Blois, The Town That Dare Not Speak Its Name

This is the front of the chateau in Blois. We were never able to figure out how to corectly pronounce the town's name. We called it "Bleh" -- which is better than what we were really thinking ("that g-d town where we drove in circles for hours")...
Our first learnings in France:
1. Our GPS system does not work. Welcome to hell.
2. There is no such thing as "driving around the block" in a medieval city. You get ONE SHOT baby!, just one, and if you don't see your hotel you basically have to leave downtown and start all over again. We sure saw a lot of France.
3. Almost the only French word we recognize is "voila." Our waiters would always present our food with a description that sounded exactly like "bleh bleh bleh, blehbleh, bleh, blehbleh...et voila." (Said of course with the perfect mix of pride and Gallic indifference. Sometimes even a little shrug) It was a very meta experience to be eating blehblehbleh in the town of Bleh.
4. A tip for you: if you share earbuds on an MP3 player while driving, everything is great and sing-able...until you get closer to your destination and start rustling about looking for the city maps. That, btw, is the perfect time to move suddenly and rip the earbud right out of J's head. It will come out with a very satisfying popping noise, kind of like in that lollipop lollipop song, you can feel the vibrations in your own earbud, and see the wee bud come sailing across the car. It is hilarious EVERY SINGLE TIME. I highly recommend it.


BTW, I must at this time give big ups to my pal J (AKA Edacious J), who has just bought her first home. Like a real grownup! I am impressed and incredibly envious. Nice work J!