Monday, February 27, 2012

This weekend we headed out to be tourists.  We went east about 45 minutes to Amboise, which is a cute little town with a castle, shops and Close de Luce.  We walked the town and visited Close de Luce, which is a home where Leonardo DaVinci spent his last years of life.  He was friends with the French king and was given this home to live in. Although he was mostly known for his artwork, and it is recorded that he brought several of his paintings with him, including the Mona Lisa.  So they have a print of her hanging and when I had Ross stand next to her for a photo, I call it “Ross and Lisa”.  Close de Luce is mainly devoted to his drawings and engineering ideas.  It is amazing how brilliant he was and that his ideas were far ahead of the times.  We still use many of his original ideas today.  The place is beautiful and the gardens amazing. We laughed at the tiny spiral staircase and the low doorways, but it was a fun place to visit.  We found a sidewalk café for lunch and enjoyed their “plat de jour’.  I was excited to eat out as we’ve been eating in since we’ve arrived and I always enjoy a cooking break.  Usually the plat de jour gives you an appetizer, an entree and a dessert.  You have a choice of two items for each course and it’s a set price.  Ross and I chose exactly the opposite foods, I had the fresh mushroom soup and Ross had the smoked salmon for our appetizers. My soup was fabulous!  Our entrees arrived, I had a veal dish while Ross tried the beef tongue.  After blogging about it and posting a picture, I had three friends tell me how good beef tongue was so Ross decided to try it.  He enjoyed it and said if you didn’t know it was tongue, you’d think it was tender roast beef.  I tried it and admit it was good, but couldn’t wrap my mind around the tongue part.  Dessert was fabulous!  Ross had a cake with raspberry mousse and I had a lemon tart.  The lemon tart was so good, the kind of lemon that makes your mouth pucker, sweet and sour all at once. We spent the rest of the day walking around the town and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Sunday we tried a different church that had been recommended to us, L’Eglise Protestante Baptiste de Tours. We had a nice visit and right in front of us sat a family from the Philippines who spoke English. Then right behind us a family who work in Bible translation working in France, but from Texas.  While we are trying to follow the French and the songs help the most, it is so nice to be able to have some people who speak English.  We now need to decide where we think we are supposed to be church wise.  We like both places for different reasons so we’ll have to talk and make some decisions.  One funny thing was the really nice lady and her husband who sat next to us.  She was not a “little person”, but she was the littlest person I’ve ever met!  At one point the congregation circled the outside edges of the sanctuary for prayer and breaking of bread.  The lady stood next to me and her shoulder was literally poking my hip.  I was trying so hard to be serious, and was able to hold off a fit of the giggles (if Lindsay had been there, I’d have never been able to contain it).  As the crowd got closer together, her shoulder kept bumping my hip and I’d have to control the giggles again. 

They have approved and registered us to start our language lessons soon (finally), I’m so ready to become more fluent and be able to communicate.  I am getting better at communicating what I want to say, but my listening skills are terrible once they start going and speaking to me so fast.  Mid March we have a whole day of cultural training as well, although most of the cultural things I’ve learned by making mistakes and living it.  Attached are a few photos from Close de Luce.

First.....Ross and "Lisa"