Caves, Castles, Swimming, oh my!

Hey everybody! So no idea why the writing is in blue, maybe it'll stay this way, maybe not. who really knows. But i write to you from almost week four of my grenoble adventures! i went on a pretty wicked exploration this saturday with some of the kids from my program. we went up to the cuves des Sassenage which were just outside of Fontaine where i live! it was delightful. we walked around seeing the beautiful country side, took a picnic in this park and then began to hike up la montagne. me and michelle booked it up to the beginning of the caves and took a lot of silly photos and generally just had fun. the picture below is of the sign that marked the entrance of the cave. i was genuinely intrigued by these caves, they managed to remind me of the lost river caves, which anyone from northern nh will know what those are! sadly no lemon squeeze but it was still pretty sweet! there were bats that used to live in the caves and every time it rains or the snow melts of there's a ton of water coming down off the mountain these caves flood majorly cause they're literally in the side of a mountain and it's just wicked cool.

I am going to write in green now... this is the sign entrance to the caves, it was sweet.

and now light purple... here's a picture from michelle and kait heading into the depths of the caves..... scary? not really, there was a lot of light and the whole thing was so cool that even if someone had hidden ahead which i was thinking the whole time would be a really awful slightly hilarious trick, it would still have been cool. i really like caves. i could have explored forever and been okay with it. apparently they do this think called spelunking which i have no idea if that is how you spell it but it's pretty much zip lining through caves and ropes course adventuring through the caves. i want to go. it looks awesome!

This is the castle that i will be getting married in.... it's pretty gorgeous. and i will, regardless of how much in the future i am thinking, come back here for my wedding. it would seriously be like being a princess. plus there's moat which pretty much makes it the perfect place to live. all it needs is a vineyard and it would pretty much be my dream french home.

on the way down from the caves, alex, alissa, and i did some good old septemeber, really cold water swimming. i am from new hampshire, and i would say that i'm fairly used to cold water. this water was just frigid. i have swum in april and had water warmer than this. it was rattle snack pool or emerald pool cold. perhaps cooler. it was your definition of fresh mountain stream. the plan had been originally to just wade... but after alex decided to jump on in, i couldn't really pass up a change to say i'd swam in france.... so in i went! my hands were quite white and quite chilly for some time after but it was so totally worth it.

last but not least for photos that exist from this day. blogger only lets you do 5...) but i found a wall with a gate on it. i had to climb up a fairly steep embankment to get around the wall but once around it was just a perfect photo moment. i would be such a good prison inmate, cause i can totally keep my calm. just kidding!!

all in all it was a wonderful weekend. had some excellent food, thank you host mama! and some excellent dessert (again thanks host ma) went on some awesome adventures and got 2 out the 3 pairs of shoes i have here completely and utterly soaked. i hung them outside my window on the roof, stuffed with newspaper in order so that tomorrow, hopefully i will have shoes to wear!

i should really go to bed at this point, considering i feel like this entire post has very little logic to it... sorry folks, my sleep schedule is a little off. pinched a nerve in my left arm that has been making sleepy a wee bit challenging. but i will say bon soir and stay tuned for some more photos on flickr and i'm headed to the cote d'azur this weekend so stay tuned for a sweet blog post on that, written hopefully, when i've had more sleep!

paix.

p.s. i fixed all the text color changes, it was just way to challenging to read...