Last night, I had just finished writing up this blog entry and was cruising through the virtual news reports when Andreina, out of the blue, asked me to text Popi and ask if anyone wanted to Skype tonight. It was a little after 10pm our time, an unusual time to Skype home since normally I've been calling at about 1am my time, 5pm Denver time, when usually everyone has their business for the day wrapped up. But I did as she asked, and within just a few minutes she was talking to Allie, the only one immediately available to chat. And chat they did!! Two hours later, I'm still just sort of twiddling my thumbs on the sidelines while Andreina is chatting a storm, first to Allie and then to Mami once Mami came home with Randy.
I'd given Andreina my headphones for the conversation, in case she wanted it to be more private or couldn't hear over the noise of the traffic below, but I think my ears are tuned to the frequency of my name and Randy's voice. I could hear him, through the headphones on the other side of the room, asking for me. For me!! ^_______^ that kid is pretty much the greatest!
I admit, I sort of stole the phone away from Andreina for a bit while she was trying to have a conversation with Mami...but, seriously, she'd had it exclusively for two hours by that point, and Randy had asked for me!! We had a stupid silly little laugh session for a few minutes and then Andreina commandeered the phone back, talking with Mami for a bit more before Papi made it back home. For a few minutes, it was the three of us talking -- me, Andreina, and Papi -- but them two started talking business and I backed off to let them get those personal matters settled. Papi noticed and asked where I'd gone, and the next thing I knew Andreina had given up the phone and I got to have a very nice abbreviated talk with my father.
It was a very spur of the moment thing, and it ended up being very, very awesome.
We hung up sometime after midnight, approaching 1am, and then Andreina and I both got into bed and, for about 45 minutes, shifted restlessly. I tried to fall asleep but simply couldn't, and I could hear her rolling over every few minutes as well. At about 2am, she got up and tried to just stretch herself out while I pulled up a few clothing websites and browsed the sales. Not very exciting I know, but there was seriously something wrong with my body. It didn't want to go to bed. I was wide, wide wake.
At some point, Andreina went back to bed and I started playing an Audible book (thanks, Papi!), falling asleep to a story about a young girl doing some sort of spy stuff. The only thought that kept going through my head was "And I'm going to have to get up in a few hours for that stupid tour! I'm going to be soooo tired!!"
It proved not to be the case. ^_^ for that, I'm very grateful. Andreina got up before me, sometime about 9:15, and I lazily got up fifteen minutes later only to find that my body had slept very fine indeed on such short notice and that I felt fully refreshed, ready to start another day of walking. I don't think Andreina felt quite the same way...
We managed to make it on time to our tour to Versailles and became part of a group of 8 plus the tour guide herself, a very sarcastic and dry-humored girl from Philly named Linda. I had checked out the tour again last night and discovered, to my dismay, that this tour didn't actually go into the chateau itself, nor actually into any of the palaces on the grounds at all, but that it was a walking tour through the gardens of Versailles. Gardens, I might add which are free for public entry. We were paying 30€ each for something that, if we'd gone by ourselves, would have only cost about 12€ for the both of us for the train over. Being somewhat habitually cheap by this point in my trip, I was mentally debating very intensely over the decision to fork over so much cash, and when I asked Andreina her opinion after spelling out the facts, she expressed no opinion whatsoever, saying "We can spend the day shopping, we can stay in our hotel room all day, I don't care." I decided that, since we were going to Versailles no matter what, and since the tour guide from earlier had bee so wonderful, and since, if we didn't go, we had no other plans for the day and would probably just wander around Paris all day (and by wander, I mean walk, walk all day again, from one side of the city to the other, an activity that Andreina is less and less pleased with the more often it happens) -- because of all these things, I decided to just go, to heck with the money, might as well spend it on a really good last day in Paris even if we don't actually go inside.
It was absolutely the right decision to make!
Linda, from the get-go, was just fantastic! She was funny, made jokes of everything, and told the story of Versailles and it's royalty with such life that I was shocked, absolutely shocked when I looked down and realized we'd been on the tour for over four hours when we stopped for a late lunch break. It felt like time just flew by, and it was all madly interesting.
The gardens themselves are incredible, and the chateau is insanely large from outside. The building has a basement that's as deep below as the upper floors are high. I was more or less spellbound by the stranger than fiction history that was the last few generations of French kings before the Revolution. Much of it was somewhat familiar, either because of my old history classes or dramatized in film ("Marie Antoinette," anyone?) but the way Linda retold it all was just the funniest, most alive, most interesting way I've ever heard the stories told, and she gave all my rusty history knowledge so much added depth with just these little bits of shiny, new details.
We walked through these splendrous gardens for 5.5 hours, with Linda talking nearly nonstop the entire time, before our tour finally came to a close. I think I took a thousand pictures of trees, shaped hedges, flowers, and fountains by the time it all ended.
Afterwards, Andreina and I walked through some of the nearby souvenir shops, got back to Paris, and walked through a few more souvenir shops before making our way back to our hotel. It's getting late and I'm going to try to get some decent sleep, but even if I don't the only thing we're going to do tomorrow is ride the bus and I can sleep the whole way to London! Maybe I'll just try to stay awake all night, so that I can sleep easily on the bus...then again, I remember how much of a nightmare sleeping on the bus to London the first time was! Yea, I think I'll try to sleep tonight instead!
Three more days!
I might be a little crazy, but I love tours and this sounds like you had a great guide! It is so funny how much history is in every little place and most of us wouldn't even be able to scratch the surface! Lol, I want to go on a tour...maybe I will just invent one for myself. That is probably one of the loneliest sounding statements in the world, or John can make one up for me. It'll work.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see you soon :)