16Mai - Versaille

Well dear readers I think thus far you have heard only from Jess, but I am here too. Yesterday we headed out to the Chateau Versaille. I can't remember if Jess posted about this already or not, but Eliot and Melisa Snyder gave us their four-day Museum passes which got Jess and I into, well all of the big museums for free. These passes let us skip all the long lines and just walk in, supper swell and big ups to the Snyders for hooking us up.

The approach to the Chateau is up a long wood-lined boulevard and then across a cobble-paved square to the gold plated gates. While the exterior is nice it is not quite as impressive as the Louvre just generally a sentiment of "well that used to be nice" it was a lot smaller than I was anticipating. What we could see of the Chateau was coated in gold. No wonder France was broke prior to the revolution all its money went to gold chandelliers and silly life styles. After a tour of the grounds Jess and I rented a small rowboat and cruised around the Grand Canal. We passed a nested pair of swans aggressively defending their territory. They snapped at everything within about ten feet of the nest to drive it away but were still beautiful. On the way back to the dock we saw a boat with four teenagers in it flailing wildly with their oars unable to build up much speed. They had one lad on each oar and were not really sure what they were doing. Whether deliberately or by accident I could not see, but somehow they blundered into a line of ducks--a mother and a trail of fledgelings--and flipped one of the little ones. The poor thing was unable to turn over and while Jess pulled it out as soon as we could navigate close enough it died in her arms shortly after. The youths, out of ignorance or callousness, laugh as they paddled away. So much for the innocence of youth.

It started to rain as we headed back towards the Chateau, and while the fountains had been turned on the day was quite bleak due to the duck incedent. It did get better but I'm sick of navigating this keyboard so I will finish this day later.