Châteaux and what not.

Oops sorry.  Went AWOL for a few days.

A couple of developments in the area of weekend adventures.

The first is that I finally bought my plane ticket to Rome for a short post-Paris trip. Gonna visit a good friend in Rome for a few days of fun times before doing God-knows-what.  Depending on what my family decides to do for a summer vacation, I may meet them there or instead go fly straight to Togo, idk.

And I recently got back from a weekend trip with my Paris group to the quaint town of Tours, which is a cool little village a little under 300 km southwest of Paris. We took one of those super fast trains to get there and back and it took about 2 and a half hours.  It's known for its châteaux, I guess, so our itinerary was full of château visits.  The city was small and the trip was cool but the best part was that

1. The trip was completely paid for by the program I'm doing
2. This was the first time all of the people in my program had stayed together for the first time (usually we're in our home stays all over Paris, but this weekend we were all in a hotel together)

Needless to say, petty drama and never-have-I-ever games were abound. It was fantastic.

And also!! Yesterday was the annual Fête de la Musique in Paris, which is a huge party all over the city to welcome the first day of summer.  The subways were open all night, all the large public squares were filled with drunken Frenchies, there were concerts all over the city, and it was generally a good time all around.

And speaking of summer, the weather finally got nice today.  The past week and a half, the weather has been awful.  Overcast skies, rain, cold.  Just awful.  But now, it's summer and it's hot and sunny.

Last piece of news: Chris (my roommate from last summer in Buenos Aires) is visiting tomorrow!! Stay tuned.