Nice Pictures

The Flower Market
Jennifer and I were walking along that road up there and all of a sudden turned and there was this giant monument carved into the rock wall. (The arch thing below). Apparently it's from WWI. It also has dates for WWII as well. Absolutely beautiful and enormous!

When we hiked up Lou Casteau there was this little lookout. I saw an orange tree down below and Jennifer found her way over there and picked a few of them. They were...not quite ripe...but it was fun.
This adorable little dog was just standing in front of the doorway. We had no idea if it belonged there or not, but it made for a cute picture!
At the top of our "little" hike. We walk everywhere here!
This is the stairs going up the mountain.
Fisherman! There are a lot of them in Cannes too and it's on our list of things to attempt. We'll see if we catch dinner.
This is Jennifer and I in Nice. Below is the opera house where we are planning on seeing the Barber of Seville this coming Friday. We get to dress up and go see and Opera! We are thinking of staying over and then going to Carnival in Nice. It is going on for three weeks and is a HUGE thing down here. It should be fun!

a Nice!

Bonjour! The picture above is me standing on the rocky beach of Nice. Last Saturday my friend Jennifer and I took a 30min. train to Nice. Our original plan was to go to les Alpes. We even woke up early, skipped brunch and booked it to Nice, only to find out that the train that leaves to les Alpes leaves at 7:15am. I believe it was about 11am. Oops. So...we found ourselves in this, somewhat large in comparison to Cannes, city and decided to make the most of it. We got a map and started to meander.
We came across this little cafe along the ocean. It was actually the really first sunny day on Le Cote d'Azur so we thought we'd come back and get a verre du vin or Sangria. However, it was closed by the time our little excursion came to an end, so we had to go elsewhere for a snack. A lot of the restaurants on the beach actually look like this in Cannes as well. I went to one after the gym to lounge, and it was pretty much directly on the beach.
We started walking down the main street. (not shown here...) They are setting up for Carnival which begins tomorrow, I believe, and lasts until next weekend....something along those lines. I plan to take a trip over there next weekend. It's supposed to be a lot of fun...something to do! There are tons of festivals that go on during the spring. Right now is the International Festival of Games...backgammon, chess, charades (yes....professional charades....). Lots of music festivals and the Citron one in Menton.
We ended up wandering in front of the opera house. We went in, and not only is it absolutely beautiful, they have operas going on all the time. Next weekend I am going to see one. Not sure which one exactly, but will keep you informed.
After that we wandered down into this tiny little street where it looked like the locals spend their saturdays doing shopping. It was VERY cute. We eventually, after stopping for lunch, made our way to the ocean. That is where we discovered the promenade. We found Lou Casteau, which is an old, old, castle built into the walls. You had to climb way, way up, lots of stairs to get to the top. We braved it and it was worth it! Absolutely beautiful. While we were up there, we found a little lighthouse we wanted to go visit, so we decided to climb back down and go towards that direction. You could not go out to the lighthouse, but we could walk towards it. Jennifer wanted to go to the flower market, so we managed to catch the last part of that as well. It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend our time in Nice. After 12 hours of wandering around Nice, we came back exhausted. My next post will be just pictures from their!
The top of the hike! Nice and les Alpes in the background.

la semaine premiere

Finally remembering to take pictures while I'm traveling around Cannes.
Un cafe ici is an espresso shot with a block of sucre/sugar. It's fantastic! Oh yes, and so are les crepes!!
We were walking back from la rue d'antibes and we had to go a different way because our underpass was flooded with ocean....we found this cute little area.

This was the first night in Cannes actually...we all wanted a little something sweet and found la glace or ice cream...which is incredible here
Le promenade that we walk down to get to the center of town. It takes about 15-20minutes to get there and you walk along the ocean. I enjoy taking this way much more then the city way...it's cleaner, less smoggy and a lot quieter. Also my roommate in the pink coat
The Mediterranean facing the Estrel mountains. If you walk in that general direction you get to le college.
This direction faces town. We met some fishermen last night who were very nice. There was a very large storm. Thunder/lightening the works, and so all the fishermen were out late!
At Le Quays (pronounced The Keys...I don't get it either..) which is a great hang-out-in-pub. It's cute and the Irish men are really nice!

First week of classes is over! I love my french professor Claude and going to class is very fun. Three hours seems to go by so fast. I have planned a little trip up to the Alps tomorrow. You take a train from Cannes to Nice and then catch a coach bus which is 1e up the 2h trip! My french prof was telling me that it's only 30e to go skiing! Rental equipment and day pass! I think that will be necessary eventually, although I am terrified of skiing. Put it on my list before it warms up. We are also traveling to Monaco on Sunday where we get to see the palace, the aquariums and those who are 21 (comme moi!) get to go into the casino...who knows...maybe I'll play a nickel slot.

