a Cannes

Bonjour mes familles et mes amis!
Above is one of the views from my fantastic dorm room in Cannes. We got here on the 1st around 2pm. We took a 2hr long flight from London into Nice and then bussed it from Nice to Cannes. It is absolutely beautiful here, even though the weather is not cooperating and has been rainy and very, very cold. After stepping off our bus onto la rue du Docteur Pascal, a short walk away was the College International de Cannes. It is quite adorable, with lots of palm trees, as you can see from the pictures and a VERY short walk to the ocean.
Mon balcon dans ma chambre - my balcony in my room! We are the only ones in the ENTIRE campus to have a balcony. It is enormous and half a step away from my sink. One of my roommates, Molly, knew someone who studied here last term and they gave her an in on what room to get. Apparently room 100 was the one and it was available when we went up to claim rooms. We did not have roommates chosen for us like we were told was going to happen. Instead we got to choose ours, so I am rooming with Molly from Chicago who goes to Drake University in Iowa and Jennifer from Portland as well who goes to Chapman (a filmy!).
My desk with my lovely (but slow) laptop. I deliberately chose the one near the windows....the one on the right is actually our door to the balcony. I'm so excited for it to get warm, because then we can do our homework on the balcony!
My roommates after arriving ....passed out on the beds. Mine is the one without a person sleeping on it. I like it a lot cause it stays pretty dark away from the windows and has shelving, which you can kinda see....perfect for my extra clothes!
The view from the balcony...the ocean is out there! Those trees shown are awesome...they are such funny looking things and when the leaves come back it will probably obstruct our view of the ocean, but that's okay...I can walk to it! (yes, I'm pretty much in Heaven)
So! I have been in Cannes since Saturday. We had a little orientation meeting at the beginning where we received our calling cards, maps of Cannes and Nice and various forms we had to fill out. We also met our program directeur Sandrine and Aude, who does a lot of the day trips. Both are very French and quite nice. Saturday night after dorm dinner a few of us went in search of something sweet and found a fantastic little ice cream place. Until today most of my time downtown, which is about a 15-20min. walk from where we are has been at night....so today I got to see downtown for the first time in the daylight! It's cute at both hours of the day.

Sunday was spent unpacking and getting adjusted. We went out to La Quay's which is an Irish pub with Irish bartenders. There were 4 of us at first. Tried REAL Guinness...which is not bad but have a newfound liking for Stongbow which is Cider. The Irish guys took a liking to us because we brought about 10 more people into the pub when the superbowl came on at midnight and we finagled a few free drinks out of them...yes we watched some of it! We stayed until halftime and then meandered back to the college to wake up early for our placement test Monday morning.

The placement test ended up going fine. I'm in the class where everyone knows how to do the grammar and writing of French but none of us speak it very well...kind of funny they put all of us into one class. Our prof is named Claude and he is quite amusing. I had a 20 min. conversation with him about Sharon Stone in class today. He is a very adorable french man and I really like the people in my class. I'm excited to get a routine down. We have breakfast from 8am-9am, class from 9-12 and then lunch. The french are very into dejeuner and so we have a sit-down lunch for an hour and are served three courses everyday!

After lunch we are free to do whatever we would like, but that will change when our seminars start in March. We have french class 3 hours a day until March and then we can take up to as many as 3 seminars either in French or English. I am also signing up for the French cooking class which is 5 hours every Wednesday where we cook, eat, and drink wine! Fantastic idea!

Today my newfound friend from Texas (!!! believe it or not!!!) decided to break away from the "American loudness" of our group and got to know the shopping part of Cannes a little better. La rue d'antibes is the main shopping street where the REALLY expensive stores are: Prada, Marc Jacobs, Chanel are a few. There is another rue (name....can't remember) that is a pedestrian street and where all the super sales were going on. 5euro shoes, 20euro jackets. AMAZING.

Cannes itself is divided into two parts really. Le Souquet which is the very old part of Cannes and is picture perfect France. I wish I had taken pictures to post...but will soon enough. (it's now raining outside). Think cobblestone streets, close restaurants/shops and very french old people wandering around. Pretty much what I have wanted my entire life! It is very cute and I can't wait to get lost in it.
Downtown Cannes is VERY LA meets NY meets Hawaii. Adorable nonetheless, but fashionable, busy, bright lights, very "glamorous" I guess you could say. It's quite cute but La Croisette, which is the main street into Cannes is casino/restaurant filled. The city itself is quite expensive, but not so bad right now because it is winter time.

I have only been here since Saturday but so far have gotten lost on the bus and ended up 5 miles north in a different city, been mistaken for a french person and asked where la gare (train station) was and KNEW and responded in french! go me and made friends with Irish pub owners. I have been trying very hard to speak French and am so incredibly excited and lucky to be here. I already have various ideas for trips and hopefully, Monaco (Monte Carlo) this Sunday with the group and traveling to the Alpes on Saturday, Italy next weekend or Andorra, and then who knows!

so this was quite long but it is as much for you as it is for me! please feel free to email me with ideas of places or if you know someone with whom I can stay to make my traveling a little nicer on my wallet. More pictures to come once the weather gets better!

A demain