Biot Yesterday and Packing Today!

So I just got back from dropping off Shara at the airport with Pauline (host's daughter.) It is crazy to be back in our room with only my stuff here which all still needs to be packed but I am procrastinating! I can't believe I fly home tomorrow! It will be so nice to have my family, friends and things back!! It is an interesting experience living in someone else's home for long amounts of time. You never feel like you can just be comfortable and relax! I am really excited to be home!!


Yesterday, we had our final lunch with everyone at a restaurant near the school. The food was really not good but was supossed to be authentic Nicoise cuisine! After lunch Shara, Laurel and I headed back to Biot because they both wanted to get more glass and I intially just went along for the ride. Once we got there and Shara and Laurel talked me into buying more; I spent two hours deciding on what to buy. It was so stressful! I finally made a decision and made quite a large purchase!! I felt nauseous afterward!! It was crazy bad buyers remorse!! Now I love what I got just I can't think about it too hard!! :) I will have these peices forever as long as I can get them home in one peice!:) We got home from Biot at 7:30 and by that time we had all absolutely had it!!


We had dinner with our host and then we met Nikki and Amanda at our corner becuase we were meeting everyone down in Vieille Ville at Phenocchio's! It was so fun to get together one last time with the group and just talk. After, Nikki, Amanda, Shara, Liz, Brenna and I went to Wayne's. Besides being disgustigly, hot (everyone was dripping and their hair looked like they just got out of the shower) in there we had an awesome time dancing until 3:30 in the morning! It was a fun way to end the trip!
Now I have to go pack and run some last minute errands before leaving tomorrow morning!! See you guys tomorrow!!! YAY!!!

By the way So sad about Michael Jackson!! We found out at Wayne's and everyone was freaking out! On a more positive note don't forget Nice has their very own MJ!!


Madame Princivalle and Me

Beach Bummin it!

Today for our last school excursion in Nice we went to Villefranche-sur-Mer! We met at one at the school and then caught the bus for Vfsm. We walked from the bus stop through the old town straight to the beach. We are all "vieille villed" out. They are beautiful but today was scorching hot and we all just wanted to get to the water.

The beach at Vfsm is amazing. The water is perfectly clear blue and the beach is made up of small pebbles which makes a perfect combo! Since there was not a breeze it was so hot on the beach that we could only lay out for about ten minutes at a time before we had to get in the water and cool off. We stayed in Vfsm until 6:00 and got home around 6:45.

The buildings of Villefranche. They were all brightly painted.

The church in Villefranche

The port. You can see two big cruise ships docked out in the habour along with all the rich peoples yachts!

The amazing beach at Villefranche-sur-Mer where I spent the day!

Creepy Morning in Nice

Well since I am boycotting school for the rest of my time in Nice I decided to have a chill day. Even though I did not sleep great the night before I called Mom at 7:00 this morning for 7/11. We talked for about 40 minutes and then I took a shower and had breakfast. Since Shara was still sleeping I decided to get out of our room and let her sleep. I decided to walk along the Promenade des Anglais and then read. In theory this was a great idea and it was awesome for about an hour until some incredibly forward, touchy french guy came over and ruined my relaxing morning!

I have to say that just getting away from the "Latin Lovers" of this country will be a huge relief!! Anyways besides the creepy experience I got some pretty great pictures of the coastline of Nice.

At 1:00 we had culture class and then after Nikki, Amanda, Shara, Liz and I went down to HI beach and laid (layed?) out. Amanda and I stayed there until 6:45. It was perfect with the breeze making it so you never get too hot! I will miss the beach once I get home but I am pretty sure I am ready to give up the beach bum lifestyle!! :)

you can see Vieille Ville on the right side of the picture.

Perfect blue water that matched the sky! It was so beautiful! Seriously did the creeper have to ruin this?

Fete de Musique

I know I already posted today but I had to share the French festival of music with everyone!! It does not get funnier than this!! Shara, Amanda, Nikki and I walked around the Vieille Ville and

Place Massena tonight watching all of the performers! There was everything from bands to silver men to THIS!

