Carnaval De Nice!

Forewarning: There are a lot of pictures in this post.

The past two weeks have been pretty uneventful on weekdays. We are in our second week of seminars, which are going well but are very long. Luckily, I love both of the classes I am taking: French Civilization and Art History. Two weekends ago, on the 17^th, we woke up early to take the train to Nice to see our friends Laureane and Alex finish the 10-mile race for the Nice Carnaval. While our friends didn’t partake in the costume contest, many others did, making the race much more interesting to watch.

This past weekend Emily, Meghan and I headed back to Nice for the Carnaval itself. We left Friday after our classes, hopped on the train and checked into our hostel around 5pm. There were no parades on Friday night so we walked around Old Town Nice looking for a place to eat and stumbled upon this delicious Italian Restaurant that I can’t remember the name of and it is not to be found on GoogleMaps. I looked at the exact place it is located and nothing shows up; but if you ever go to Nice and want to know where it is, I will give you directions. Saturday morning we got up early and walked around town despite the horrible weather. Of course the day of the parades it decided to be freezing cold and rainy. We hiked up 300 feet of stairs to get to the top of Castle Hill or Colline du Chateau, a beautiful park that has many spots you can stop at and see panoramic views of Nice. We didn’t stay up there too long because it was so cold and we had to get to the parade; but we definitely want to go back when there is nicer weather.

The first parade of the day was the Bataille de Fleurs (Flower Parade.) Before we claimed our standing spot we thought it would be a great idea to buy cat masks. It was in fact a great idea: we caught many of the performers attention with our masks, leading them to give us (mainly Meghan) extra beautiful flowers for our bouquets. The parade was absolutely amazing. The theme of the entire Carnaval de Nice is “King of the Five Continents;” there were floats and performers representing countries from all over the world. In between the beautifully decorated floats covered in flowers there were half naked dancing girls, Chinese “dancers” drunk off sake, dressage horses, circus acts, marching bands, and much more. After standing for two and a half hours watching the parade in the freezing cold we tried walking back to the hostel. However, our legs were too sore to make it and we had to stop in an Irish pub to grab some Irish coffee before continuing on our journey.

Following a quick nap at the hostel and dinner at Pasta Basta we headed out to the Corso Carnavalesque Illuminé (Parade of Lights.) This is where the floats became really interesting. Following the theme of “King of the Five Continents” there were HUGE, GIGANTIC floats portraying many different countries once again. Let me explain to you the American float: picture the statue of liberty, now picture her naked and fat with pasties on her boobs, holding a scale as the bible and a bottle of Coca-Cola as the torch, standing on a hamburger and a crown of ice cream cones on her head. On Right in front of our beautiful statue of liberty was the empire state building, with King Kong on it of course, and right in front of him was a Native American riding a horse. I wish we had a picture of our faces when we first saw it. Aside from the floats being extremely offensive, they were extremely detailed and amazing works of art. My favorite float of the parade was the King of the Five Continents, I don’t really know why but I liked is hat, that he seemed to be playing with a globe, and there was a giraffe on the float.

I really can’t describe how incredible the floats we saw were, so I hope my pictures do them a good deal of justice. If you ever have the chance to go to Carnaval de Nice, you should one hundred and ten percent grasp it. I hope I get to make it back again sometime in my life.

This Friday we will be going to Biot to visit a glass blowing factory and Antibes to see the Picasso museum and on Saturday we are planning on taking the hour and a half long train ride in to Italy for lunch if the weather is nice. I’ll blog again in a couple of days!

Monaco and Eze, Money and Snow

I WON MONEY AT MONTE-CARLO. I just wanted to start off with that fun fact, but now I will start from the beginning.

On Saturday we took a trip to visit Monaco, the 2^nd smallest country in the world, and Eze, a French commune near Nice. The drive to Monaco was fairly short, only about 2 hours, and had breathtaking views the entire way through the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean. About half an hour outside of Monaco we pulled over on the side of the road to take advantage of the scenery and snap some photos.

