Today everybody got off to an early start, waking up at 6:30 AM so we could make it to meet up at the Chateaux de Tours at 8:00 AM. Waking up this early was necessary because our first visit was a top-ranked horse riding academy that was an hour-long bus ride away. A French-speaking guide gave us a tour of the facility, and along the way we were able to see several of their horses. Each horse had a tag outside of its room, which detailed its race, age and parents. We were even given the opportunity to stay in the horses’ sauna for around a minute. The tour of the horse riding academy concluded with a horseback riding show. The most entertaining part of this was getting to listen to the English translation of the live commentary, because the woman who was doing the translating had an interesting voice, and was doing it live and unscripted. When the show ended, Lachlan dropped his phone, and when Max tried to get it he got stuck between the wall and the bleachers and needed the help of a worker to get out, which was hilarious.
Next, we went to an underground mushroom farm. The roof of the cave was short in most places, which made moving around pretty difficult for me. We were explained the methodology behind growing mushrooms underground, and were shown some examples of mushrooms being grown. We also got to see a room dedicated to breeding and growing snails. After this, Mr. G gave Max a large shiitake mushroom, which he refused to let us get near for the entire bus ride because he “didn’t trust us not to throw it out the window”, which was probably fair. I sincerely hope that you and Adrian enjoyed your mushroom tonight, Max. Once we arrived in Tours, Evan came home with Hugo and I, and we hung out and ate some snacks for an hour before Evan was picked up by Barth. Afterwards, Hugo and I ate dinner (salmon, potatoes and peppers) and desert (melon and strawberries) and I went up to my room because I’m very tired and just a little sick. Overall, today was a really long and tiring day, but the extended lunch with the boys and the horse-riding show made it worth it.
