So THAT was Carnival....

Carnival in Nice. The greatest excuse for the young and old to party together. I believe I witnessed an older women, in her 80s with a fur coat on attacking a little boy with silly string. This fight ensued for awhile...not sure who won, but BOTH were covered in it!

We went Sunday afternoon with AIFS (American Institute for Foreign Study) to Nice on a bus to witness the big parade. A group of us found a little spot off to the side, underneath a giant loudspeaker...the soundtrack to the parade was fantastic and we pretty much just danced and watched the insane costumes and ridiculousness that was taking place before us. After the parade we had about 2 hours to explore, so of course food of some kind was involved. We managed to get back on the bus and lived through our first Carnival experience!

The only way to describe it is in pictures and these are most of the good ones I have...

Antibes

Last Saturday I took a little adventure with my roommate Jennifer and my friend Janet (who went to Barcelona with me) to Antibes. It is another French Riviera town located about a 15 min. train ride away. Of course, full of antique markets, a food Marche and quaint little shops and restaurants.

Our first stop was the Picasso Museum looking out over the water. Apparently he lived in this house for a few months, doing several sketchings, pottery work and other things I had no idea Picasso did. We were not allowed to take pictures of the actual artwork, but the sculptures that were outside were okay. The museum housed a lot of contemporary art as well. I am not a HUGE fan of that kind of art, but can appreciate it nonetheless. Some of it was actually quite beautiful....

Across from the Museum there is a 13th century church. I believe it was built in 1215...
After some culture, we decided to indulge in...YACHTS.....
Le Quai Milliondolaires is named correctly, for these things are small islands...most 4 stories with a complete crew...We tried to fenagle our way onto one, but it failed...so we just sat in and soaked up our poorness for how ridiculous these things are!! We came back from Antibes cultured and looking for rich husbands...but it was a nice little day trip!

That night we met Akon's cousin (Akon is a rapper...btw) I'm not sure if I believe that completely...but he got us into a nightclub for free! Provided just being in there was a fire hazard because nobody could move, I didn't have to pay 16e for it. Does help to be a girl in some situations! We left after about 10 minutes but it was fun. Finnally broke out of our shell and visited a few NEW bars believe it or not.

Brunch has to be the highlight of almost every weekend. Whenever we do a day trip, we plan it around brunch. We actually get REAL food! I will admit here and now that I take nutella and cheese and fruit and croissants from the cafeteria for snacks....saves me money and they last!

Grasse

I went to Grasse two weeks ago now...oops! We took the bus up to the perfume capitol of the world and made our own perfume! We were supposed to follow this recipe which had the exact amount of lavender, orange, ceder, grapefruit and several other flavors. Since I had heard from a little birdie (aka the people who had gone on that Tuesday to do the same thing) I was told to just do what you felt smelled good. It didn't turn out too badly...smells similar to something you would spray on linens, or in a room to make it smell better. Not too shabby! We then made our way through the Perfumerie Museum...


It took us through Egypt and Rome and France, including some things from Marie Antoinette for perfume making. It was ...interesting...but the best part was going to the actual Parfumerie where you can see how the perfume is made...


The name ofthe Parfumerie is Fragonard, apparently quite famous...
This is a way of pulling the scent from flowers....very tedious and they hardly do this anymore, but they wanted to show us. It is actually a fascinating process, mainly becauseI knew nothing about how you actually make perfume. It was pretty cool!
There are 1000 people in the world who are "noses" for parfum. You have to go through about 10 years of schooling just to become a parfumer. It's very intense, and they have these "labs" set up so they can mix and play with new scents. Very hard job! The place smelled like tons of perfume all the time and I'm surprised I didn't get a headache!

We then were, surprisingly, placed into their shop where they sell the parfum and eau de toilette (literal translation being toilet water....). I did buy some and got a pretty sweet deal on it...I'm picky with perfume, so this was a hard decision!! It was fun and interesting and I'm glad I decided to go despite being exhausted all day!

L'Opera

Bonjour! I realize it has been awhile, but I'm finally updating again! More pictures....

Last Tuesday my friends Grant, Janet, Jennifer and I decided we wanted to go to the Opera in Nice. The Barber of Seville (I don't know what it is in Italian) was showing and so we got dressed up and caught a train to Nice.

We had no idea if we were going to get tickets or not. We talked to Noel in the animation office, who plans out things for the kids to do and has great ideas of where to go on the weekends. He said that they were sold out for the "good" seats so we had to just show up for the 8e seats. We got there on time, bought our tickets and then went to dinner at an Irish pub.

About halfway through dinner, Janet realized that it said "Libre" on the tickets, which means "free"....alors, we didn't have seats..exactly. We finished dinner quickly and had about 20 minutes until the opera started, so we wandered over to the opera house and climbed 6 flights of stairs (?? I don't know...I got dizzy going around in circles...) to the VERY top. In the picture above it's the people before the ceiling....

Standing room only I believe is the phrase. Apparently the seats at the top were reserved....we would have had to stand if the trusty french usher who took a liking to us told us we could go down a level and sit on the sides where there were no people.

Provided I could not really see anything unless I stood up anyway, it was a good experience. The music was fantastic. I had an image from BugsBunny in my head, where he massages/shaves Elmer Fudd's head, the entire time....which makes for the fact I can't see much a little more amusing.

It was fun though and I would go see something again if that "seeing" part was somewhat unnecessary - like a concert.