Today was yet another beautiful day in Tours, I’ve come to the conclusion that bad weather does not exist in France. The day started with me waking up at 6:45 and taking the daily car then train then walk to Sainte Ursule. Once at Sainte Ursule , I blessed with having three English classes in the morning. We talked with the students, in English obviously, and compared their culture to ours. In a later class we played Pictionary with American and French images, like Texas and The Eiffel Tower, I was unsuccessful in portraying Star Wars. In the final English class the French were able to share French candies with us. My personal favorite were the sugar coated Smurfs. After that we had lunch. I didn’t take long for me to try Ratatouille as they had that and couscous for lunch. I also had a yogurt, watermelon, and water. The ratatouille was actually really good, I still have yet to eat something in France that I haven’t like. That’s saying a lot considering how much I’ve eaten. After lunch we had a short break where we could just sit in the courtyard and talk, some of us decided to join the volleyball game or play basketball. I won’t lie, the French destroyed the Americans in volleyball, but I bet you can guess who won in basketball. In the afternoon we were given the main course for the day. We took a walk down to La Loire, the longest river in France and there was a boat waiting for us at a dock. It was a sailboat, but I was being powered by a dingy in the back. The sail was mostly for show. We took a two or three mile ride down La Loire and learned about the history of the river, which was as long as the river itself. Each side of the river was covered with trees as the banks of La Loire is protected by UNESCO. Once we had returned to the dock we walked back to the downtown to visit the cathedral of Tours. It was enormous and the stained glass was breathtaking. If I had to guess, it was probably at least three times the size of Duke Chapel. We had about 20 minutes left over so we walked over to a bakery where I and others ate our first macaroons of the trip. They were really good, although some flavors were much better than others. That concluded our day and I met back up with my exchange student. We took the above ground metro and then the bus to get to a friends house where we will stay for the night. Tomorrow we will wake up at 4 in the morning to catch the bus at Sainte Ursule that will take all of the music students (and their correspondents) to Paris for the day! A little preview of Paris before we stay for a few nights altogether. Tours is treating all of us so well, and I expect the last two weeks of our trip to be the same.
