The wifi has arrived!

Well hello everyone,

I finally have wifi!!! One of the students from the university that Michele used to teach at came to the apartment to look at the wireless box. Of course, the fix was so easy! Michele was frustrated that the fix was so easy and that it couldn't be done sooner. This past 6 weeks have really shown me how dependent my generation is on the internet.

Things have been going great here. I have started to do some traveling, at the end of September my friends and I took a trip to wine country. We visited Chenonceau, I learned about this castle in high school so it was really great to actually visit. It is sometimes called the ladies castle because the castle was predominantly designed by women. Chenonceau also has its own winery and wine cellar. We went to a wine tasting down in the old wine cellar, for only 1 euro we were able to taste the Chateau's 2002 wine. It was delicious, and normally I am not a red wine person. I bought a bottle for Michele, I figured she would like it because it was similar to the wine she likes. We stayed in Tours, which was about an hour and a half from Paris by high speed train. This was my first experience staying in a hostel...it was very interesting! We had our own room, which was nice from a privacy point of view, but the bathrooms were down the hall. I never lived in that style of dorm when I was at Madison, it took a little getting used to!

We got back from Tours on a Sunday and left for Strasbourg on that Friday. Strasbourg is in North-Eastern France, about two hours from Paris by high speed train. This area was originally controlled by Germany, and only went back into French control after WWII. I heard more German than French spoken! This trip was organized by CIEE, so we toured an old castle/fortress and visited this crazy park: Monkey Mountain. This park has 245 monkeys who are given free range of the park. When you enter the park, they give you the rules and hand you some popcorn. The monkeys come right up to you and take the popcorn! We all decided that it was one of the craziest places we had ever been!
(The first picture is from Monkey Mountain and the second is in front of Chenonceau)

Now that I have internet, you can all expect more updates! Love from Paris...