Chateau de Fountainebleau
The Ascension Day was a bank holiday also in France (and consequently our school was close also on the following Friday and Saturday which meant that I worked only on 2 days during that week). I decided with H to go and explore Fountainebleau which is located about 50 km from Paris. The place is famous for its castle that reminds of Versailles but is a bit smaller and for sure also less crowded - though it was still popular among visitors. The whole area of Fountainebleau is surronded by kilometers of nature and also the town seemed a nice peaceful place. Also the castle had parks and forests around it so we had taken picnic stuff with us to enjoy it afterwards.
The castle was utilized for example by Napoleon and its bedrooms, hallways, dishes, furnitures and basically everything were glamorous. I think the following photos tell something about that.
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| The room of Napoleon's wife |
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| The Diana Gallery is 80 m long. |
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| The throne room |
Cabriole and a huge park
After a couple of hours walking through the big castle we took our bags from the locker and enjoyed the greenery around the beautiful building. We noticed a cute horse carriage and thought of taking a little ride. Luckily the little drizzle happened to come down when we were comfortably sitting under the roof of the cabriole so that we could go and find a spot to place the picnic blanket after a tour. Ahhh, it made so good to travel somewhere outside of Paris region and sit under fresh trees!
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| There were quite some birds and, as a surprise, some carps fighting for the food that visitors threw for them. |
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| So straight lines, so much of nature... |
Fête de l'école
The school year in France continues for two more weeks but we had our end of the year party of our school last Saturday. Because we have even more students this year than last year, our premises were too small to organize the party at the school. The headmaster had rented a bigger room for us and our staff gathered there early in the morning to decorate the place and set everything up before the families arrived. The atmosphere was great with fun music, lot of talking, games, shows of each class and lots of food that the families brought there. I am proud of my class how well they handled their nerves even in front of dozens of parents when singing and talking. In the party I got for the first time some parents asking if I am still continuing at our school next year. I had to tell that unfortunately I won't be. I will miss my class for sure after these two weeks are over...
Finnish church service
There are maybe some hundreds of Finns living in Paris area so there are also church services in Finnish. Not every week but as I learned last week, the pastor comes four times a year. I have for my whole time in Paris wanted to go and check how a Finnish church service is like. Last weekend I finally was able to go, right after the school party. Exceptionally the service was hold on Saturday and not Sunday and since there is no physical Finnish church in Paris, the service was in the Danish church. Even though the gillets jaunes (yellow vests) are still continuing their weekly protests, the metro stations were still open also in Champs Elysees (at least that time of the afternoon). There were quite few Finns arriving there this time, due to the facts that Saturday is more difficult (because of the hobbies and gillets jaunes), the weather was nice after a longer cool period and that especially the last Saturdays of the school year are full of end of the year parties. So including the pastor who flew from Italy, we were six plus one new-born baby.
