Around Town - catch up

Ok, so I know that I haven't written in awhile but before I get to my pics from Ali's visit, I've got some catching up to do on pictures from different times up until the trip to Spain.
The first set of pictures are of a local park that is close to my dorm.  Shortly before I left for Greece in February, there was a really nice sunny day, so I decided to go exploring.

There was a cute little stream that ran all the way through it.

And a pretty pink house.  I asked someone if it was an important building.  They said that they weren't sure but thought it was probably there because it was pretty and people could rent it out for weddings or something like that.

photo courtesy of Ali

I also, as I tend to do, found the horse stable.  The horse stable is right in the park.  It looks kind of fancy (architecturally) for a horse stable and mismatched with the typical riding arena that was attached to it.  They leave the doors open and people can just wander in and out to pet the horses.

the front of the horse stable

zoomed in to see the pillars and arched ceiling

Then, shortly after I got back from Greece, Chambéry had a festival, which as far as I could tell, consisted mostly of a parade. Above is a picture of people gathering to watch.  It was to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the department of Savoie (of which Chambéry is the historic capital) being part of France.  Before that, it was a disputed territory that was at the time part of Italy.  Anyway, the parade was a lot of fun.  There were bands and schoolchildren and just really random things but almost all of the floats had to do with the history or culture of this region.  The picture above, although it is difficult to tell, is of people dressed up as elephants wearing shirts with the flag of Savoie on them (the red background with white cross).  Below is the picture of skiers because skiing is a huge tourism industry in this part of the country and draws people from all over to Chambéry.

Here, instead of throwing candy from parade floats, the people on the floats have all sorts of streamers and confetti and silly string that they throw everywhere.  Here is a picture of some stringy confetti that got stuck in a tree and below that is the paper confetti on the ground after the parade.  Not only did the people on the floats have the paper confetti, but so did the people watching the parade because it was available from street vendors.  It was everywhere!  Most people ended up sufficiently covered in confetti.