Rachel and Josh Visit (the just Rachel part)!

NOTE: ALL PICTURES TAKEN BY RACHEL

Okay, so when I say that the vacation was over, it wasn't really. . . only for Guillaume. :-P
Because a week after Guillaume went back to work, Rachel and Josh came to visit!!!!

Well, actually, I guess I should say Rachel then Josh came to visit. Josh had some issues getting here, so I ended up having a full two days with Rachel before his arrival.

And very full these two days were!
On Sunday, we took a day trip out to Giverny, home of Monet. We saw

his house and



tons of beautiful flowers!


Rachel tried to take a picture of me with a plant mustache,


but it failed.



Audrey and Rachel in Giverny


On Monday, day two, we took a trip over to Senlis to see awesome Gothic architecture!


This is awesome Gothic Architecture!



The beautiful town of Senlis!

And then we headed over to the neighboring town of Chantilly to take a tour of the castle there.


The Castle

We didn't go in, though, instead just exploring the gardens, which were huge and awesome!


Audrey and Rachel in the gardens!


There was also a section of really cute little houses


Me knocking on the door of a really cute little house

right before the entry way to a really awesome maze that we almost didn't get out of - you were supposed to collect clues along the way to find codes to get through 5 doors in the maze. We didn't collect clues and had to find other creative ways to get through the doors.


Us being other people at the end of the maze

Interesting Fact: In French, one of the words used to say whipped cream is creme chantilly. I THINK that this is basically an extra rich whipped cream (I can't be sure, because I don't eat the stuff!). This word came from the fact that, supposedly, back in the day, the cows living at the castle made extra super duper awesome whipped cream. And it therefore became associated with Chantilly.
It's weird, though, because now it's like the name of the town is Whipped Cream.

Tuesday morning, Rachel and I took a morning jaunt over to check out the cimetery Pere LaChaise before Josh's arrival. We had time to take a pretty good tour of it, and I actually FINALLY got to see Oscar Wilde's grave. I'd looked for it before but, despite thinking I had already seen it, I had apparently never found it.


Oscar Wilde's Grave

You see, covered with kisses like that - I would totally remember it.

And then Josh arrived.
TBC in the next entry! Are you excited?!? I hope so!!!!