Fontainebleau

More castles!  I went to Fontainebleau in late November with a friend from my program.  It was good to get out of Paris, and it was very pretty because there is a huge forest, and the leaves were still changing colors.  The castle was also cool to see, though if I had to choose a castle to live in, I’d go with Versailles.

It only took about 40 minutes to get there by train, so it was a great day trip.  Make sure you validate your ticket before getting on!  No one checked on the way there (so I’ve got an extra if you need one), but on the way back we were told we should have validated.  The conductor was very nice though and didn’t charge a huge fine!

We walked to the castle area from the train station so we could go through the town, and the town was really dead…it seemed a little depressing.  There also weren’t many tourists at the castle.  Maybe I was expecting it to be more packed because of my experience at Versailles.

We had some trouble finding the entrance (it was difficult…we’re not just stupid), but eventually we did.  There was a lot to see inside, so it took a while to make our way through all the rooms.  At the end, there was a girl who stopped us and asked if we speak French, and I said yes because I thought she had a question.  Then she said asked if we could fill out a survey about the castle, so I said that we don’t speak French well enough to do a survey.  And she said she had it in five different languages and asked which one we wanted.  Trapped!  

It was a very amusing survey though…pretty poorly translated.  I wish I could remember the questions…one was “Are you aware of handicapped people?”  Yes, I am aware!  (It was followed up by questions about how handicapped accessible we thought the castle was.)  And then some options for our overall experience were a bit strange…like “enlightening” or “amazing”…some people say I’m a pretty enthusiastic person, but I probably wouldn’t select those choices for the visit.  It’s interesting how difficult it is to really master the nuances of a language.  I can understand French pretty well, but I know I’m saying / writing all sorts of awkward things where it makes sense to me to translate it like that, but a native speaker wouldn’t say it.

After seeing the castle, we walked around the gardens, which were also very pretty.  I saw a massive duck who had a very loud quack…he was at least two times the size of a regular duck and quite scary.  I didn’t get a good picture though.  We eventually found our way to the forest and went for a walk / hike, which was fun.  Good to be immersed in nature (for a limited time…I don’t like bugs)!

Sadly, I've uploaded too many photos on my blog and am over my Picasa limit.  So, I'll be posting them on Flickr from now on.  Here's the link: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26879303@N03/