Let them eat cake.

Today dad and I went to Versailles.  

I am disappointed.  

I guess I'll go on....

Sitting at dinner tonight I felt like I was unjustified in my disappointment.  I mean, what did I expect?  But see, that's it.  I had fantasized about it so much, and expected the best.  

I expected grandeur, charm, women walking around in over-the-top 18th century garb eating macaroons and drinking champagne.  

What I encountered today was bleak and uninviting. 

As I tried to explain myself to my dad, nothing seemed to describe the chateau quite like I wanted.  I finally resulted in describing it as though, "rangesh parideh bood," or literally, "it's color had jumped out."

Baba looked like he finally understood what I was trying to say.

I've been impressed with French royalty since my first year of French class, seventh grade.  I continued to be fascinated with it through the years I spent reading about Josephine and Napoleon, and last year when I watched "Marie Antoinette" for the first time.  My obsession with learning about the monarchy and dreaming about the monarchy was out of hand.  I knew I had reached unhealthy extremes when I started to question the French Revolution.  "I mean, did they REALLY have to storm the Bastille?"  

But it was more that my imagination had taken the reigns:  I kept thinking about the past and how beautiful it was, and how perfect it was, and how ethereal it was.

Of course I would be disappointed with the reality. 

The reality being that it was 200+ years ago, and now it's just another spectacle for the tourist's eye.  

So anyway, that's that.