58. Our Day in Blah

To get us home tonight it took the car’s GPS, Mom’s paper map, and Aunt Anne’s iPhone map loaded when she had wifi at the train station. There were about three U-turns, more than a few redirects, and a couple “round abouts of death.” All of this to avoid the toll road that cost about $20 the first time we drove to the house. We found an English radio station and jammed out to Justin Timberlake and I think I heard Arden crying in the backseat to “Say Something.” It was a roller coaster of emotions, but we finally made it home safely and reflected on our great day while Scarlet set up Frozen for the second viewing, and Aunt Anne got out the ice cream.

 

Our day was mostly spent in Blois - pronounced “blah” as far as I’m concerned. On the way to Blah we stopped at Cheverny Chateaux. The family that owns this house still lives on the third floor and have modern family pictures scattered around the house. They look out of place next to the ancient tapestries, but it’s cool to see a family like us currently living in a mansion. Another highlight was the English tour guide packet and the quiz booklet filled with trivia no one knows. For example, the chateau has only been closed three times. What was the reason for closing it to the public these days? Answer: A wedding, a death, and when the queen visited. There was also a garden full of flowers that I spent entirely too much time photographing. Along with the flowers was a maze made from super tall hedges. I most certainly felt like Harry Potter as I made my way through. Except for I didn’t win in my race against Arden. I’m sure she cheated.

 

My favorite part of Cheverny was the Kennels! This is where they house about 100 French hounds who all love to jump on top of each other to be pet by the onlookers. What really sets them off is rattling the gate door. You should see the way they run when they think there is food coming.

Our next stop was the House of Magic. Brody had been waiting his entire life for this day. It is advertised as 5 floors of magic. I’ll give it a single floor of illusions and some other floors of history.

The illusion room was pretty cool though. We stuck our heads in pillars rigged with mirror tricks, and saw the impossible sculpture that looked like a series of cubes placed in a triangle, but you couldn’t tell which side was in front. Then we went to a magic show. In France, not many people speak English. So most places we go are hit and miss, because we really just can’t read the pamphlets very thoroughly. In this case we knew there was a theater and some type of show started at a certain time. My mind was running through the possibility of a super cool magic show to a history lecture on some key pieces used to make illusions in the past. We got something in between, and I’m still not so sure how to describe it. There was a guy with some really old movie making gear. Then a 21^st century girl entered the scene. Some magic was done, and then there was an astronaut and some dancing. All I know is that after watching, I’m pretty sure I could do all of the tricks they showed us. Yet another profession if engineering doesn’t work out.

Across from the Magic House was the Blah Castle. Which Scarlet describes as “just like all the other castles.” This is where King Henry III lived and also where he had one of the Guise brothers killed for being way too Catholic. That’s what set it apart for me. There was also a cool outer spiral with a great view of the courtyard. People in France are really into spiral staircases.

Our dinner was an assortment of pizzas at a local restaurant where we finagled our way into getting a table on the balcony overlooking the square. Channeling my hispanic side that I developed last week, I voted for the chorizo pizza and it was a total winner! We were serenaded throughout dinner by the loudly announced opinions of the local homeless guy at the bottom of the Balcony. Sorry dude, No parle vu French.