Versailles

I go to America tomorrow. I guess my blog won't be quite as exciting after that. I mean, y'all all know and experience American life every day so I don't know how exactly to make my normal American life sound exciting but I will try.

I managed to squeeze in a visit to Versailles Sunday. It was pretty cool. Huge gardens. The fountains are only turned on Sunday mornings before noon and, out of coincidence only, we were there to see them!
All the bushes were cut into really cool shapes, including the one below that is a huge head. I'm not really certain how they prune the top of that one.

All the leaves are changing colors which was really cool because I realized that I've never really seen leaves change colors. Texas isn't exactly known for it's amazing fall colors. Usually how it works is one day it's warm and everything is green and the next day it is cold and all the leaves are on the ground and brown. Around here there is lots of reds and oranges. It's pretty. I guess the picture below doesn't exactly capture all of the fall colors but I promise they're around.

One thing I can't figure out, well two things. One, why do they only run the fountains Sunday mornings and, two, how did they run the fountains back in the day when they didn't have electricity. I'm sure a little internet research could clear this up for me but I haven't gotten around to that.

You have to pay to get in the gardens and then pay even more to go inside the palace so we just did the gardens. When you're standing at the palace and looking away from it there is a cute little pond. It doesn't look like it's too far to the other end so my friend and I decided we would walk to the other side. 30 minutes later we were still not to the other end and thinking about how once we finally got there we would still have to walk back.
So here's the view from the other end. The palace is back there, that thing you can barely see. It was a walk.

Another fountain. Really they were beautiful. And then to imagine that they were built in the 1600's.

So that's Paris and the end of my journey around the world...for now. We'll see where I end up next but until then I'll enjoy catching up with all of y'all in America!!