Loire Valley Châteaux

per 7 year old Mary Queen of Scots

Preamble: The year is 1549.  7 year old Mary Stuart is the Queen of Scotland, but is living in exile in France while England & Scotland are at war.   She lives and plays with the 6 year old future François II, King of France, and her future husband.

   As Mary passed her days in the palace suite with the French royal children, France itself came to seem a rainbow swirl of colours to her, and Scotland resolved itself into a dark mist that receded farther and farther with each year, until she remembered almost nothing of it, the way she remembered only shreds of dreams upon awaking.

Amboise

    The light in France was clear, soft, and merry, especially in the light in the Loire Valley, where the court travelled from one magical château to another, following the seasons and the hunt.  There was Amboise, with its huge circular tower that had a spiral ramp that horsemen could ride up, five abreast, and its geometrical gardens with arabesques of boxwood and sculptures of naked men and women set in groves of evergreen.  Uncle the Cardinal said this was quite all right because they were from ancient Rome - and anyway he had a number of them in his own villa, where he had built an artificial grotto as well.

Blois

   There was Blois, with its grand staircase in an octagonal tower, where Mary liked to look out over the courtyard and wave to the people far below.  Its gardens had elaborate fountains that could be operated to put on a water display, or to squirt passersby, and a magical house called an orangerie, where orange trees could grow their fruit far from their native land.

Chaumont

   There was Chaumont, with its astronomical observatory and the study where Ruggieri, the Queen's astronomer - some said necromancer - kept his instruments.  Mary was not supposed to go up there, but once she climbed the steep steps to the tower room and surprised Ruggieri, who was polishing a large flat mirror.  He jumped like a guilty man, but then, like everyone else, smiled when he saw who it was.

"Oh, Monsieur Astrologue, what are you doing?" she asked, approaching him.
"I am shining up my magic mirror," he said simply.
"Can you tell my fortune?" she asked.
"Yes. I could." He turned the mirror toward her.  Her straight, slim form became even more elongated in it.  "But I won't.  I am sure your future is an enviable one."
"Then whose fortunes do you tell?"
"Those who have reaon to be worried about them."
"Do you always tell the truth? What if you see bad things?"
"Then I must tell them.  But gently" He put away the mirror. "It can be difficult." He sighed.

Chambord

   There was the huge white Chambord, sitting in the midst of a great hunting forest, with its enormous kennels with royal packs of hours, and more than three hundred facons in the mews for hawking.  The massive chateau - it had found hundred forty rooms - boasted a gigantic central staircase with double intertwining ramps, made so that the people going up could never see the people going down.  Mary and François and the other children delighted in playing on it, taking off their shoes and trying to make the ones on the lower ramps guess where they were.

Anet

   The roof bristled with a forest of chimneys, spires, and capitals, where the children could play and hide - often startling adults who were playing quite another sort of hiding game.  The children thought it was screamingly funny to catch a courtier with his hose down and his breeches unbuttoned, wheezing and panting.  Once they even saw a bare bottom and recognized it as that of the fat count from Angers, because of the red ribbons on this shoes.  As a result of their pestering, court lovers were forced to retreat to their rooms for assignations and abandon the roof.

Chenonceau

    More sedate activities at Chambord also took place on the roof, when the King (Henry II), Queen (Catherine de Medicis, "the Italian Woman"), and Diane (the King's mistress), surrounded by all the court, would watch the start and return of hunts, military reviews, and tournaments.  The flaring torches, the fireworks, and the brassy blare of trumpets in the rich air made a tapestry of sound and colour in the little girl's mind.

    Then there were Diane's châteaux: Anet, which was a white classical palace dedicated to her widowhood and presided over by Diana the goddess, and Chenonceau, a faerie place spanning the Cher River, rising gracefully on arches over the lazy, shallow river.  Here there was nothing masculine, nothing military or commanding.  Instead, everything whispered of delicate, chosen pleasures, of appetites stimulated only to be satisfied, as the water flowed slowly beneath.

    Always there were the place blue skies, stretching huge and open under the deeper blue Loire River, bounded by its golden sandbanks and bathed in serene clear light.

excerpt from Mary Queen of Scotland and Isles, by Margaret George

Surprise! (without the actual "Surprise!")

