France Trip Day 1 - March 11

We landed around 8 a.m. on March 11. It took a lot longer than it should have to find Steph and Andrew, who landed just a few minutes different from us. We thought we could just meet at the car rental place in the airport, but failed to recognize that there would be more than 1! Different terminals have different car rentals. Lesson learned. Anyway we figured it out and got our little manual car and took off. We wanted to hang out in Paris for a little bit, and had a couple less hours than we had originally planned. But we knew we'd be coming back to Paris at the end of the trip so it wasn't a big deal. We enjoyed walking around the streets and just soaking up the reality that we were THERE! And can I just say that Steph and Andrew have become quite our vacation buddies! This isn't the first trip we've been on with them and we always have so much fun together. I'm so glad they were willing to hang out with just us for half the trip, as the rest of the family ended up making their own (different) plans. I was pretty upset about that fact at first, but decided not to make it a big deal. We could still have a great time just the 4 of us, and we'd meet up with them halfway through. 

Anyone that's been to Paris will recognize all these pictures.

Also, Paris traffic is CRAZY. Seriously I thought we were going to get hit and die every 2.5 seconds. We were all so grateful that Andrew was so confident driving through all that, and we came out unscathed.

Had to get a picture with our beloved Thomas Jefferson! (We love TJed! :) )

 Strolling alone the Seine 

Didn't go to the Eiffel tower this time, but just waved and knew we'd be back soon!

After that we took off into the countryside and drove to Chateau Chambord. It is huge and really amazing. I never tire of all the grand castles in Europe. It was built by Francois the 1st in 1518, and I think it took 15 years but was hardly even used at all. I know we took way too many pictures of this one chateau, but it was our first big touristy thing! And plus it's awesome! My favorite feature were the winding staircases. I just LOVE all the detail in the construction of all these super old buildings (both chateaux and cathedrals)

I want a huge fireplace in my house!! :)

Short doorways

From there we drove to Blois and just walked all around the town, up and down their beautiful cobblestones roads and alleys and stone steps. They had a gorgeous cathedral (as many cities do). We just wandered for a long time and found a delicious restaurant to eat at. We ate a super yummy meal--our first big French meal!! I ordered French hen with risotto and curry sauce. Kenny ordered duck, the first of many.  ;) We split an ice cream. Afterwards we made our way to our cute little B&B called La Flanerie. Oh this is still probably my very favorite place we stayed in! It was just the most charming little house.  We desperately needed showers as it had been quite a long time with all the travelling. We were all so tired and feeling the effects of the 10 hour time change but so giddy to be on this trip.