Here is one of the many street performers! He is my favorite and it is pretty obvious why!! Enjoy is all I have to say!!!

Here is my favorite homeless man in Nice......oh and his guinea pig!!

Another beauty!! :) Please just look at this man's face!!! All he played was Titanic Your Heart Will Go On!! Priceless!

Welcome to my Nice home

Welcome to my home away from home! This is where I have been living for the last 6 weeks! What do you think? :)

This is Shara and my room. It may look incredibly cluttered but it is usually not quite this bad but there are two girls that have been living in one room for 6 weeks now! My desk is on the left. I am standing at the door taking this picture and our beds are in the loft above me!

our room from another angle.

The family/living/tv/dinning/? room!

This is the kitchen/dinner table. We eat breakfast and dinner here every day. That was our dinner last night actually still on the table! My chair is on the far right side chair for dinner and the far left side chair for breakfast!

Talking about sitting down for dinner.... This is what is sitting right across from me at the dinner table! Really there are not words!!! Actually velvet, it is made out of velvet!!! :) CREEPY!

This is the hallway right outside our bedroom door. The family/ living room is straight ahead.

This is the bathroom I have been sharing with usually 4 other people but this weekend 6 others!! You can not really tell from this photo but please notcie that the toilet is under the sink! Oh and I did not get it in the picture but a bidet is right next to the toilet! Yep a bidet!

Vence and St. Paul de Vence

Today was our excursion to Vence and Vence de St. Paul. Everyone was supposed to meet at the school at 9:15. We usually meet for Saturday excursions at 9:30 and I was counting on other people to be late. I was running behind this morning, of course, so I when I was walking to the school late I barely saw the group crossing the street up ahead two blocks. I luckily caught up with them for the bus. I guess I should not have plaaned on others taking their time, like me!

The bus ride was an hour long and was definately not as bad as they have been lately, no smelly people today! We went to Vence first this morning. It was another small old town which was fun to see and the views were amazing. There were tons of people getting married today in Vence so the bells were ringing and the bridal parties were surrounding the old town square.

Laurel and I went to a small Cafe for lunch. Until now I have never had food in France that I thought was really good and worth spending an arm and a leg for but today we had an amazing lunch! It was so fun becuase it was so french, we took our sweet time and the courtyard we sat in was amazingly beautiful!

After Vence we caught the bus to go back to St. Paul de Vence. Today was my third time to St. Paul and I absolutely loved it! It was so beautiful and has such fun art galleries and boutiques!

I just got home and after today I am beat. I swear each day is ten degrees hotter! I can last six more days in this dreaded, humid heat!! :) I don't think that the word "dreaded" has ever been used to describe the Cote d'Azur but I am really sick of being hot ALL THE TIME! I am ready for a good ole dry Utah summer with Air Conditioned houses!! See ya soon!

The view from Vence!

The courtyard where we had lunch! So pleasant!

One of the wedding parties entering city hall in Vence

The little streets of Vence

Nikki and I surviving the heat, barely in St. Paul with a beautiful view behind us! I think I caption every picture of me saying this but give me a break I was incredibly hot!!!

The cemetery at St. Paul

Friday in Italy...Again!

Well, it was back to Italy for the day but this time I did not go to school this morning and it was so awesome. I am getting so sick of having class everyday for three hours! It really is a killer. So we decided just not to go today and head to Italy early which actually means us catching the train at 11:00 :) but I got to sleep in and it was so worth it! We got to Italy at about 12:00 and had the rest of the day to shop in the market, lay out at the beach and swim in the ocean. Tough livin, I know! :) Once we got to Italy Laurel and Megan gave me my birthday presents of a melted chocolate dessert and a fake cell phone to call home with! Pretty nice birthday presents if you ask me!:) It was hilarious and so nice of them!

I only found a ring today at the market but it was so hot that I didn't care to really shop we just wanted to get down to the water! We spent the rest of the day chillin on the beach and in the ocean!