We had a very large storm today with thunder and lightening so it's been kind of bad weather. It is supposed to be nice for the first time tomorrow. I have hardly seen the sun since we got here! It was nicer in London then it is here!! I have heard nothing but good things for when it gets warm.

A few things on my list of things to do in/around Cannes:
1. Visit L'ile de St. Marguerite where there is an old "prison" which housed the Man in the Iron mask. Apparently it is a beautiful island and we are going to take a day trip there.
2. Visit L'ile de Lerins which has a monastery where the monks make wine and honey. Also another pretty island and you get to hang out with the monks.
3. go fishing
4. learn to sail. They have les bateaux ecoles here where you take sailing school!
5. find some kind of awesome water sport. Kayaking hopefully
6. eat escargot
7. visit le Musee de la Castre where there is a 12th century tower that overlooks the city. We were supposed to do that today but it was raining horribly. :-(
8. I also want to go to Corsica which is super close to where we are. Not in Cannes but it made the list!

Le mer

I took a video of the Mediterranean! ....it is rather rainy...but quite beautiful!

Claude

Classes....if french class could be like this everyday I would not dislike going to French as often.

Everyone in my class is pretty much at the same level. We understand everything our prof says and we know most of the grammatical things...but have a difficult time speaking it.

The most adorable little french man is our professor. He is named Claude and likes to interpretive dance when explaining things.

I have never felt more comfortable in a French class. I'm not the most comfortable with speaking it and speaking up in class but being here just makes me WANT to do it and then go practice as much as possible. I like the way they teach because he helps you through it and MAKES you think in French just by saying "you are not allowed English so if you don't know how to say something...figure it out in another way." I love that because it does make you think en Francais.

There are about 14 people in my class, one Australian and one from a different abroad program but everyone else is AIFS (American Institute for Foreign Study). I have met a lot of people from around the world including Italy, Japan, Bermuda, Canada, and Brazil. The majority of the french students here are studying Journalism and have classes from 8am-6pm everyday!

My roommates and I are going to the gymnase (aka fitness center) down a few blocks and are going to sign up for some classes to get us moving a little. I think it would be AWESOME to take a fitness class en Francais. We have the afternoons past 1pm to ourselves to do what we wish so a lot of day trips can happen.

I do hope the weather gets better. Apparently the rain is not normal for here and it should be clearing up soon?! It's also the last week for soldes (sales) in the shops so after that everything gets really expensive again.

I am not used to being back in classes, but it seems so much more fun to go to because we are here! I actually am looking forward to homework...believe it or not!

My last couple of posts were rather long and I don't think they will be that long all the time, now that I am getting my basic schedule down, but I do want to try and update this at least every couple days.

Off to the gymnase, 3pm crepe date, devoirs (hw) and then dinner with the group late.
a demain!

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

Finishing in London

Me in a phonebooth...completely necessary. Various other pictures of what I did in London...
This is the architecture on St. Paul's Cathedral. Absolutely beautiful! I just learned that the entire city got 4 in. of snow yesterday and they haven't seen that in about 20 years. We had good timing!
Tower Bridge. We drove past it a bunch of times and then managed to actually walk out to the other side and get a better view. I believe this picture was actually taken from the Tower of London
Westminster Abbey. Not a bad picture considering it was taken from a bus
Guards! Closest picture I could get. I had some issues with the pictures and now that I have figured it out..I shall continue with London....
After the Tower of London it was going on 6 already so we tubed it back to our hotel. I met up with my roommate at the hotel and decided to go out pubbing that night. We actually took a tube with some of the girls into Richmond, which is about a 10 minute tube ride away in a different city. It's where the Richmond American International University is, which is one of the schools I applied to! One of the girls from our program knew someone studying at the university and so he showed us around Richmond. We met some of his French friends and chatted with them. It was quite fun. Everything closes rather early in London. People tend to go out early and come home early, which was nice, because most of us were jet lagged and we had to be up at 5am Saturday morning.
It was a good decision not to go to that school. It is rather small, but the location is fantastic. I dont think I could deal with 300 kids in an entire university!

That pretty much sums up my 3ish day adventure in London. Very short, but it was quite fun. I will have to post tomorrow about my first few days in Cannes because I do start classes tomorrow!
A demain