Monaco and Nice Carnivale

Last weekend, I went to the most beautiful place I've ever been to. Monaco. What a place! Even the train station was nice. I can get there in about an hour by train, so I plan to go at least three more times. We went there without a plan, with the only goal to explore the city. From the train station, I got lost with my friend Julia and we walked around discovering Monaco.

We walked by the water and found the biggest superyachts I'd ever seen. I'm talking mini cruise ships. Ships that cost probably 10 million euros and employ staffs of 30 year-round. 

We also walked by what appeared to be an international rowing/crew championship, which was fun to see. After, we met up with some friends and walked around the Monte Carlo area. 

First of all, the Monte Carlo is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. Second of all, the cars that are in that area blew my mind. I've never seen so many Lamborghini's and Ferrari's and Maserati's. I even saw a McLaren. The whole time I was in Monaco, all I could think about was how all these people got so unbelievably rich. 

All of us in front of Monte Carlo. I also created a goal for myself: when I come back years from now to promote something I've produced for Cannes, I will stay in Monaco and gamble in the Monte Carlo. 

We then walked over to the older part of Monaco, which is situated much higher than the rest of the city. It had a palace, a castle, a beautiful cathedral, an exotic garden, an aquatic museum/aquarium, and breathtaking views. We first walked around the gardens and saw all kinds of cool plants. The gardens are amazing, and most parts of the gardens overlook Monaco and the water. 

Amazing cathedral

We walked by the museum, but it was closing soon so we decided to come back another time and do it (I LOVE aquariums). We continued to walk around the city until dark, and decided not to buy food in the city because we couldn't find a meal for under 30 euros. I can't wait to go back to Monaco. We're going back for the Grand Prix, which will be amazing. I also saw people hang gliding or base jumping or something from a cliff far above Monaco. I want to do that so badly. The views and experience would be a once in a lifetime kind of thing that I can't miss out on.

The next day, we went to Nice for the carnivale. Carnivale has been going on for hundreds of years and it was fun to experience it and see the floats. I totally ruined one of my t-shirts, because every kid there has bottles of silly string that they spray randomly at strangers (apparently that is socially acceptable here). Nice, as always, was gorgeous.

Look out for my pictures on iCloud photo sharing, I'm having some trouble posting them but they're amazing. Wifi still sucks here, but maybe it will be better in Rome. Oh yeah, I'm going to Rome today. I'm gonna eat gelato in Italy tonight. I'm psyched. My next post will be all about Italy and my experiences there, and also my badass Art History teacher. I'd get into it now, but I'm running late. Short version: he's the coolest dude I've ever met.

Classes, Menton, and Nice

I meant to update this on Monday but life is getting busier here! I'm in my second week of classes, and they are going really well. I got placed into an intermediate French class, which is taught entirely in French. My language skills are coming back quickly, because for 3 hours a day I listen to and speak only in French-- not to mention speaking in French every time I leave campus. Next week I start a French Art History class, which should be really interesting.

On Saturday, a few friends and I went to the Citrus Festival. We took a train for about 2 hours to Menton, an old city about 10 minutes from the Italian Border. We first stopped to get pizza at 'authentically Italian' place--turns out real Italian pizza is incredible. We then went to the Citrus Festival, which was essentially celebrating the city's history of producing oranges and lemons. It had a ton of floats covered in oranges and lemons, all with the common theme of french cinema. The girls loved it, but I was a little bored after about 15 minutes--I get it, you guys like oranges! We ran into a drum line dressed like warriors at the festival and they were awesome to watch. We ended our day trip to Menton my going to the beach to look at the water and walk around.

The next day, we took a day trip to Nice. Nice is only a 30-45 minute train ride, so it is easy enough that we could go after class sometime. Once we got there, we walked around and explored the city for a while before stopping to get some food. We walked around some more, trying to get to know the city, before we ended up again at the beach watching the waves. Nice is really cool because there are a million cool shops and places to eat, and there were a million people walking around. I also got my first real european gelato, which was unbelievably good.

My study abroad group also went to Grasse this week to learn about perfumes. Grasse is an old city about 45 minutes from Cannes that is basically the perfume center of the world. After touring a perfume history museum and a perfume factory, I just about wanted to remove my nose. Some of the stuff was interesting, but smelling different perfumes for 4 hours was a little bit too much like that SpongeBob episode where he has to run through a store's perfume department dodging the samples. On the plus side, our last tour ended in a laboratory where we were able to make our own samples, so I now have an eau de toilette I made myself. It actually smells pretty good.

Now I'm trying to figure out where to go which weekend. There are so many places I want to see so it's just a matter of planning all the logistics. As of now, next weekend looks like Lyon in France and the weekend after might be Dublin!

USA to London, London to Cannes

First post!

I started my trip with a flight from Seattle to London. The flight was surprisingly easy. After realizing that a family with two babies was sitting in front of me crying and pooping, I took a sleeping pill and fast-forwarded to seven hours later, on the descent to Heathrow. There, I was taken to a hotel in Kensington where I dropped off my baggage and began exploring the city with some new friends.

That first day in London, we visited Kensington Park and saw where Prince Harry lives. Across the street was the Royal Albert Music Hall, and behind that was the Natural History Museum. The museum was amazing--it had amazing dinosaur fossils and really fascinating exhibits. We then all went out to dinner and drinks at a pub, which was awesome. Most of us ended up staying up late at the hotel talking and getting to know each other--it's a great group of people.

The next day, we had a guided bus tour through London in the morning and saw everything--Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, Covent Gardens, and a million pubs, shops, monuments, statues, lions, and dragons. The thing that struck me the most about London was the sense of history. Right next to every new skyscraper is a thousand year old church with gorgeous architecture, or a monument of some storied royalty, or shrapnel from the second World War. There is just so much history in every block, it really made me want to learn all about the royalty and wars. After the tour ended, we went to the London Eye which had beautiful views of the city. After a quick lunch/wifi break, we mastered the tube to go to the National Gallery and British History Museums. The Gallery had some great pieces, including an awesome portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, but the British Museum was the highlight. From the Rosetta Stone to 2400 year old pieces of the Parthenon, to sarcophaguses and mummies and tombs, there were too many artifacts to explore in one day. It was an amazing collection that I really want to go back and explore more. We all went out to a pub again that night, and I got about two hours of sleep before waking up to leave for the airport.

We flew to Nice from Heathrow, which was a pretty quick flight. After getting bussed to our campus in Cannes, we got a taste of the food we will eat in the school's cafeteria, which was actually really good (so far). Then, it was nap time. My friend Peter and I later walked to the city of Cannes fro the college, about 20 minutes, to get dinner. The shopkeepers all speak English and are super friendly when we try to speak French. We then bought some wine for a few euros, which was actually amazing--real French and Italian wines.

Now, I'm typing this from my bed as I listen to the waves of the Mediterranean crash to the shore a couple hundred yards from my window. We're up on the fourth floor, which in France is called the third floor, and it is almost perfect. We have enough space and view of the Mediterranean, but there are two drawbacks: 1) I am taller than the bed. There is no way some part of me is not hanging off the end of the bed. 2) The wifi is near nonexistent from the room. It is better on the lower levels, but it is too weak for my phone to even get a signal up here. That will make it hard to stay in contact with people. Besides that, everything is basically perfect.

The people are great, the food is great, the city is great, and the school seems great. We start class Tuesday after a placement exam on Monday. For now, I'm going to sleep. I'm exhausted.