to talk to the girls.
I was shocked to see that Sarah immediately took the time to listen to Leonie and find the problem. I said that to Lou and then Leonie came back saying that Sarah realized as soon as Leonie explained what the problem was (it hurt a little that Sarah didn't even give me a chance) and then Leonie said that she'd explained to Sarah that that's why I'd come to talk to her earlier but Sarah just rolled her eyes and spun her finger beside her head as if to say "Oh Courtenay, she's crazy" or "She's not right in the head." Of course after she found the problem, Leonie said that she had the "ohhh that's what she was trying to say" expression. Still bothered me but I learned to forgive Sarah.
Later that night after dinner, everyone was sitting in the covered porch talking and listening to music. I was with my girls :3 and it was so nice! Sarah was coming and taking photos of everyone (I still don't know what happened to those photos)! And at 11:00pm Sarah said that we didn't have to go to bed but we did have to go to someone's room and be quiet. Leonie and I went to Shivani's, Aarohi's and Hope's room with Gio. It was lots of fun! Gio did my make up and I think they started straightening my hair too before they gave up! And it was really funny because after about 30 minutes in the room, Leonie noticed that Shivani was sleeping in the bed! Hahahaha and she never saw her! "Oh where's Shivani?" "She's lying right there in the bed..." "WHAT? OHMYGOD WHEN DID YOU GET THERE??????" I just love Shivani so much! All she wanted to do was to sleep and eat and you could barely notice her!
Eventually everyone got tired and we heard that the Latinos were having another one of their exclusive Latino-only "parties", who knew where the Asians were: probably in bed sleeping, and the other Americans + one Australian were in their own room. Leonie and I called it a night and we slept :D!
No comments:
Post a Comment