Vacation, Chartres, Auvers-Sur-Oise, and Musee d'Orsay

This week we had a week off for vacation because of Toussaint, which is all Saint's Day. I decidied to stay in Paris, and it was definately worth it. My freinds Sarah and Lara, and I started the weekend and vacation off right with a trip to a canadian bar near school called the Moose. It was really fun. On Monday, I went and babysat Marie and we got to play lots of fun games. Tuesday and Wednesday I just hung around Paris. By the way, my mom and dad are coming to visit me the 13th-26th of February. Dad will be here until the 21st, and Mom the whole time. Since they fly into London I thought that I would do London and see my friend at Oxford the week before. We will then meet up in London, see a play, spend the night and then head to Paris the next day, me by train, them by plane. Thursday, I decided that I wanted to go to the Cathedral at Chartres, so I bought train tickets and got ready for my adventure. Taking the train was really cool. I have taken trains in France before, but this was the first one I had ever taken by myself. I got to the train station early (no surprises there) but I figured it would be better to be there early than late. The train ride to Chartres took about an hour, and as we left Paris there was some really pretty countryside. The train got to Chartres a little after 10 am. I decided to go straight to the Cathedral to check it out. Chartres Cathedral has some of the oldest stained glass, and man is it amazing. Some of it had just been recently cleaned so it was even more beautiful. At 12 o'clock, there was a tour in English by a man named Malcom Miller who is world reknowned for his tours. I took advantage of it it and learned a lot about the Cathedral. Another thing that makes Chartres famous is that it supposedly houses the veil that Mary wore when she gave birth to Jesus. The next day, Thursday, I decided to go to Auvers-Sur-Oise which is where Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theodore are buried. I went and saw the tombs of the Van Gogh brothers, and then the church which Van Gogh painted in one of his last paintings. After that, I went to the Chateu d'Auvers which is a museum detailing the life during the time of the inpresionist painters. Today, being the fisrt Sunday of the month, all of the musums were free in Paris. I got up early and headed over to see the Musee d'Orsay. Originally the Musee d'Orsay was a train station. There were a ton of really cool paintings and sculptures. I only ended up staying for about 2 hours because there ending up being so many people there. That's all for now, I will update more later.







 

Salon du Chocolat

Last weekend Paris was hosting "Le Salon du Chocolat". Basically, it was a huge chocolate exposition with big name chocolatiers such as Lindt, Nestle, etc. It was absolutely amazing, Pretty much there was any kind of chocolate that one could ever want. There were also sculptures made out of chocolate. This chocolate TGV (see photo below) took 45 hours to make!!! Holy Cow!!! Lots of the different chocolatiers were giving out free samples. There was chocolate ice cream, amazing chocolates, chocolate margarita's yum!!!!, and even Bailey's Irish Cream, 3 different flavors. Here in Europe, they don't just have Original Baileys, but they have Creme Caramel, and Mint Chocolate. Of course I had to sample all three flavors, and they were amazing. They also had a fashion show with people wearing choolate clothes. That was really cool too. Pretty much, the entire exposistion was devoted ti chocolate and all things chocolate. It was the most amazing experience and well worth the 12 euro ($15) entrance fee.













Amazing TGV train made of chocolate!!!













Amazing fountain of dark and white chocolate!!!!











Salon du Chocolat official sign!!!