le weekend

A visit to Chalon sur Saône, a town south of Beaune

I've been looking for some good rain boots recently...

My walk/bike ride to school route

L'arc marking the Northern entrance into Beaune's centre ville. 

Peaking through les remarts- the city walls- for a view of the fantastic roof of les Hospices

One of my favorite houses in Beaune.  A little less jolie because of the gray clouds.

A surprise hot air balloon launch right next to the road!

SO wished it was me up there floating over the road.

Saturday afternoon was spent driving around and exploring villages around Beaune.

Sunday we visited le Chateau de Savigny

Instead of 17th and 18th century furniture, the chateau was filled with motorcycles and model airplanes

And the jardin was a lawn filled with over 60 fighter jets from all around the world.

Me and my roomie, contemplating the bizare-ness of the chateau's collection.

                                     

Our lunchtime picnic view

Hello !

Well, my Monday morning post is coming on Tuesday morning this week.  I will be so relieved when I finally have internet in our apartment, my goodness.  My weekend was a fantastically surprising one- it seems each day something unexpected happened.  Friday Stéphane chauffered me and two other lovely assistants to Chalon sur Saône for a day visit.  We walked casually around the city's marché, stopped for lunch and visited a photography museum close to the river.  Saturday was spent driving around exploring nearby villages, winding through the quaint city roads to see what we could find.

When we turned around a curve in the road about 10 minutes from Beaune, there was a big gray something on the side of the road, kind of like a tent.  We had just driven by there the week before, and I didn't remember anything being there before.  As we got closer we realized it was a hot air balloon, half inflated and getting ready to take off!  We pulled off to the side of the road and grabbed our cameras to watch it puff up and float over our heads.  It was quite the team effort, with several people holding ropes tied to the top to keep the balloon from careening sideways into the trees.  Once it was up in the air it zipped upwards and away, into the cloudy afternoon sky.

Sunday we visited le chateau de Savigny, by far one of the most quirky interesting castles I have ever seen.  The owner of this chateau brings packrat to a whole.new.level.  Each big room in the chauteau was dedicated to something different- several for motorbikes, one for race cars (full size real race cars), a wing for cases and cases full of model airplanes, and the ground floor was a preserved and completely silent kitchen and hall straight out of the middle ages. 

The grounds of the chateau were no less surprising- after walking through a viticulture musuem dedicated to all things wine (with about 30 tractors specialized for driving through vineyards) we skipped on to the lawn where about 60 fighter jets were jigsawed on the grass.  It was quite impressive, but it broke my hear to see them sitting en plein air without any shelter or anything.  Constantly under the rain, wind, bright sun.  So much history, with no one to take care of it, dommage! 

This morning my bike ride to work was aboslutely gorgeous, under a wonderfully brilliant blue sky and the sun sparkling calmy through the trees.  It was the perfect temperature- cold enough that I was glad I had my gloves and scarf, and not too warm so I didn't arrive sweating in the teacher's lounge before my class. 

Honestly, I'm still adjusting to my new role as 'disciplinarian' which apparently comes with my role as assistant au collège.  I'm not sure I'm so fond of the discipline part yet- it's exhausting when you spend more time yelling at kids than speaking with them, especially when there are some there that really want to participate. 

Hope you're having a lovely Tuesday morning!

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