Well, it was surprising.

Tonight, was really cool. Awesome. Amazing. A completely surprising.

MOM: We're going out for dinner, tonight.

ME: Where?

MOM: East Side Mario's.

(Not the exact words, mind, but that's unimportant.)

Ah, East Side Mario's. The Red Tomato, I used to call it, because of the big red tomato hanging outside. I've had many a birthday party there. Little did I know...

Gaby runs ahead of us. She wants to get out of the rain, but I'm fine. Mum and I walk into the restaurant, and Mum scans the room for Gaby. We turn a corner (or in this case, the miniature Statue of Liberty with a red tomato instead of a flame in its hand), and there! A table. People sitting at the table. My friends. Sitting. At the table. No one yells "Surprise!" like in the movies, but I don't need that (hence the title). I gasp and bury my head in Mum's coat. Totally overwhelmed. I have no idea what to say. All I can do is gasp and smile some more, until I sit between Sebastien and Alexander.

Everyone was there. Aube, Ariel, Sebastien, Alexander, Eve, and Charlotte squared. An early birthday party. My first ever surprise birthday party.

We ate pizza, told stories (Alexander got detention for not tying his shoes properly!), and I stood on the chair, as is custom, while everyone clapped their hands and sang the East Side Mario's version of "Happy Birthday". I received a CD that I'm listening to right now, Songs for Japan, a Chapters gift card, City of Bones (I'm finally going to read it! Finally!!), and lots and lots of candy. Heh heh... On Alexander's envelope, it said "To Danielle (Wow, je m'en viens bon en anglais, hein!?!)". Translation: Wow, I'm getting good a English, eh?!?

It was an awesome night. I still can't believe it really happened. It was supposed to end at 8 o'clock, but it got prolonged by Charlotte's mom and Eve's dad who got a beer in the bar and had a looooooong conversation, but that's OK with me.

Thank you everybody, for an amazing night (yes, even you Gaby, you who just tried to thwart my blog post by backspacing randomly, I thank you, too)!

Noteworthy note (I'm sorry, I read that in The Book Thief): Is it possible to thwart a blog post? Further research will be needed. I'll keep you posted...

XXX

Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame

$50 Country Music Hall of Fame Gift Shop

Part 1 by Gabrielle

I bought this t-shirt because I liked the design on it and I wanted a shirt that said Nashville.

Part 2 by Danielle

Mum bought me a book that will make me famous! Well, it's a book that's supposed to help me get "My First Cut", which I just learned in music language means to get a song you wrote onto a CD. A real CD. So really, it's to help a normal person (like me) become famous, which is pretty much what I just said. Anyway, after I read a bit, I found out that most of the things it recommends for me to do I can't actually do, one of which is to move to either Nashville, Los Angeles or New York, which is pretty impossible for me. I think I'll keep it for when I'm older, and it isn't too much of an issue for me to move across the country. Maybe it will make me famous, someday. :D

Loveless in Tennessee

$25, Gifts from the Loveless Cafe, 30 min S of Nashville

Heading down the I40 towards our 2 pm horse riding appointment, I spied a sign for the Loveless Cafe.   On the vague recollection that Frommer's touted it as Southern Home Cooking and all day breakfast, not to mention the kids complaints of starvation, we took the 5 mile detour off the interstate.  Sure enough, we found a charming house converted into a cafe/restaurant, and a gift store converted from 1940s motel rooms.

Settling in for lunch, the kids were less than adventurous with their food choices, sticking to tried and true grilled cheese sandwiches.  (On an aside, I thus learned that Danielle now knows how to make her own grill cheese, having learned from the internet.)  Me, I went with the traditional Southern breakfast: 4 oz of thick country ham, red-eye gravy, eggs, and grits.  I keep forgetting that grits are not, in fact, a type of hash browns, but more akin to cream of wheat made with corn.  Aka runny polenta.  The girls wouldn't even taste a spoonful of it, but I find grits oddly comforting.  And oh - the secret recipe biscuits and homemade preserves were delish, and I don't even like jam!

