No "Noise" in Noisy and Versailles (Rather, Much Music)

This past weekend, I finally got the chance to return to Noisy-le-Roi, the first international destination I took since I started at Albion [what seems like] a looong time ago. This time around, my host siblings weren't there, but Marie-Léone (my first host mom) was entirely hospitable as always and happy to have us over. By "us," I'm referring to Trevor and myself. Noisy-le-Roi is the second city outside of Paris (the first being Sceaux) but within France that Trevor's been to since we first started the semester, and if I'm not mistaken, he enjoyed the town as much as I did (if possible, if not even more so). In retrospect, this was probably the second time since I first got here that I sat in a car (the first being the first time I went to Noisy-le-Roi) that wasn't a taxi. Stepping out of the RER station and looking out over the hill at the nearby park, it was definitely clear that we were in another world, with houses and bicycles, rather than tall office buildings and Métro systems.

In any case, Marie-Léone picked us up from the RER station and brought us directly to Noisy-le-Roi where Trevor would soon be briefly introduced to some Noisiens. It was then up to me to show Trevor around the house and help him get settled in, as Marie-Léone prepared dinner. As expected, Trevor pretty much fell in love with Paul's room, a room that belongs to a 16-year-old multilinguist who plays multiple instruments and basically converted his entire family to the Mac range of products. After getting settled in (it was strange at first getting used to staying in the room I stayed in when I first came to France), which included hearing Trevor's great guitar-playing abilities, we were all à table and enjoyed a delicious dinner. After a bit of throat clearing, , it began: the sickness that would take over my body for the upcoming days. Towards the end of the evening, I tried a rather enjoyable drink made with griotte (a type of cherry); let's just say it soothed my throat automatically.

After a fairly sleepful night, I got up and ready to head out to Versailles. When I went downstairs, I was greeted by quite a big spread for breakfast, which I'm sure was partly to prepare us for all of our walking in Versailles and partly to help build up my immune system. As part of the meal, I had a revised Noisy-style/Paris-infused chocolat chaud with the best pain au chocolat of Paris, AS WELL AS the best pain au chocolat of Noisy-le-Roi. I'm a fan.

Marie-Léone then dropped us off at Versailles, and after waiting in three different lines only to find out we could've gone in within the first 15-30min, we began our tour through the château and eventually made our way to the musical fountains set throughout the gardens. For some reason, the fountains weren't turned on until an hour or so into our garden walk, but the overall effect was magnificent. Though, hyuu! we were pretty much exhausted in the end. We decided to go straight back to Paris and through the further extreme gesture of generosity of Marie-Léone, Trevor and I had some great pizza from Pizza Hut (of all places).