At 6:00 Megan, Nikki and I headed back to the train station to catch the train back home to make it to dinner with our host families. I didn't want what happened last Friday (Train strike) to happen again! Luckily we caught the train and 45 minutes later we were back to Nice.

Now I am just waiting for dinner to be ready. Tomorrow we are going on the excursion to St. Paul de Vence. Even though I have already been there twice before I am excited to go. Besides the extreme hot I am sure it will be a very full, fun day! I will keep you updated!

See ya guys soon! Eight more Days!!!

Now these are actually pictures that I took and not stolen from what ever I found on google! This is Ventimille! I actually have not been up to what this picture is of but it is pretty to look at! :)

The beach in Italy! Rocky just the way we like them! :) You can see the coast of France in the distance.

This is the market!

My 22nd birthday present! :)

Cap Ferrat, Ephrussi de Rothchild Villa and Jardins + birthday in Vieille Ville

Today was another extremely long day! School in the morning, Excursion leaving at 1:00 getting back at 7:00, dinner with host family and then meeting everyone in Vieille Ville for birthday gelatto.

The excursion was to the Rothchild mansion in Cap Ferrat. It was absolutely beautiful and the gardens were amazing but it was so incredibly hot today!

Tomorrow we are going back to Italy for the beach and the market and really all I can say is WOW 22!

The View from Cap Ferrat!

Rothchild Mansion, Sorry the pic is a little crooked :)

Inside the Rothchild Mansion

The amazing stone garden at the Rothchild mansion

Spanish garden which was my favorite!

Liz, Me, Brenna and Shara in Vieille Ville for my birthday! Everyone else had already headed homeso I did not get a pic with everyone. :(

Aren't my neices the cutest things ever! Thanks so much Bre and Shay!!!! These two pictures are absolutely what made my day!! I love you guys!

School, Monaco and Nice Vieille Ville

You know when you get to the end of the day it seems like that very same morning was weeks ago? Well that is today! I started the day talking to Mom on Skype then heading off to school which I am counting down the days till the end. After school we hopped on the train and headed back to Monaco!
Last Sunday at church we found out that the Bishop and his wife own a restaurant in Monaco called Au Royalty and they wanted us to come and try it out so we decided to go and have lunch. We did not expect to see anyone from the ward there but once we got there the bishop his wife, their three kids one of which was the little girl who we went to her baptism on Friday and their extended family were there eating lunch. The second they saw us they all stood up and came over to give hugs and B's (kisses on each cheek!) It was only a little awkward since I did not even know their names but oh well they were extremely nice! They insisted that we have lunch with them and it was actually really fun. They don't know very much English and since out of our group of four I know the most French not a whole lot could be said but we all still had a good time. It is amazing what you can do with hand motions!:)

We stayed at the restaurant for about two hours and then after we headed over to the Monte Carlo beach. It was so hot and stuffy today the water felt amazing. I did not even lay out I stayed in the water and swam for over an hour! It was great!

Since my host family were taking Shara and I out to dinner at 7:00 I had to leave Monaco early. Nikki, Ivan and I caught the train back to Nice and I arrived back to the apartment with less than five minutes to get ready before we were leaving, not easy to do when you are covered in salt residue and sweaty!

Madame Princivalle, Shara and I walked over to her daughters apartment, that we had not met yet, because she was coming to dinner with us. We all walked to the vieille ville and they took us to this place that looked pretty sketchy but actually was really good. We had different specialties from Nice that I had nver tried before Socca (chickpea flour crepe), Farnis ( this is not how you spell it but I really don't remember and I can't find it on Wikipedia :) It was peices of cooked zucchini and other veggies with a filling), beignet ( leek dumpling). After we got gelato and then we walked down along the promenade. It was a really nice night!

I can't believe that the day is finally over and that it is already Thursday tomorrow! I only have 9 days left as of tomorrow! How crazy is that? Tomorrow is our excursion to Cap Ferrat among other things :)! A Bientot!