We spent the morning in Monaco-Ville where the Prince’s Palace is. We were able to see the changing of the guards, which takes place once a day at 11:55am. Having never seen a changing of guards anywhere, I thought it was pretty cool, but apparently it was nothing compared to the changing of guards in other cities. We had some free time in Monaco-Ville to walk around the shops, the gardens and the church. The Saint Nicholas Cathedral was beautiful and is where many of the Grimaldis, Rainier III and Grace Kelly are buried. Right outside of the church are the gardens; filled with cactus, seagulls and statues overlooking the water. While the views from the garden were amazing, the seagulls were vicious, sandwich stealing monsters. Lucky for me, I didn’t have my food with me in the gardens and was not personally attacked.

After finishing up in Monaco-Ville we headed to Monte-Carlo for the casino. This was possibly the best part of the trip, considering I won money at one of the most famous casinos in the world; even though it was only 20 euros, it was better than nothing. The Casino de Monte-Carlo was designed by architect, Charles Garnier, the same man that designed one of my other favorite buildings in France, the Palais Garnier (Paris Opera.) I wish I could have taken pictures inside of the casino because it was absolutely breathtaking, but I probably would have been arrested.

When everyone that was lucky had collected their winnings we headed back to the bus and started off towards Eze. Eze is know as an “eagle’s nest” because of it’s high location overlooking a cliff. Eze is so high up in fact, it was SNOWING the entire time we were there. I had been hoping to see snow while I was in Europe because I haven’t seen snow in the 3 years since I left New York. However, I was not expecting to see snow in the South of France when it had been 60+ degrees in Monaco just an hour before. Even though I enjoyed the snow, Eze would have been a little nicer sans neige. After a very steep hike through the village we made it to the top of the gardens. The gardens were again filled with cactus but I think it was too cold for any birds to be up there. The view from the top of Eze was like a view from a plane. You could see everything down below and some of the houses and cars were just little specs. I definitely want to take a day trip back to Eze when it is warmer and not surrounded by a cloud of snow.

This week has just been filled with class and walking around town. We had a wine tasting yesterday and I don’t believe I will ever be able to drink Franzia again after experiencing what really good wine tastes like. This weekend we are going to head into Nice on Sunday to watch two of our friends finish a 10-mile run for the Carnaval de Nice. Next weekend we will be heading back to Nice to stay for the entire weekend and see the Bataille de Fleurs (Flower Parade) and the Corso Carnavalesque Illuminé (Parade of Lights.) I promise to take LOTS of pictures!

Am I really here?

In Cannes there are 300 days of sun, unfortunately our first day here was one of the sixty-five days without sun. In fact, it was thunder storming the entire afternoon and night, not allowing us to go out and explore the town. However, it did allow me unpack and organize everything in my 3^rd floor room. For those of you who don’t know: The 3^rd floor in France is equivalent to the 4^th floor in America and there are no elevators. The day I can walk up the stairs and not be out of breath will be a great day, and I better have outstanding legs by the time I leave in June.

The rain also gave me time to shower… Now let me tell you about this shower. Using a communal shower is not as bad as I thought it would be in terms of cleanliness and what not. The first problem is that the hot water is on the right and the cold water is on the left, it took me a couple of minutes in a freezing cold shower to figure this out. The other problem is that the lights in the bathroom are on a motion sensor and there is nothing scarier than the lights shutting off in the middle of your shower, in a foreign country while there is thunder and lightening outside. I felt like I was in a Hitchcock movie. Lucky for me I remembered that the lights were motion activated and just opened the door to my shower stall, waved my hand around, and there was light! My friends were thankful I was the first to shower, figure it out, and warn them.

These lovely motion sensor lights are located at the College International de Cannes, a university that specializes in French as a foreign language, offers a small selection of seminars and is my home for the next 4 months. Our campus is right across the road from the beach and the Mediterranean Sea and I can actually see and hear the waves crashing from the courtyard area. 

