Cannes, Monaco, & Italy

Where do I begin... Let's start with our first real excursion to the Cannes Film Festival. Thursday we took the train to Cannes and let loose on the streets. There was so much to see and do! There were a lot of nice cars, really dressed up people, and people were just everywhere. It felt a lot like an American festival in a way, people doing acts on the street (one guy was smoking 4 cigarettes and eating razor blades, kind of grossed me out) and lots of places to shop and eat. We ended up eating a late lunch at a cute pizza place, where I got one of the best pizzas I've ever had. It had some type of ham or salami and red peppers - amazing. After lunch we walked around some more and eventually made it over to the calmer part of the city and explored tiny narrow streets and cute apartments with flower boxes and clothes lines hanging outside the windows. We eventually made it up to the top of a hill where a church stood, and the view was breathtaking. You could see the whole bay, all of the festival, and all the cute European houses covering the mountains. The U.S. is beautiful, but here just looks so different. We don't build cities on our mountains like the French do.

The next day (Friday) we had to get up really early to make it to the Marriott at Monaco for a presentation from their events manager (I guess this is the learning part). She brought us up to some of the rooms that have an ocean view and told us that people pay an obscene amount of money for a room like that on the weekend of the Grand Prix. After the presentation, we went down to the city of Monaco. It's actually a separate principality that is not part of France - they have their own laws that are enforced by French police. We walked around the city and took a look at the track where the cars would race on Sunday. We saw the Monte-Carlo Casino, where there is a 20 Euro cover charge just to get in (notice I said we "saw" it). We also saw some pretty sweet cars like Ferraris, Porsches, Maseratis... they were everywhere. We stumbled across a pretty church where we took a break from the busyness that was going on in the streets. Oh, another thing we saw in Monaco and Cannes - HUGE yachts, bigger than the ones we have in Antibes. We saw more than a few that we wanted to jump on and live the life of luxury. I don't understand why no one invited us to any yacht parties. We were a little sad about that.

Saturday we had class at 1pm (13:00 European time), so we basically had a relaxation day after all of our travelling. We laid out at the pool and after class went down to Intermarche (the grocery store) to restock our refridgerators. It's so convenient having a kitchen here, and so different from other study abroad programs where they have a cook for the whole house to make every meal. One of the guys, Allen, offered to collect 3 Euro from everyone and make a big group dinner. Because we didn't have to worry about cooking, Mirranda, Stephanie, and I went to the downtown area to look around at the shops and try to find a watch for me. It was so fun - they have some really cute stores here and their clothes are cute and pretty cheap. We found a great jewelry store where I got some teal and silver earrings that I'm really excited about. When we got back we had dinner outside with the whole group - chicken with some kind of lemon marinade, ratatouille, and rice. It was scrumptious!

Sunday was a free day, so a group of us decided to take a day trip to Italy. Our plan was to meet at the lobby at 9:45 to catch the 10:18 train, but since I had the alarm in my room we all ended up waking up at about... 9:45. Thank you Mom and Dad for the heavy sleeper gene. Thankfully there was another train leaving at 10:48, and our group was nice enough to wait for us to get ready for that one. It ended up working out, except that I didn't get to shower when I hadn't showered since Friday morning, and I also forgot to put on deoderant. Let's just say that Jamie (a light sleeper) will be keeping the alarm clock in her room from now on.

We only went as far as Ventimiglia, which is right across the border in Italy and on the coast. It was a cute little town and it was neat to see a different culture, language, and people group. I felt they were much more receptive to foreigners, and the guys were more vocal about their opinions of a bunch of American girls walking down the street. We ate at an authentic Italian restaurant, where I got the best ravioli ever. It had basil inside of it, and was covered with tomato basil sauce. Sooo yummy. I am pretty sure I'm not losing weight on this trip... Afterwards we walked around a bit, and went down to the beach. It was covered in rocks! Such a different feel than sand. We laid out and just had some great girl time. I took my first dip in the Mediterranean Sea, and it was wonderful. We headed back around 5:30, but not before stopping for Gelato!