Thusly impressed, I couldn't help but delay our departure further with a visit to the Loveless gift shop, exiting with strawberry preserves, hot sauce, and local honey with honeycomb.  The latter will be saved for an upcoming Ottawa Girls' wine & cheese night.

With the overly long lunch stop, and having removed ourselves from the interstate to continue instead along country roads, we were "only" 15 minutes late for our 2 pm riding time.  In typical southern style, the guide and other riders didn't seem to mind the delay :-)

A separate but related purchase...

$12.99 each for two bottles of Bogle Petite Sirah

A lovely, rich, and smooth California red, which has been enjoyed on several occasions at Canvas and other Ottawa restaurants.  Despite multiple attempts, I have learned that it is not sold by the bottle by the LCBO.  I inadvertently discovered it at the less than restaurant price in the Nashville Discount Liquor store.  'Twill also be saved for the Girls' Night.

Tally:

• $25 Loveless
• $26 Bogle
• $20 Ryman Recording
• $50 Country Music Hall of Fame mementos (to be written by Gaby & Danielle)
• $24 Nashville Nightlife
• $10 Tin Foil & Bubble Gum
• $10 McD Chick-fil-A

 = $165 spent, $235 to go...

Recording at the Ryman/Busking

I got $5.38. I only get to keep $4.00, though. I'll explain later...

The Ryman Auditorium. It's more than a room with a stage lined with wooden benches. It's a historic building, and so many people have played there, like... ME! I played there today! OK, I'm lying. Partially lying. We went to see it, and I played my guitar on the stage. Also, I recorded one of my songs in the recording studio! It was really cool, and it felt really professional. Now, I have a CD, with Stop You From Falling on it.
Also, today, I had my first experience busking! We went right outside an ice cream shop, and I played for an hour. I made $5.38! OK, I know it's not a lot, but it was a cloudy day, so there wasn't as many people as there could be. Gaby and Mum each got 15% of it, so I only got $4.00, in the end. It's still pretty good, for my first time. I'm so tired, now, after playing for an hour. I started running out of songs, but the good thing about busking is that I can play a song as much as I want. Tonight, we're going to the Rainforest Cafe. I haven't been there in so long!

Like the Market?

$24: 2 beer, banjo player, & one-way taxi home

The District in Nashville on a Saturday night in February is just like the Ottawa Market, except:

• there are more cowboy boots & hats;
• the weather is more like June;
• the neon lights look more like Las Vegas;
• you can smoke indoors;
• every second door leads to a live band; and
• every fourth doorway contains a busker.

One of whom I asked & learned that no busking license is required to play the street in Music City ("Hey, we're not New York" was part of his reply).  So Danielle will be setting up shop on a corner sometime this week :-).

So, other than the skanky college kids and the lecherous old men, Nashville is nothing like the Market.

$44 spent, $356 to go...

Tin Foil and Bubble Gum

By Danielle

It's amazing how interestingly inexpensive these are, and what you can do with them.

Mom found a list of things to do when you're bored in a long car ride on the Internet. Tin foil sculpting and bubble gum blowing contests were on the list. So, we stopped at a Walgreen's in Roanoke, Virginia, where our hotel for the night was, to buy them. We bought two kinds of tin foil (Heavy duty and light) and three kinds of bubble gum. We also found the most expensive thing in the drugstore: a curling iron, $39,99. In my opinion, not that expensive.

Anyway, we found a way to waste time and tin foil, which was pretty much the point of all this. Gaby made a troll head, the ones with their hair standing on end, and I made a pair of sunglasses, a swan, a dolphin and a guitar that looks like a piece of chicken. On second thought, it's a piece of chicken that looks like a guitar. All of our tin foil art is currently "decorating" the already very messy car. As for the bubble gum, we discovered the Bubble Yum was the best brand of the three, but we still think that Double Bubble is the best for blowing bubbles. We didn't really have a bubble-blowing contest, though.

On a completely unrelated subject, the theme song for the Nashville-Savannah road trip is officially "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green. We've heard it approximately 4 1/2 times already, half of them on a CD, the other half on the radio. I'm going to have it stuck in my head for the whole week, but I'm fine with that, it's a good song. I just hope the rest of them won't get annoyed next time we hear it.

More pictures are here.