St Paul de Vence

I had a friend come to this little castle town one weekend and she said "You would absolutely love it, I'm going to take you there," so we went last Saturday! It's a very old little town a 20 minute train ride + 15 minute (terrifying) bus ride away that houses a lot of art galleries. It is a quintessential French town...built on a hill....with art! Great day trip.


Side note - I think it is quite amusing how many people ask me what I think of Obama because the French were so incredibly excited about him. Whenver I meet someone, normally the 3rd of 4th thing out of their mouth is "what do you think about Obama." Considering talking about politics is a touchy subject and we are told not really to bring it up in this country, its interesting to see how much they are obsessed with him. Thus superman....


Eau non portable means you can't drink it...but there are fountains like this all over where you can drink the water!





My first Abstent sighting! They are also very fond of this drink called Kir, which is basically fruit liquor in white wine. Yummy



St. Paul was very cute and I'm glad I got to be introduced to it. It is one of those places you wouldn't normally get to see unless you were in a country for a long time.

My New Grocery Store

Le Marche Forville is pictured above. It goes on every day of the week and ends about noon, so on the weekends is really the only time we are able to go to it. It's fantastic! The big producers are on the edge and the local/organic are all in the middle. It's really fun to people watch and wander through on a Sunday morning. Lately on Sundays I have been going and getting my dinners for the week (sans le pain, because baguettes are stale by the end of the day!). Herbs! I really want to get some of the roses and make tea out of them.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. The grosser thing is that they hollow the pigs out and then stuff them with all sorts of things...I didn't take a picture of that part...but this is still pretty gross.

Olive oil here is so incredibly cheap and it is amazing...they also have Hazelnut oil here for SUPER cheap! Tons of jams/honeys also...hello presents?!
Yes, that does say boar. It's sausage. I was slightly scared to try this because of the ingredients and I have never really had sausage like this before. My friend and I that make our dinners on a regular basis ended up getting some to try it. It was fantastic!! Very salty, but quite delicious.
TRUFFLES!!! The kind you find with a pig. Incredibly rare, but this mushroom stand had all sorts of them. Yes, they were about 1200e for a large quantity of them, but they look awesome!


The fromagerie I often go to to get cheese. They have some amazing cheese there. Whenever you walk past you get that awful whif or rotting things....its because they actually make/process/let it do its thing down underneath the store. We tried to see if we could get a tour of it, but apparently you have to be trained and wearing lots of white (what I gathered from what she said in french...) in order to go down there. I think if we go enough, maybe they will like us and let us tour it....it's a great little place and apparently pretty famous also.
This is what I did one afternoon.... :-D yes, that was to make you slightly jealous...but it is still kinda cold here and doesn't end up getting warmer until April, so do not feel too jealous!!

Barcelona

The spanish guitarists! Watch the guy on the left's hands...I know it's kinda hard to see but it was dark!

Merci, no, Thank you, no GRACIAS!

Hello again! Now to continue with the story of my weekend to Barcelona....which by the way, maybe it is my naive/illeducated American self again, but I did not know there was a King of Spain still....

After getting situated in our hostel, we met up with the rest of the girls and wandered around for a bit. We walked down La Rambla through shops and street vendors. We watched the street performers and saw things we wanted to do later on. A couple of the girls that were with us decided to go out with their hostel so we decided to join them. Since our hostel wasn't really a "hostel" it sounded like a good way to meet people. It was 18e to do all sorts of things so we rendez-vous'd around 8:30 at their hostel Gothic Point. 2 British guys and 2 Australian girls joined us. We eventually met up with a large group of Irish guys and British med students who were being hazed into their program. All together there were quite a few of us and we had an awesome night.

We started out with "tapas." I put the quotes because they were not REAL tapas, but they were fine nonetheless. We met several Irish and British people and then walked with the large group to a flamenco show. That was incredible. Taylor, you would have loved it! The Spanish guitar players were amazing and the flamenco dancing was fun. After that we went to a bar called Citadines and had champagne and danced a wee bit and then continued our dancing at Catwalk, a club down on the beach. Considering cover to Catwalk alone was 20e, we did pretty darn good for a night of fun!

The things to keep in mind while in Barcelona is that they go out and STAY out. We got home around 4am. We had also been awake since 7am because of classes and there were still people walking into the club!

