Coudray

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't posted in a little while. There's a very simple reason for this. Things have been a bit hectic because my parents were here for 3 weeks! The trip to visit us is slightly longer and more complicated than when we lived a 30 minute RER ride from the airport, but we assured them that the improved accomodations were worth the extra 3 hours of train. Fortunately, they agreed. No more sleeping on a futon in our living room, they actually had their own bedroom the whole time they were here! We enjoyed having them here so much, and also enjoyed the chance to play tourist a bit in our own region. Of course, Thomas knows the region pretty well, and I'm starting to, but there are always things to see! While they were here, Alina developed a new sign in her own original sign language. A sign for camera. This was incredibly important as Grandma and Grandpa were trying to take enough pictures to make up for lost time!

The next few posts are going to be playing catch-up a little, sharing with you what we did to keep them from getting bored while they were here. I will make no attempt to pretend to put enough pictures on this blog to do justice to what we saw and did. If you want to know more, you just have to come see it for yourself! (Hint, hint!) The topic of this present post is our visit to the Medieval castle of Coudray-Salbart . It was so cool. Once you paid your way into the grounds, you pretty much just had free run of the place. You could walk around the castle from the outside, then go in and walk down dark passageways, climb REALLY steep spiral staircases, look out tower windows, and even see the Medieval version of a toilet. Here are some picts (not of the toilet):

A view from the outside

"Um...I don't know. How would YOU beseige it?"

A view from the inside (the table is not original).

My Dad shows his true colors!