On our second day in Cannes we took advantage of our location and walked all along the sea to the center of town. The city of Cannes is filled with: beachfront restaurants, fancy looking people, high-end stores, beautiful hotels and large yachts and sailboats. On our walk we passed the Palais des Festivals and the famous red steps that will be filled with celebrities in a few months. We have a meeting on the Film Festival next week, so fingers crossed I will be able to get a fantastic internship.

The rest of the week consisted of getting accustomed to where everything is, going out to eat, finding some bars and starting our French class. After our placement exam on Monday morning we climbed up to the Notre-Dame de l’Esperance for a beautiful view of the entire city and the sea. Tuesday we found out the results of our placement exam and had our first language class. I actually placed higher than I expected (yay!) and the three-hour classes every morning have been going by quickly and are actually quite entertaining. For example, yesterday the Japanese students in my class had to describe Americans (in French) and this is what they thought of us:

      -Blue eyes

      -Long noses

      -Big boobs

      -Obama

      -Brad Pitt

      -Hamburgers

      -Beer

      -Guns

I was, and still am, speechless.

Our seminars don’t start until the 18^th but I will be taking a French Civilization class and an Art History class. I’m so excited to start these, especially because the Art History class includes many trips to museums all over the region. It is still unreal to me that this is where I am going to be living for the next four months and that after months of planning and stressing I am finally here and having the time of my life.

Tomorrow we are heading to Monaco and Eze so expect a post about those in the next couple of days!

Just touched down in London town.

Okay, I lied in the title, I left London a couple of days ago but I felt the need to honor Estelle’s American Boy. My adventure to the south of France began with a two-day stop over in London. I have never been so happy to touch solid ground after getting off of the worst flight I have ever experienced. There was a good amount of turbulence to say the least, but I won’t dwell on that.

After landing in Heathrow we were taken to our hotel, The Holiday Inn Regent’s Park. Being severely jetlagged I wanted to go straight to bed. However, I stuck through it. After a quick bite to eat at Pizza Express with the girls that were on the flight from Atlanta with me, we explored Regent’s Park where Queen Mary’s Gardens and the London Zoo are located. The park was so beautiful in the winter; I can only imagine how gorgeous it will be in the spring when everything is in bloom. After heading back to the hotel for a quick orientation meeting we went out to the Horse & Groom for a couple of drinks. They had cider on draft and I was sold.

The next morning we woke up early to eat the delicious English breakfast at the hotel before almost missing our tour bus. The tour bus we were taking was brand new; we were the first people to ever get a tour on it. I was enjoying myself, laid out on the backseat of the top level when all of a sudden I’m thrown forward into the seats ahead of me. A car had hit us. Long story short: I now have a black and blue bruise the size of an egg on my knee that hurts like hell.

Following our unfortunate accident, we were able to see all the great sites in London including: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and Royal Albert Hall. While we didn’t get to go inside all of them, stopping for a quick photo opportunity outside was satisfying enough.

After our official tour ended a couple of girls and I decided to visit the London Tower which I found even more interesting after recently becoming obsessed with The Tudors (and watching all 4 seasons in about 3 weeks.) Walking around the Tower we learned about the many prisoners that were kept there, how the Tower was protected in times of battle and so much more.

Some of the highlights for me:
          -Learning the history of the wild beasts housed at the Tower and
           seeing the wire statues of them
          -Seeing the armor of all the kings and the armor for their horses
          -The life-sized models of each King’s personal horse
          -THE CROWN JEWELS (need I explain more?)

After finishing up at the Tower we went for dinner at The Wellington, a great pub that had delicious fish & chips, actually the best fish & chips I’ve ever had, but I suppose that should be expected in London.

Sorry this first post was long and somewhat boring, it was a pain in my ass to write between moving in, getting over jet lag, and exploring Cannes. I absolutely LOVE Cannes and will have a post on it in the next couple of days.