Versailles and Chartres

In Garrett's own words- "this is probably the best Sunday I've ever had". We started off picking up our car and driving through the Paris streets by car. Garrett really enjoyed driving and I loved the scenery. We headed out to Evry, even though Reginald said the ward hardly even recognized him anymore, who used to live there. We had our doubts, and I could tell Garrett was a little nervous that no one would know him anymore. In retrospect I'm so glad we didn't decide to skip church there. It was awesome! Tons of people came to us and told me all their conversion stories and about how they love Garrett. They were so excited to see him again and we got offered dinner, a car, and a house to stay at, all of which we had to turn down unfortunately because we left right after church for Versailles. I got to meet a girl named Sarah Colas who was pretty much my instant best friend. We took some silly pictures and I hope I can go back to hang with her someday.

The city and chateaux of Versailles are beautiful. They're working on restoring the bright gold guilding on the front of the building, and it looks quite royal. The gardens are impossible to capture in one picture, and I can imagine how glorious it would have been to ride a horse through those wonderful trees. We also had a chance to stop by the future temple site, which is only a pile of dirt at this point.

Just when we thought the day couldn't get any more delightful we drove to Chartres (way later than scheduled) and walked around the most picturesque little beauty and the beast town I've ever seen. It's buildings are built on the ruins of a 500AD medieval city, many of which you can still see. The buildings are so old, and the streets are narrow and winding, but still very clean. I just loved the old doors and hidden gardens. Garrett told me stories about the bombings in ww2 and how he met an old lady who hid in the cathedral during a bombing and came out to find the air filled with falling book pages after they had bombed the library. The medieval city gate was also destroyed. We went up to the cathedral and saw the town in the day and night. If you don't know, Chartres is famous for its lights. The city had projectors showing awesome light shows on the buildings. Garrett and I stared for hours in the rain, and our favorite was the cathedral. Unfortunately my phone camera couldn't capture the true beauty of the streets at night.