Monaco.

Beach in Monte Carlo.

View out the window on the train ride back to Nice.

I am not going to lie this is not my photo of the Vieille Ville in Nice but it is a lot better than mine!

This is Socca. Again not my picture but I did find it through google. :) Thought you might want to see what a chickpea crepe looked like!

Biot

Our excursion today was to Biot which is a small town near Nice that is famous for its hand blown glass, especially the kind with the bubbles in it. We took the bus right after school and all I can say is that I am so excited to get back to my car!! There is something to be said for public transit, it does have many pluses but that is so hard to remember when you are packed on to a bus, crammed next to a man with rancid BO!

We first went to the glass museum which was very cool. We got to see men actually blowing the glass to make goblets! It was so interesting! Then we got to walk around and look at all of the amazing glass sculptures that they have created. Next we went to the shop where you could buy the glassware and I was shocked at how expensive everything was. A candlestick for 70 euros! Really? You can't just buy one candlestick so now you are looking at 140 Euros!! They were beautiful and I really wanted them but I couldn't splurge like that so we all started looking in the clearance, 2nd section. I was so excited I found an awesome huge, clear, water pitcher that was on clearance. I have no clue how I am going to get it home but really I had to get it!

After the glass factory/museum we went to the vieille ville (old town) of Biot to look around. We have gone to a lot of the surrounding towns vieille villes but it really never gets old! They are absolutely beautiful! We shopped around for a while and then caught the bus back to Nice. Luckily on the way back I was not sardined (is that a word?) next to a smelly French man!

Tomorrow I think we are going back to Monaco to lay out at their amazing beach so I will let you know how it goes but I am guessing it will be pretty great!

The man in the back is blowing the glass to make a goblet!

He is making the base of the goblet.

Forming the top

Biot Vieille Ville

A picture of a water pitcher very similar to mine!

Nice @ Night

Tonight after a rather interesting dinner Shara, Amanda, Nikki, Robert met and we went down to the Promenade des Anglais. We sat on the beach and watched two men fish while we talked and just hung out. It was such a beautiful night, perfect for chillin on a beach!

Here are a few pics of Nice at night!

Tomorrow we are going to Biot. I guess there is a glass factory there so I will let you know what it is like! Till tomorrow! A Bientot!

The Negresco and the promenade

Looking up the beach towards the Chateau.

The two fishmen, the dog and their set up!

Monaco Today Italy Yesterday

I should have posted yesterday about Italy but I will just have to tell you about it today along with Monaco!

Yesterday Megan, Laurel and I left early from school to head back to Ventimille. We decided to take the bus to Menton and then the train to Ventimille from there to save a couple of Euros. I am glad I took the bus once just to see the different scenery but I thought it was too much of a hassle.

We got to Ventimille around 12:30. Our plan was to look around and scope out what we were going to buy and then go to the beach until closing time and then race back to the booths that had stuff we wanted to buy and try and barter a better price but once we started shopping it was 3:30 before we knew it and the booths were closing. After we were done shopping we were all very hot and tired so it was time for the beach. Yesterday was the first time I swam in the Mediterranean! Not to shabby swimming in Italy! :) We laid out until 6:30 when I finally decided it was time to head back to make the dinner with my host family that is at 8:00. We got to the train station and I bought my ticket back to Nice and we waited for about 20 min. I finally went and looked at the departure screen and noticed the train for Nice, my train, was 2 hours LATE! I started to stress because I was going to miss dinner and they would not know where or why I wasn't there! After one hour waiting we caught a train bound for Paris that made an unexpected stop in Nice. I ended up being an hour and a half late to dinner! I felt so bad but there was absolutely nothing I could do! I was stuck in Italy!