Saturday was quite fun as well. We got a bus tour ticket and wandered around the city with that. Saw a lot of great sites and managed to go to places we had gone to the night before. We had a late lunch of Paella (pictured below) and seafood ravioli, which was incredible! After a quick nap, some shopping on La Boqueria, an incredible market full of colors, foods, and all sorts of goodies, we got ready to meet up with my friend David who was visiting Barcelona that weekend as well. His hostel was also going to a club called The Roxy and we joined them. We had a blast! Needless to say, we did not get much sleep all weekend but it was so much fun.

I love the hostel experience (via friends) because you do meet certain people and if you go out with your hostel, you can do a lot of stuff for free! The cover charge to Roxy was about 15-20e and we got in for free! Very economically friendly.

Sunday we got up early...believe it or not, and managed the other half of the bus tour that led us all over the city. This included Gaudi architecture, gothic cathedrals, olympic areas, sports arenas, the palace, the MAC, and many others.

Olympic stadium for 1992....
Christopher Columbus
Flamenco dancing....hopefully video to be posted soon...
La Rambla
Plaza Catalunya
Gaudi architecture
Gaudi's cathedral, which even after 100 years is still not finished. You really have to see it to believe it...it is incredible.
and the MAC --> Museum of Contemporary Art.
The thing a lot of us didn't realize was how hard it is to get around a city you have no idea what the language is. We were all pretty prepared for France and that seems quite easy, but having taken spanish in 3rd grade and knowing two or three phrases is very difficult! It didn't help thatI said "Merci" after everything rather than "gracias." I'm going to come home to Oregon and say "Merci" all the time!!

Overall the trip was a success and going "home" to Cannes, France was a thought beyond comprehension for most of us. Still hasn't clicked that this is my "home" for four months. It is incredible and just waking up and looking out my window has made me greatful for every moment of it.

Barcelona

For the weekend, a few girls and I decided we were going to go to Barcelona. We left Friday at noon and headed into downtown Cannes to catch our 50 min. bus to the Nice airport. We were transported to this little puddle-jumper plane, which freaked a lot of the girls out, because they had never been on a plane this small before. After an hour flight we managed to get to Barcelona safely and caught another bus to Plaza Catalunya where all of our hostels were. I guess my incredibly naive self came out, because I did not realize how large Barcelona is. About 18 million people live there, and being from Portland, that's quite a difference! Just walking to our hostel was a challenge with so many people wandering around! We had some difficulties, of course, with our hostel.
First, we did not know if we were actually there or not. None of the hostels in the city seemed to be marked on the walls, so we walked into Balmes 16 and stood there confused. Luckily this guy about our age (on rollerblades!) was going up the stairs so we asked him where "Asterisca" was and he said "That's my aunt!" Yes, following a stranger up stairs made us a little weary, but he was right! Apparently our hostel was actually an old converted apartment where rooms were rented out. Sounds fantastic to me! So we got in and the women Asterisca, spoke no english, only Catalan.
Second, the website was marked wrong. When she asked us to pay, she asked for 88e. We thought we were paying 44e for the both of us (so 22e each). The website said that it was 22e a night per ROOM, not per Person. So, because they were wrong and we had no idea what we were doing, instead of it costing us 88e, which is what it was supposed to cost us, we only had to pay 44e! Which was a great start to our good luck of getting one of the cheapest 3day trips ever!

more to come...

Takin it Eze in Monaco

The group that went to Monaco and Eze. We are at the top of the Jardins Exotique (Exotic Gardens) on Eze. Monaco is a principality in the middle of France, best known for Monte-Carlo, casinos, Princess Grace (Kelly) and money! Eze (pronounced ehzz) is a medieval village on the way from Cannes to Monaco. Both were stunning....a few photos..


The statue Barbara. I was slightly obsessed and thought it was absolutely beautiful. She was on the top of the mountain overlooking the ocean.
ME! I was told to get pictures with me in them....
ruins from the medieval city
And going to Monte-Carlo. I am sitting behind the famous hotel Monte Carlo where James Bond was filmed...yes Casino Royale was filmed here!
The front of the Casino. A few people went in and actually gambled and won! There were Bentley's and Ferarris parked outside....somewhat ridiculous!
This is now down in Monaco. We went into an Aquarium and this is the part that overlooks the ocean. Apparently the Prince was obsessed with le mer and wanted a museum/aquarium.
It was a gorgeous day!
The front of the Aquarium
my attempt at cute
This is the church by the palace where Prince and Princess were married and are buried. It was beautiful inside too.

Tomb of Princess Grace

We watched the changing of the guard at the front of the palace. Think London but on a smaller scale and somewhat more entertaining.
grounds around the palace.
The prince was home!

me in Monaco!
Beatles reference.....a must.
Pictures from my whirlwind weekend trip to Espagna soon!