Today our group had our second excursion to Monaco and Monte Carlo. Let me just start by saying that each time I go to Monaco I forget how amazingly beautiful it is! We started out the day at the vieille ville next the Palais. We watched the changing of the guard again then we got to tour the Palace. I wanted to do it last time but didn't so I am glad I got to see it today. After that we went and got lunch and then went to the cathedrale where I saw Grace Kelly's tomb. It is amazing how much both American and French people love her, still today! After the cathedrale everyone went down to the beach but Nikki and I really wanted to see the Oceanography Museum so we stayed up in the vieille ville and went to the museum. I am so glad we did because I absolutely loved it. There was a really great aquarium in the basement that we spent almost two and a half hours in! I think I found a new career path, Marine Biology! After the museum we went down to the beach to meet up with everyone and it was so beautiful. Nikki and I really wanted to jet ski in Monaco but when we checked the prices we decided against it, 70 euros for 20 min or 160 euros for an hour!!! Isn't that ridiculus! I still really want to but maybe not in Monaco! I can't compete with the high rollers! :)

I have to say that I have had an awesome weekend so far and am looking forward to church and Villefranche-sur-Mer tomorrrow! I will tell you all about it tomorrow! Enjoy the pics!

Nikki, Me, Shara, and Amanda waiting for the changing of the guard in front of the Palace! It was so hot!

The Monaco Cathedrale. I might have already posted a pic of this but oh well!

The inside of the Cathedrale where Grace Kelly was buried. I wanted to take a picture of her tomb but they would not let me!

The amazing view of Monaco from the vieille ville!

In one of the gardens in the Vieille ville. Pictures do none of these places justice!!

Pics of the huge aquariums! The one on the left had sharks swimming in it and they were pretty decent sized!

A massive Eel! I have never seen something so big. It was probably at least 20 inches thick! It would swallow you whole! The other pic is of teeny tiny clown fish! They were such cute little Nemo's I couldn't resist!

Some crazy silver fish!

Cagnes-Sur-Mer

Today was the excursion to Cagnes-sur-Mer. I went there back in May with Tammy and a small group and we saw Les Collettes which is Paul-Auguste Renoir's home. Today we toured Les Collettes again but also we got to see the Vieille Ville of Cagnes-ur-Mer which was beautiful and well worth the trip back to the little town!

I honestly don't feel like writing a whole lot but here are some more pics! Enjoy!

Brenna, Me, Liz, and Nikki at Les Collettes!

Painters were scattered throughout the gardens of Les Collettes. It was fun to see them working and how they interpreted the amazing surroundings!

Liz and I at Les Collettes

At the Vieille Ville of Cagnes-sur-Mer

The houses of vieille ville

188?

I just have one question who are you 188 people? I thought the only people who actually looked at my blog were my mom and occationally Shayla and Grandma! I am happy to know that people are intested in my European adventures! A friendly comment or two is always nice! I would love to hear from you!!

Now a couple more pics of Paris since I took a million!!

Jori and I outside the Louvre

St. Merri and the fountain from the new Sabrina

A pretty picture of the Eiffel Tower

Amanda and I at the ballet at Opera Garnier!! It was stiffling hot in there, that is why I look like I am roasting!!

Another Monday

Today I can not say I did anything incredibly exciting or envy worthy. I had school from 8:45 to 12:15 which went ok. It is really weird to have everyone from the program gone. The ten of us who are left are feeling pretty lonely without them. After school we all went as a group to get lunch then everybody headed off in their own directions Laundrymat, back to school, apartments. I headed back home where I just chilled for a while. Later on I went shopping to Sephora and Zara. I found tons at Zara to buy but didn't and at Sephora I bought the new NARS lipgloss Belize. I also got some herb de Provence Mustard for my mom at a great, contemporary kitchen store. After shopping I headed to the promenade where I read The Count of Monte Cristo until nearly dinner time.

Overall just a pretty chill day in France. I didn't take any pics today but here is one I took a while ago of the front door of my apartment. Did I mention before that there are three different locks on the dang door and it gets really annoying having to lock and unlock them a hundred times a day? I have not taken pics of the inside of the apartment yet but I will soon.